Gemlog
04-06-2025
I’ve embraced watching live TV as an alternative to streaming, welcoming a sense of serendipity—“What’s on tonight?”—and giving myself something to look forward to as new episodes of shows air on certain days of the week. A recent addition to my nightly(ish) viewing is Turner Classic Movies: each day I’ll look at the next 24 hours or so on the schedule and DVR whatever looks good to watch the next day.
Among the movies I recently watched is “Gambit,” a 1966 heist film directed by Ronald Neame. It notably stars Michael Caine, who I understand was just rising to prominence at the time, and established star Shirley MacLaine. Caine’s character, Harry, is an experienced burglar; MacLaine’s character is an exotic dancer who’s roped into the plot due to her resemblance to the target’s late wife, which Harry intends to use to their advantage. The film follows the couple as they seek to steal a priceless sculpture from an industry tycoon Ahmad Shahbandar.
I enjoyed the watch, but what really stood out to me was how “Gambit” plays not just like a movie, but like a video game. Beware: spoilers ahead that may make a first-time watch less rewarding. Or maybe knowing what will happen enhances your experience—I’ll just say, before you move forward, that I’m thankful I watched the movie mostly blind.
I say “mostly” because the Turner Classics Movie introduction offered a couple cryptic pieces of trivia related to the film’s big twist. First, it mentioned the bold creative choice that MacLaine’s character, Nicole, is silent for the first half hour. Second, the intro mentioned the film’s original marketing tagline, which encouraged viewers to spoil the film’s end as long as they don’t give away the beginning. The introduction gave no explanation to these two intriguing bits of lore, leaving the viewer to discover it themselves.
The film opens with Harry and his co-conspirator, Emile, spotting Nicole at one of her shows, Harry telling Emile how she is the perfect woman for the caper. After the show, Nicole sits alone at a table; Harry confidently struts up to share his plan and make her an offer. Next thing we know, Harry has whisked her away to Dammuz, where Shahbandar lives, and the two assume the false identities of Sir Harold Dean and Lady Nicole Dean.
Throughout the next thirty minutes we watch as the couple enact Harry’s plan. But what’s strange is Nicole’s silence, as well as her guarded expression, making it hard to read what she’s thinking about it all. What else is weird is how no one finds her silence to be strange.
The dynamic felt like a video game scenario: a ridiculous plan is presented, and its success hinges on the player’s perfect execution. Like the silent protagonist in games such as The Legend of Zelda or Persona, Nicole's unspoken agreement felt similarly divorced from realistic reaction.
We watch as the couple accomplish their plan: Nicole, owing to her resemblance to Shahbandar’s deceased love, successfully distracts him with a dinner date while Harry breaks into his home and steals away the sculpture. They meet at the airport afterwards, where Harry gives Nicole an authentic British passport and a cash payment—and then what?
“And that’s how it’s going to go,” Harry tells Emile, bringing us back to the first scene—everything we just watched was merely Harry explaining how the plan should go. The sleight of hand reveals that this is where the real plot begins—and counter to Harry’s fantasy, Nicole is anything but meek and obedient. (“If I were the richest man in the world, I certainly wouldn't fall for this,” she tells Harry, validating the viewer’s earlier observation at the previous plot’s implausibility.)
This presents us with another game-like element: the gameplay loop. Did we simply watch a tutorial, the successfully achieved deceptions of the past half-hour being a sort of “easy” mode? Are we now in a “New Game+” where the player has decided to forego the “right” choices to make their new “run” as absurd and nail-biting as possible? Because for the rest of the movie, nothing goes according to plan.
The successive brushes with disaster—and there are many of them—are tense. The foreknowledge of how things should go elicit a visceral response in the viewer when someone makes a blunder—much like when you’ve realized you made a fatal mistake at the pivotal moment of an adventure game.
The movie’s ambiguous ending likewise encourages further “playthroughs.” Despite the bumpy road to get there, Harry steals the sculpture—but we learn he had in fact stolen a replica, intentionally leaving the real one in Shahbandar’s possession. Harry explains to Nicole that he and Emile simply wanted to make Shahbandar think it was pilfered so its disappearance would be reported in the news; this would enable the two to sell the replica as the real thing.
Harry’s dishonesty with Nicole angers her. As she’s about to leave, Harry destroys the replica and gives up his life of crime to be with her instead, much to Emile’s dismay. But after the two have left, Emile opens a cabinet to reveal he had made several reveals of the bust.
One wonders: is Emile secretly keeping the other replicas for himself, betraying his partner in crime? Or is Harry in on it, deceiving Nicole by simply making her think he’s destroyed the only replica? The viewer doesn’t really know who’s on top—a mystery that suggests alternate endings and competing “win” conditions to the gambit evoked by the film’s title.