THE GAMBLER

by William Monahan
Adapted from THE GAMBLER by James Toback
March 5-7, 2012
FIRST DRAFT

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

1.

EXT. HOLLYWOOD HILLS. NIGHT

A modern house, packed with dark-clad figures, clings to the
edge of a precipice. Its lights are blurred in the sort of
fog that Angelenos call a marine layer.
In the road that curves past and below the house, VALETS are
silently taking and parking (driving off to park) expensive
cars. Valets in their white shirt-fronts are running up and
down the road.
The people going up to the house do not seem to be partygoers: they are all male, mostly grave, primarily Asian
businessmen.
A fogged view of the valet area is revealed by a sudden sweep
of WIPERS. We reverse to see:
A BMW 1 series, the 1M, the orange killer, standing pulled
over against the curb, under a spray of somebodys
bougainvilla. The car is idling. It contains only the driver.
INT. BMW. NIGHT
A BRASS ZIPPO lighter is clicked open, shut, open, shut.
The driver, JIM the gambler of the piece is watching the
house. Close on his calculating eyes.
The LIGHTER clicks open, shut, open, shut, and then a
decision is made: JIM puts the lighter in the pocket of his
dark suit, and gets abruptly out of the car.
EXT. THE STREET IN THE HOLLYWOOD HILLS. NIGHT
JIM walks downhill towards the valet area. He is tall, well
dressed, thirty five. He needs a shave, hes tieless, and
looks like he might have been up for five days straight, but
he has decent style, a natural suavity.
A FILIPINO VALET notes him, and the car.
VALET
You bring car here.
JIM
Already got a space, brother.
He looks up at the LIGHTED HOUSE, then at the VALET.
JIM (CONTD)
Ive got a lucky face.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

2.

THE VALET stares, authority challenged, flummoxed, as

JIM, with a glance back, goes up the steep stairs under
flaring torches.
In the undergrowth we see, (and JIM sees), that a FOR SALE
sign has been toppled over, and badly hidden.
After following JIM briefly through the gardens, over the
brick paths, and past big SECURITY MEN (multi-ethnic), one of
whom nods as JIM appears, we go to
JIMS POV to enter the house, to move through the packed
rooms.
The rooms, done up around the edges as a temporary bottle
service gambling club, are full of serious gamblers. Again,
mostly Asian, but with some serious casuals, a few hiphoppers. Its a catered affair. The same sort of casually
employed actors and models and students that move around with
drinks and food on trays at any party in Hollywood.
JIM moves through the rooms, noting...
TABLE AFTER TABLE, all of them in heavy play, by very heavy
gamblers.
Through a door, apart, we see a POKER GAME going on, heavy
hitters. JIM moves on, observing everything, ready for
anything, looking for what he needs, the game he needs.
A STUDENT-WAITRESS (AMY), for a moment, might be it: but
after making serious eye contact, and a moment in which JIM
and AMY register each other without affect, and he shakes his
head very slightly to reject either a canape or something
much more complicated, she moves on through the crowd. He
keeps moving. She keeps moving.
They know each other, from another context, and its rattled
Jim, to see her here.
Near the MONEY changing hands at an improvised CAISSE, where
a woman in specs trades colored plaques for cash, KOREAN
HEAVIES stand guard, earpieced, armed. (The security guys
outside are any security guys: the inner sanctum is Korean).
JIM goes to the caisse table, reaches into his coat, and
pulls out ten thousand-odd dollars in a wrapper. He waits,
watches, as
His MONEY is counted...
And as...

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

3.

THE PLAQUES are shoved across.

As JIM gathers up the plaques and puts them in his coat, he
notices an older, tough, civil, unreadable, Korean man,
MISTER LEE, looking at him carefully.
MISTER LEE
You do better tonight.
JIM nods.
JIM
Couldnt do worse.
JIM has his game face: but MISTER LEE always has his. MISTER
LEE nods, and, though its subtle, allows JIM to pass.
CUT TO:
INT. THE BLACKJACK AREA. NIGHT. LATER
SPECTATORS are watching. MISTER LEE moves up to watch.
JIM, with at least three times more plaques in front of him
than we saw him buy, absolutely intent on the game, is dealt
a
CARD DOWN and a JACK UP.
JIM checks his down card and sees a 4, and looks up at the
dealer, like a duellist marking his man.
The DEALER (KOREAN, an at-sea family man who really shouldnt
be doing this, really shouldnt be in these circumstances)
realizes hes in it, and is very nervous.
JIM
Make it twenty thousand.
The DEALER looks over at MISTER LEE, who nods his approval.
JIM gets a king. Hes lost. His pile is raked away.
Again.

