Transmitted as part of BBC Schools series Scene, 8 March 1973. Actor improvisations around the theme of gambling devised by Mike Leigh.
Social & External
Martin
Carol
Steve
The Maclean brothers, Paul and Norman, live a relatively idyllic life in rural Montana, spending much of their time fly fishing. The sons of a minister, the boys eventually part company when Norman moves east to attend college, leaving his rebellious brother to find trouble back home. When Norman finally returns, the siblings resume their fishing outings, and assess where they've been and where they're going.
A man writes a check for $1,000 to cover a gambling debt. The problem is that he doesn't have enough money in his bank account to cover it. The check was written on Friday afternoon, but cannot be cashed before the following Tuesday. The check is used to pay several debts until...
In Las Vegas, two best friends--a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.
An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.
John Gage offers a down-on-his-luck yuppie husband $1 million for the opportunity to spend the night with the man's wife.
An up-and-coming poker player tries to prove himself in a high-stakes match against a long-time master of the game.
Fast Eddie Felson is a small-time pool hustler with a lot of talent but a self-destructive attitude. His bravado causes him to challenge the legendary Minnesota Fats to a high-stakes match.
A professional poker player whose astounding luck at the table fails to translate into his lonesome love life attempts to win the World Series of Poker while simultaneously earning the affections of a beautiful Las Vegas singer.
It's night on a Paris bridge. A girl leans over Seine River with tears in her eyes and a violent yearning to drown her sorrows. Out of nowhere someone takes an interest in her. He is Gabor, a knife thrower who needs a human target for his show. The girl, Adele, has never been lucky and nowhere else to go. So she follows him. They travel along the northern bank of the Mediterranean to perform.
Poker addict Mike McDermott knows the game inside out, but loses his money one night in a game to Russian-American gangster Teddy KGB. Promising his partner Jo he'll give up, he meets up with best friend Lester 'Worm' Murphy, just out of prison and owing lots of money to the wrong kind of people. McDermott becomes his co-guarantor and now there's only one way to raise the money, the pair have to get back into the game.
Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent student at M.I.T. who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to Harvard School of Medicine to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot afford the $300,000 tuition as he comes from a poor, working-class background. But one evening, Ben is introduced by his unorthodox math professor to a small but secretive club of five students, Jill, Choi, Kianna, and Fisher, who are being trained by Professor Rosa to count cards at blackjack.
A stranger mentors a young Reno gambler who weds a hooker and befriends a vulgar casino regular.
Ryotatsu, the wayward Priest blinded by Shinkai, the Wicked Priest, has his own story in this ultra-violent tale from the era of the Meiji Reconstruction. When a woman leaves her blind son at the Monastery, Ryotatsu is forced to teach the boy how to cope as a blind person in old Japan. When he takes the child with him on the road to find the boy's mother, they run afoul of not only yakuza gangsters, but some corrupt army officers have been trying to sway public opinion against the Satsuma rebels by posing as members of Saigo Takamori's group. It's a bloody mistake for them to underestimate the strength of the Blind Priest, and he'll make them pay with their lives!
A working-class gambler makes his way into a high-stakes poker game intent on taking his opponents for a ride.
A young girl is taken with a boy that she meets, but he leads her into gambling where she begins losing money, becomes desperate, and starts to steal.
A bored bisexual millionaire picks up a young destitute street artist and whisks her away to her villa in Saint Tropez. They meet a dashing local architect and both fall for him, setting in motion a ménage à trois of deception and betrayal.
Set in the Bronx during the tumultuous 1960s, an adolescent boy is torn between his honest, working-class father and a violent yet charismatic crime boss. Complicating matters is the youngster's growing attraction - forbidden in his neighborhood - for a beautiful black girl.
Beleaguered police detective Nishi takes desperate measures to try and set things right in a world gone wrong. With his wife suffering from leukemia and his business partner paralyzed from a brutal gangster attack, Nishi borrows from a yakuza loan shark and then robs a bank to clear his debt.
Dream city, Sin City, a mirage in the desert, Las Vegas is a film set in its own right, a piece of pop art, an outdoor museum of American culture. What is the story behind the neon lights and fantastical buildings? What will its future be in these tough times? Alan Yentob takes a mob tour and talks to producers and performers about the golden days when Sinatra and Dino held the stage, and the wise guys called the shots.
Jack Manfred is an aspiring writer who to make ends meet, takes a job as a croupier. Jack remains an observer, knowing that everything in life is a gamble and that gamblers are born to lose. Inevitably, he gets sucked into the world of the casino which takes its toll on his relationships and the novel he is writing.
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Four college friends become small-time bookies, only to find their world spinning dangerously out of control when their greed attracts the attention of organized crime.
A hard and shocking story of life in a British borstal for young offenders.
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.
Jenn buys an old reel-to-reel recorder at a garage sale only to find that it includes the sound of a man pleading for his life. When the former owner of the recorder, a retired therapist, is found murdered in a patient’s apartment, Jenn’s investigation leads to other patients whose love lives are more entangled than she was first led to believe.
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
Fed up with her small-town marriage, a woman goes after the big time and gets mixed up with the mob.
In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.
Two brothers, on either side of the law, face off over organized crime in Brooklyn during the 1970s.
Eddie Dodd is a burnt out former civil rights lawyer who now specializes in defending drug dealers. Roger Baron, newly graduated from law school, has followed Eddie's great cases and now wants to learn at his feet. With Roger's idealistic prodding, Eddie reluctantly takes on a case of a young Korean man who, according to his mother, has been in jail for eight years for a murder he didn't commit.
The ambitious friends come together during the holidays after a mystery assailant targets one of their own. A comedic thrill-ride follows, as the wild and unpredictable Psych team pursues the bad guys, justice … and, of course, food!
Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.
An improv group deals with several crises, including the loss of their lease and one member hitting the big time.
A rich man learns about a guru who can see without using his eyes. He sets out to master the skill in order to cheat at gambling.
Offbeat documentarian Chris Smith provides a behind-the-scenes look at how Jim Carrey adopted the persona of idiosyncratic comedian Andy Kaufman on the set of Man on the Moon.
When a change of circumstances leaves Miriam unable to pay her college tuition, she makes a surprising decision: to start performing in adult films, using the pseudonym Belle Knox. Miriam lies to her family and her friends at school, keeping her double life a secret. But soon rumours spread and Miriam becomes the subject of vicious online attacks and unwanted attention. Miriam fights back: she talks to the media, saying her new line of work empowers her as a feminist. But her confident stand has unintended consequences. Miriam is shunned by her conservative family and her colleagues in the adult film world. One impulsive decision has quickly spiralled out of control - and Miriam's problems are just beginning.
When a law student accidentally kills the son of a mob boss in a fight, he finds himself relentlessly pursued by the mob and the police.
After his wife is assaulted, a husband enlists the services of a vigilante group to help him settle the score.
