Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

HotToastyRag Before Gregory Peck played heroes in movies about American integrity, he took a few villainous, or at least troubled, roles. In The Great Sinner, Greg plays a compulsive gambler, and he gives a wonderful performance.At first, he's just a writer who wants to write about the incredible sickness of gambling, but before long, he finds out firsthand how the sickness can take over a man's life. What I love most about this movie is the realism of the script and performances. I've heard this movie compared to The Lost Weekend, a movie about alcoholism, but I found The Great Sinner to be much more realistic in its portrayal of addiction. Greg's performance is fantastic, and it's great to see the contrast of how he was before he started gambling. As the movie continues, he becomes desperate, cruel, and self-loathing. Many times Hollywood shows the glitz and glamour associated with gambling, but since this is a period piece, there's no neon lights or Las Vegas strip. It's in black-and-white, it's dirty without being filthy, it warns without becoming melodramatic, and it's heart-wrenching.Greg is flanked by an all-star supporting cast, including Melvyn Douglas, Ethel Barrymore, Frank Morgan, Agnes Moorehead, Walter Huston, and his favorite leading lady Ava Gardner. I don't usually like Ava Gardner, but this movie is an exception. I highly recommend it.

st-shot This cannibalized version of Dostoyevsky's novel The Gambler under the masterful hand of Robert Siodmak moves mightily throughout before it collapsing under the sudden weight of heavy handed denouement.Aspiring novelist Fejda (Gregory Peck) has a confident air about him as he boards a train that will take him to Paris. Sharing a compartment with Pauline Ostrovsky (Ava Gardner) he is soon bewitched by her and decides to stay in Wiesbarden to pursue her. Oststrovsky and her father both are addicted to gambling and their debts to a casino prevent her from leaving with Fejda. Fejda in the meantime develops an addiction and begins to spiral out of control.Few if any film directors spoke cinema language as eloquently as the German born director Robert Siodmak. His noir cycle (especially Criss Cross, The Killers and Cry of the City ) are remarkable examples of form and content and while Sinner is not a noir it retains noir elements ideal to the downward thrust of the story line and its characters. In scene after scene Siodmak (ably assisted by distinguished cinematographer George Folsey) gives Sinner a healthy undercurrent of tension and suspense throughout with revealing compositions and startling close-ups. In one magnificent exposition shot Siodmak in under three minutes sums up the grandeur, the pitfalls, the types as well as the condescension of the self assured protagonist before the fall gracefully moving within the confines of the film's center stage, the casino. The entire big name cast lives up to its billing though the leads are out shined by a sterling supporting group. Peck has some excellent mad scenes and Gardner's beauty is convincing enough in the early moments to persuade Fejda to pursue her but when she goes from bad to good (as she did in 55 days at Peking) she becomes less convincing. Melvyn Douglas, Walter Huston Frank Morgan, Ethel Barrymore and Agnes Moorehead (a pawnbroker whose shop is the setting for another Siodmak visual tour de force moment) are all in top form. An intriguing side note to the performances are the way Siodmak (a Jew himself) portrays in a greedy and cynical light the films most obvious Jewish characters ( the pawnbroker and a vulture like jeweler, played unctuously by Curt Bois) four years after the end of World War Two. Suffice to say these characterizations today would have a hard time getting out of the editing room and when you combine the protagonist's Christian redemption (hokey but stunningly shot) Sinner finds itself somewhere between Judex and Maurice Chevalier's Gigi.Still there is no denying the brilliant talent and command of the art form Siodmak possessed and in spite of its cop out ending The Great Sinner provides more than enough evidence to prove it.

jaykay-10 Given the trappings of a classic philosophical statement and discourse on human nature, this well-intentioned miss offers, in the final analysis, little more than a familiar love story and a cautionary tale about the evils of gambling. The occasional allusions to matters of theology, morality, fate and chance (including the pretentious title) are not enough to provide formidable underpinnings to an essentially lightweight narrative concerning the need for self-discipline.The exceptionally beautiful woman, under the influence of her dissolute father, is, for all intents and purposes, for sale to the man who has the wealth and willingness to support them both. After a young writer who is enamored of her ruins himself spiritually and financially in trying to satisfy those requirements, she acknowledges their genuine love and restores the health of his soul. If this sounds unconvincing, it plays that way on the screen, too.MGM's production values are impressive as always, but accepting as "continental" types the likes of Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Walter Houston requires a lively imagination. There are, however, memorable if brief appearances by an effectively subdued Frank Morgan, and by Agnes Moorehead. The less said the better about an abrupt, awkward segment featuring Ethel Barrymore.

taunus bop This little-known gem is well worth checking. The fantastic script by Christopher Asherwood (one of the enfants terribles of the english literature of the 20th century) has some of the finest and memorable lines of the classic cinema. Ava Gardner never been so gorgeous. One cannot help feeling disturbed as the events go on, and the film is somehow unusual for the time for its moral and the pessimism it portraits. Definetely, Robert Siodmark's best. The allegorical final scene surely added by the studio is a real pity. After all we've seen, one can hardly find any hope in that universe, with or without the interceeding of God.