JIM (CONTD)

Like a man pushing down the plunger of a syringe, he pushes

in the last of his chips...all of them. MISTER LEE again has
to nod his approval.

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4.

JIM (CONTD)
(to DEALER)
Mister Lee can cover a lot more
than that, buddy.
(a beat)
You must be new.
The sweating DEALER deals.
JIM is given a card down and a 2 showing. The DEALER has a
queen showing. JIM looks at him again, briefly; then flips
his down card, sees a 7, and tucks it under his 2. After
catching the eye of the passing...
AMY
in the crowd...
JIM (CONTD)
(off something about Amy)
Lets go for some duality, brother.
(this means something
about Amy)
Double it.
JIM takes a card down, flicks it up with his 7 card. It is an
ace. He is unmoved.
The DEALER turns up his down card, a 5; then draws a 6 for
21. We stay on the cards long enough to count them.
JIMS COUNTERS are scraped away by the house.
MISTER LEE moves indifferently away through the crowd.
ON JIM:
JIM is entirely without affect: as if losing was what he
wanted.
He pulls out a single 500 dollar counter, looks at it, in the
well-done light, puts it back in his pocket.
A bejeweled COURTLY GANGSTA (NEVILLE) beside him (and his
POSSE never far from Neville):
NEVILLE
I hope you paid your rent, homes.
JIM looks at him, perfectly capable of either glassing him or
walking away.
JIM
I dont pay rent. Homes.

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5.

After this is taken on board:

NEVILLE
You got a problem, an issue of some
kind?
JIM
Yeah, I dont like your fuckin
hat.
JIM is quite obviously a gambler in many aspects of life.
NEVILLE and POSSE exchange glances. KOREANS have moved in at
the hint of trouble.
JIM (CONTD)
(quietly to Nevilles ear)
I think you kinda want me to have
an issue so I thought of that one.
JIM tosses down his drink and leaves the table.
NEVILLE
See you outside, motherfucker.
JIM turns back and spreads his marms.
JIM
Well, we all gotta go outside
sometime, brother. This place is
just a fuckin dream. A little life
between two endless sleeps.
(turns back, leans in)
You a gambler?
NEVILLE
Not like you.
JIM
You want to fuck around or do you
want to cut cards for 500?
NEVILLE looks at him, at the 500 plaque.
NEVILLE
I put ten grand against your five
hundred.
JIM smiles, appreciating that.
JIM
I havent got ten grand. Thats an
unequal bet.

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6.

The COURTLY NEVILLE indicates his smouldering posse:

NEVILLE
Its an unequal general situation.
JIM
(to the wide-eyed DEALER)
Give us a deck.
One is shuffled. JIM, takes it, walks with Neville to a
nearby small bar where champagne is set up, puts the deck
down, and nods at NEVILLE who cuts first and shows...with
great reluctance....
The KING OF SPADES.
JIM, amused, looks up at NEVILLE who is not amused at all.
JIM (CONTD)
Thats funny.
NEVILLE
I thought you wanted my business
card.
The deck is reshuffled and JIM cuts, revealing, and taking up
to look at, a JACK of Hearts.
AMY is watching.
JIM looks at her: and then looks down.
She turns away.
JIM tosses the card on the table and holds out the 500
marker.
JIM
(genuinely)
Congratulations.
He holds out his hand and NEVILLE takes it and hands over in
return a glass of champagne. JIM takes a small sip and sets
the glass aside.
NEVILLE
I seen you around. I think you like
to lose.
JIM
Lifes a losing proposition, right?
Might as well get it over with.
He starts off.

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7.

