Croupier

Did Hollywood know just what it had in Marcel Dalio? He fled the Nazi occupation of France not terribly long after giving one of the greatest performances in film history, as the Marquis de Chesnaye in Renoir's La régle du jeu...and once in the city of nets, largely played a series of croupiers and concierges and the like. (Okay, he got to play Clemenceau in that ultimate white elephant movie Wilson.)

Of course he made a particularly spectacular croupier. And managed to play different types of croupiers, even. In Casablanca, playing Emil, he was tentative, harried, easily flustered, always trying to please his cynical but strangely beneficent master Rick Blaine. (You'd never guess that his real-life self was at the time married to the ravishing Madeleine Lebeau, who played Yvonne, the gorgeous would-be conquest of Captain Renault. Who is of course saved from Renault's clutches via a Blaine-directed manipulation of the roulette wheel. [UPDATE: As commenter Vanwall points out, I've got my babes mixed up, and Yvonne is in fact the "where were you last night?" castoff of Rick himself. The point stands, kind of, but I regret the error. Serves me right for creating a post at such an ungodly hour.]) And in von Sternberg's The Shanghai Gesture, made a little before Casablanca, he is ice-cold, imperious, as Marcel, "master of the spinning wheel," one of the many agents of the downfall of poor little rich girl Poppy Charteris (the incredible Gene Tierney). Gesture, an ineffable  exemplar of "sadistic cinema," is given a longer look today at The Auteurs'; a recent video version of it is the subject of today's Foreign Region DVD Report. 

Comments

[Steve Simels]

My favorite Dalio performance, however, remains his hilarious cynical old man schooling Art Garfunkel in "Catch-22."

[sheila]

Awesome. He has some of my favorite moments in Casablanca - I love how much nuance he could get into that part, and his career is really something to admire. What a survivor.

[The Siren]

Karen Green was reminding me that Dalio also has a great turn as Grandpere Bonnard in The Happy Time:

Susan Bonnard: Where are you going?
Grandpere: Out.
Susan: You should be in bed.
Grandpere: It is only a matter of time.

[Brian]

He's great in "To Have and Have Not" obviously as well. But of course, his hallmark in that close-up in La Regle when he shows off his new toy to the adoring audience. Dare I say, maybe the best use of the close-up in film history?

[Vanwall]

It would be a nice thought, but you've got your babes mixed up in Casablanca. The good Capitaine lost the sultry Brandel girl in the wheel fix, but I'm sure he snagged Rick's extravagant throw-away Yvonne sooner than later.

[Tom Block]

Maybe my favorite Dalio moment: when he realizes Gabin and Parlo have slept together, then steps forward to shake their hands--Parlo's first.