NEVILLE
(over his shoulder)
You need a stake?
JIM turns.
JIM
You like staking losers?
NEVILLE has no response.
JIM (CONTD)
I know how you stake people.
NEVILLE
Then you know everything.
He sips his drink and loses interest.
JIM moves away, now broke.(KOREANS watching him, one KOREAN
aside talking to MISTER LEE). He goes to a SIDEBOARD loaded
with BUFFET FOOD, and realizes hes famished. He loads a
plate, loads it, and carries it out onto the terrace.
EXT. TERRACE. CONTINUOUS
AMY looks briefly out through the window at the oblivious
JIM, concerned, intrigued, and then moves on.
JIM puts the plate on the terrace rail and starts to wolf the
food. As we come around,
MISTER LEE materializes behind him.
MISTER LEE
Your luck is no good. These days no
good.
Jim
Well, that depends if you give me
ten thousand credit.
MISTER LEE moves in closer. He is intrigued by this guy.
MISTER LEE
You have a family? A wife?
Children?
JIM shakes his head no. (Though this is a lie and a truth
simultaneously). MISTER LEE looks as if this explains plenty,
which it may well do. (Though it doesnt) JIM stares out over
the canyon, comes to an abrupt decision:

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8.

JIM
I want ten thousand credit.
MISTER LEE
You came in with ten thousand
dollars. You didnt give it to me.
JIM
No, I didnt.
MISTER LEE
You owe a lot of money.
JIM
Everybody owes money. Have I never
not paid you?
MISTER LEE
Eventually, a debt gets too big to
pay. Then no one is responsible.
JIM grips the rail of the porch. Down in the LOWER GARDEN,
PROSTITUTES do business by the pool, one or another going off
with a businessman into the dark. A freshly unfolded aspect
of Hell. All whispers into ears. As JIM watches...
MISTER LEE (CONTD)
Some people find impossibility to
pay a relief. Their lives...are out
of their hands.
JIM nods, taking it on. Maybe its what hes after maybe it
emphatically isnt. One should act rather than say:
JIM
Maybe I'm after that. Maybe I'm
after the opposite.
Two BIG KOREANS (the key ones, intelligent muscle) are now
with MISTER LEE.
MISTER LEE
All this is starting to be over.
JIM looks at him.
JIM
Well, trust me until we get there,
all right?
Jim looks over and sees:
JIMS POV:

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

9.

NEVILLE now on the terrace, lying back in a deck chair,

smoking a COHIBA, his boys seated in shadow near by.
MOMENTS LATER:
A shadow falls across NEVILLE. He looks up. We reverse to
see:
JIM.
JIM (CONTD)
Stake me fifty grand.
A long look from NEVILLE.
NEVILLE
At twenty points.
JIM nods.
NEVILLE (CONTD)
(to associate)
Give him fifty grand.
(to JIM)
Make sure my man has your, ah,
digits, and so forth.
A DESIGNER LEATHER BAG is dug into. JIM takes CASH, in tengrand bundles, and goes over to the surprised Mister Lee.
JIM
Heres forty. Ill keep back ten.
MISTER LEE considers this.
JIM (CONTD)
You can take the whole fifty, and
well settle up but this is a
gambling establishment.
MISTER LEE keeps forty, hands it to a BIG KOREAN, and looks
back at JIM with a grave nod. JIM smiles and pockets the ten.
JIM walks past the smoking, disinterested NEVILLE.
NEVILLE
Bonne chance.
JIM
I feel better about your hat. But
not about you wearing it inside.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

10.

INT. THE CAISSE AREA. NIGHT

JIM trades the ten in cash for plaques, then heads (AMY again
picking him up with her eyes) for the Blackjack table.
JIM pushes all his markers in. The whole ten grand.
JIM
Do it. No no. Dont look at Mister
Lee. You look at me. Do it.
The DEALER deals.
JIM gets a queen showing. The Dealer has an ace showing. Jim
checks his down card and sees a 3. He nods for a card and is
hit with an 8 for 21.
DEALER
Twenty one.
The DEALER turns over an 8, making 20, and Jim has won. He
could cash out now, and big, but he leaves his winnings down
and says:
JIM
Play the two.
The DEALER gives JIM a 10 up and another card down; deals
himself a king up. JIM flips and sees another 10 for 20. The
dealer draws two cards and busts. Jims won again.
JIM nods for the DEALER to start another hand. The DEALER
looks at MISTER LEE.
JIM (CONTD)
He doesnt want you to look at him.
Deal the cards.
SPECTATORS crowd around. NEVILLE is watching. AMY comes
through the crowd and SHE is watching.
The DEALER gives JIM a down card and an 8. He deals himself a
4 showing over his down card. JIM sees his down card is a 4.
JIM (CONTD)
(to DEALER)
You take it.
The DEALER turns over a 2, then draws a jack for 16 and then
a queen to bust. Jim wins with a 10 for 14.
MISTER LEE watches. The DEALER looks at MISTER LEE.

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11.

JIM (CONTD)
Dont look at him. Theres no
limit.
DEALER
Its for your own protection.
JIM
Fuck my protection. You dont come
here for fucking protection from
yourself. You come here for the
fuckin opposite and here I am.
Deal the cards.
MISTER LEE nods.
THE CARDS ARE DEALT.
JIM wins another hand with 21. He takes up the counters.
Turns away, goes, with people watching him, Amy watching him,
to...
the roulette table.
JIM stands and looks at the waiting table, magic in the light
over it. He puts down his plaques. NEVILLE has come up beside
him.
JIM (CONTD)
Everything on black.
NEVILLE
Reds been coming up all night.
JIM
You want me to pay you now? Is that
what you want me to do?
No.
Why not?

NEVILLE
JIM

NEVILLE
Because youll either lose and
youre mine for talking shit about
my headgear, or either I want to
just watch the show.
JIM
Its all of those things.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

Yeah.

12.

NEVILLE

JIM
What about ripping me off outside
if I win?
NEVILLE
Not in that business, brother.
JIM
Everything on black.
The ball rolls, and its nearly black, but then the ball
lands in...
RED
The CROWD reacts as if a man has just dropped from a
scaffold. AMY, in the crowd, turns away. JIM leans with his
elbows on the table for a minute: but then stands straight to
look NEVILLE in the eye. NEVILLE looks at JIM.
JIM (CONTD)
Give me some spending money.
NEVILLE gives him a thousand dollars.
NEVILLE
Thats at twenty points, too.
JIM folds away the money. He looks at NEVILLE. He looks at
MISTER LEE. Then he goes, pushing his way through the crowd
as those people look after him who still have the interest to
do so.
EXT. STREET IN THE HOLLYWOOD HILLS. DAWN
JIM comes down the steps, looks bleakly at the Valets, and
then walks up to his car. The sun is rising, lighting the
shoulder of the hill beyond the Hollywood sign.
INT. CAR. DAWN
JIM sits in his car, exhausted, defeated, taking shit on,
barely holding it together. He watches NEVILLE and his POSSE
pile into two Bentleys and drive off down the canyon. Then he
puts the car in gear and drives.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

13.

EXT. SUNSET BOULEVARD. NIGHT

JIM pulls up to the Seventh Veil, and in one long shot gets
out of the car and heads in, handing the doorman a 20, moving
through the dark room, avoiding the dancers (its been a
long time since strip clubs in Los Angeles havent been
brothels) until he comes to one in particular, a beautiful
black Amazon in a yellow bikini. She starts to do the thing,
the come-on (stripper ad-libs), but Jim holds up his hand and
stops her.
JIM
Listen. I dont need you to talk. I
need you to listen to me. No. No
no, you listen. I know its hard, I
know you want to talk your
bullshit, but if you do, Im going
to leave.
She nods, maybe getting it. He holds out a hundred dollar
bill. She looks at it: starts to speak: but he stops her.
JIM (CONTD)
I dont want you to act like youre
in a porn film made for retards,
because theres no girl in here
better looking than anybody Ive
ever even gone out with once, so I
want you to act like a normal woman
with no mental problems and then I
want you to take this hundred
dollars, I want you to take me in
back, where you blow people for
money, and I want you to do what I
ask you to do without saying
another fucking word to me ever
again in my life. Can you do that?
Because if you cant shut up I
cant stay here.
Finally she nods and takes the hundred dollar bill.
JIM (CONTD)
OK. All right.
He follows her into the back room as if marching to a death
sentence.
EXT. JIMS HOUSE. DAWN.
He sits in his idling car looking at it. Its a low craftsman
bungalow. He stares at it, haggard, exhausted, with complex
feelings.

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14.

Hes an estranged husband and father who has maybe just

estranged himself further. When a LIGHT comes on in one of
the rooms
INTERCUT
JIMS WIFE SLEEPING WITH A BABY, waking, reaching to a table,
coming back to the infant with a BOTTLE...
And as we see beyond the night bottle-litter pictures of JIM
as an uncertain father...
JIM puts the car into gear and speeds away. His face a mask
of self-loathing.
EXT. UCLA. DAY
Establish a part of the college, with JIMS CAR parked
erratically in the foreground. STUDENTS and STAFF on the
grounds of the campus like figures in a painting.
INT. ENGLISH DEPT FACULTY MENS ROOM. DAY
JIM is splashing his face with water. Hes still not shaved.
His white collar is now not clean. Beside him (JIM notices
him sliding up to the next sink) is an English Department
ASSHOLE (JONES). Basically FDR without the wheelchair, senior
to Jim, and not as good on any subject.
JONES
First time I ever seen you without
a shave.
JIM
Yeah Im trying to avoid tenure.
JONES
I wouldnt necessarily exert
yourself.
JIM
Im intemperate, right, thats
what you say at the meetings, I
know that.
JONES goes. JIM continues to wash.
INT. UCLA CLASSROOM. DAY
We only use one classroom for Jim. Its a big one. This one
merely has a seminar in it.

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15.

No more than ten students, mixed evenly along racial and

gender lines. Among them is: (and this explains everything):
AMY, watching him, eyes tired from her night job, her laptop
open
and another is DEXTER, a white, blonde, stoner UCLA tennis
player, a good one.
Jim is writing on the board A Groats-Worth of Wit, bought
with a Million of Repentance, then, turning:
JIM
The first public notice that was
ever made of Shakespeare was from a
grub street writer Robert Greene,
who called him an upstart crow,
plumed in stolen feathers. In the
book under that title on the board.
If you havent discovered Robert
Green on your own at this point,
who wrote the novel Pandosto, you
dont belong in this seminar.
ON AMYS SCREEN is the famous picture of the ghost of ROBERT
GREENE in his winding sheet, pen to paper at a table,
condemned to hackdom even in the afterlife. She clicks and
hides the picture.
NEBBISH
(who has no idea who
Robert Greene is)
Is the stolen feathers thing
because Greene knew Shakespeare was
the Earl of Oxford?
JIM puts his head on the blackboard. Not again.
JIM
The Earl of Oxford published
poetry. It wasnt any good. Had
Oxford been able to get a play put
on, he would have broken a leg to
do it. Can you think of any human
being that would for any reason not
put his name on Hamlet? The
Oxfordian thing, the antiStrafordian thing...what pisses
people off...about Shakespeare...
What lies behind every controversy
...is...rage. Rage over the nature
and distribution of talent.
(MORE)

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

JIM (CONT'D)
Rage that genius appears where it
appears for no material reason at
all. Desiring a thing...
He passes AMY, walking...
JIM (CONTD)
...cannot make you have it.
He drifts through the room, talking.
JIM (CONTD)
The trouble with writing, if I may
bring it up here in the English
Department...instead of allowing
you all to talk about sexual
politics all fucking day long...is
that we all do a little of it from
time to time, writing, and some of
us start to think that well, maybe
with a little time, a little peace,
a little money in the bank, maybe
if we left the old lady and the
kids, maybe if we had that room of
our own, we might be writers, too.
Why do we think that? We accept
genius in sports, in painting, as
something we cannot do, but its no
more likely that you can be a
writer than you can be an Olympic
fucking pole vaulter. Because what
you have to be before you try to be
a pole vaulter, is a pole vaulter.
STUDENT
You are one.
JIM
A pole vaulter?
STUDENT
A novelist.
JIM
No Im not. For me to be a novelist
Id have to make a deal with myself
that being a bad novelist was
something I could overlook. That
effort itself was accomplishment.
People do that. Im not one of
them. If you take away nothing else
from my class, from this
experience, let it be this: If
youre not a genius, dont bother.
(MORE)

16.

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17.

JIM (CONT'D)
The world needs plenty of
electricians and a lot of them are
happy. Ill be fucked if Ill be a
midlist novelist, getting good
reviews from the people I give good
reviews to...
STUDENT
Youre better than
JIM
(turns, points, not going
to listen to this)
Lets have a look at Dexter right
there. Dexter, an ordinary-looking
young man with a size forty jacket,
regular features and decent
dentition, is the second-ranked
collegiate tennis player in the
United States.
He leans in on Dexter.
JIM (CONTD)
Howd that come about, Dexter? You
come from a tennis family?
DEXTER
I started five years ago in high
school because the tennis guys had
the best weed.
JIM
So you started playing tennis
because the tennis guys had the
best weed. After you started
tennis, how long was it before you
were better than everybody?
DEXTER is well brought up and doesnt want to answer. But
then:
DEXTER
Before I was better than everyone,
or before I knew it?
JIM smiles.
JIM
What happened when you noticed you
were naturally better than
everybody?

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

DEXTER
...I got interested in the game.
JIM
That may be an IQ break point
brother. My own personal view of
Jesus is that hed lose interest in
being Jesus as soon as he realized
that he was. And that it was easy.
You know...how many lepers can you
do? Lazarus is good as a one-off. I
think, that the thing to do, is to
one thing, definitively, and then
move on...to something else...if
(and he is referring to
himself)
you can figure out what it is. But
lets deal with you. Do you
remember Machiavelli. That would
have been in September.
DEXTER
I can remember September.
JIM
Is it the game, brother, or the
money? Virtu, or fama? Fame, or
virtue. What are you after? Dont
go modest on me. What do you want.
DEXTER doesnt know what to answer.
Both.

DEXTER

JIM
You got ambitious, yeah? Instead of
less ambitious like our...
AMY is watching.
JIM (CONTD)
Hypothetical Jesus.
DEXTER
I realized...as I learned about the
game, and about myself in the game,
that I was in reach of the...
He doesnt want to say it. JIM leans in and whispers:
JIM
Highest level.

18.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

DEXTER
The highest level. Yeah. That.
JIM
Its still a gamble, isnt it.
Things about it burn your ass?
DEXTER takes that on. Nods.
JIM (CONTD)
Arent there people out there
writing articles about less good
tennis players? Maybe ones with
publicists? Ever been put in a
false context? Fake question mark
over your ability? Didnt I read
somewhere that your old high school
coach got some OTHER job by
claiming to have discovered and
created you?
DEXTER looks ready to explode thinking of that one.
JIM (CONTD)
Yeah, Dexter's old coach now
coaches the UK international team
because Dexter was unaccountably
good at tennis. He used Dexter and
fucked him. If Dexter broke his leg
in five places and never played
again, this guy, this fucking liar,
this expatriate excrescence that
grew out of Pomona High School
because Dexter picked up a racket
because the tennis guys had the
best weed, is probably going to end
up knighted for services to British
sport. There are two rules: first,
be a genius. Second: dont get
fucked. You took that on board,
Dexter, yeah?
DEXTER nods.
JIM (CONTD)
Im a literature teacher. I cant
write well enough to bother. Or I
just dont bother. Whichever.
Whichever it is, therell be no
apotheosis around here. I put my
money elsewhere. Therell be no
Vae, puto deus fio around here.
(MORE)

19.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

20.

JIM (CONTD)
Thats what the Emperor Vespasian
said on his deathbed: Dear me, I
think I am becoming a God. But do
you know who does write at the
highest level? When most of us, and
even I, write barely adequately? Do
you know who it is, in this room?
The NEBBISH gets ready for coronation. JIM leans in on him.
JIM (CONTD)
No, it isnt the one who talks the
most...and you really do talk shit.
You dont know anything at all.
Youre an NPR host. Tops.
The NEBBISH freaks.
Jim indicates AMY.
JIM (CONTD)
The literary person here is Ms
Phillips. She is the least
obstreperous in this room, the
quietest, and the only one in this
room who can have a real career in
letters. Some of you can have one
perceptually. Only she can have one
in reality. Shes better at writing
than our US presently amateur
number two is at tennis. Where do
you come from, Ms Phillips?
She is blushing furiously. Almost soundlessly:
Ohio.

AMY

JIM
Parents geniuses by any chance?
Filthy rich?
She shakes her head. He rounds on her like a prosecutor,
brutal, blunt.
JIM (CONTD)
Your Dad wasnt the Earl of Oxford
was he?
No.

AMY

JIM
How old were you when you read?

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

21.

Almost inaudibly:
I was two.

Amy

JIM
Thats early. Thats prodigious.
Any advantages? Literary home life?
She shakes her head, but is now holding his stare boldly.
Jim (CONTD)
What was your father?
AMY
He worked in a factory.
JIM
Your mother?
AMY shakes her head. No mother, or dont bring it up.
JIM (CONTD)
What was your mother.
AMY finally looks up.
AMY
She was an alcoholic. She was
insane.
JIM turns to the nebbish.
JIM
Isnt your Dad...
NEBBISH
I dont see how this is pertinent.
JIM
(back on an uncomfortable
Amy)
No money, no advantages, not a peer
of the realm? Youre not the Earl
of fucking Oxford are you? No? Then
why the fuck are you better than
the rest of us?
She looks away.
JIM (CONTD)
No, you look at me.
She does.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

22.

JIM (CONTD)
You are better than the rest of us.
If no ones told you yet that
youre a genius, and an artist, let
me be the first.
She starts to cry.
WHITE DUDE IN BACK
I dont know if you can say that
because I think it is subjective,
man. I mean we all have something
to offer.
JIM goes very close to him, and into his very ear, says:
Bullshit.

JIM

He walks on:
JIM (CONTD)
Genius is magical, not material. If
you dont have the magic, no amount
of wishing will make it so.
The period ends.
AMY in tears is gathering her stuff.
To DEXTER, as he slaps him on the shoulder.
JIM (CONTD)
See you at the house, Shakespeare.
AMY rushes from the room.
CUT TO:
INT. HALLWAY. MOMENTS LATER
JIM is moving along. DEAN FULLER falls in step beside him.
DEAN FULLER
May I have a word?
JIM
More words? I've about had it with
them. Words.
DEAN FULLER
That's ridiculous.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

23.

JIM
Well. In this context.
DEAN FULLER
The athletic department
Yes?

JIM

DEAN FULLER
Has asked how a certain person is
doing.
He indicates a very tall African American youth with a baby
face who is sitting outside an advisor's office (on the floor
so that his height is not absurd) talking worriedly on a
cellphone. It's LAMAR HAMPTON.
JIM
The certain person cannot write at
collegiate level. Then again, who
gives a fuck. Half the tenured
faculty would be flogged to death
for idiocy at an ordinary grammar
school in any previous century.
DEAN FULLER
Why do you care about that if you
don't care about anything?
JIM
I probably don't care. If you want
to give a dyslexic an English
degree it's up to you.
DEAN FULLER
It's time to get serious about your
career.
JIM
When I know what it is, I'll let
you know. Unless, of course, you
let me know what it isn't, and I
don't care either way.
JIM moves on and LAMAR, on the phone, watches him pass, with
interest, but continues his call.
EXT. ROBERTAS HOUSE IN BEL AIR. DAY
JIM in his car waits for the GATES to open and then spins in
under the canopy of trees. Its one of the more East Coast
houses in Bel Air. Let it breath.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

24.

Jim stops his car, sits for a moment, then gets out,
squinting in the California light. He notices that:
THE FRONT DOOR has been opened by a waiting BUTLER. He walks
over to the front door.
BUTLER
Good morning Mister James.
JIM
Call me Jim. Hows the weekend.
Crap, sir.

BUTLER

JIM
Howd you do on the football?
BUTLER
Not so good.
Jim
Its going around, brother.
He passes through into the shadowed familiar interior.
CUT TO:
EXT. THE CLAY TENNIS COURT. DAY
Like the one at Evans house. Jims mother ROBERTA is playing
with DEXTER, who is her coach. JIM is sitting in the high
referees chair, a hat down over his eyes, smoking a cigarette
and watching the play.
DEXTER
Good, good. Thats great.
ROBERTA is a good older player. But cant make the last lob.
Thats it.

JIM

ROBERTA goes to the net to shake Dexters hand.

ROBERTA
Ill never beat you, Mister Dexter,
but if you ever give me a point
again, Ill fire you.
DEXTER, barely sweating, grins and gets it.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

25.

ROBERTA (CONTD)
Good luck in the finals.
DEXTER
Thank you, ma'am.
DEXTER goes to his gear, which is not on the hospitality
side of the court. ROBERTA goes to the table at the side near
Jims chair, and pours herself some ice water from a lemoned
pitcher.
ROBERTA
So. Why do you need fifty thousand
dollars?
JIM looks away, not answering.
ROBERTA (CONTD)
I already sent off a sum of money
to your wife and child, who havent
seen you for two months.
JIM
She doesnt want to see me.
He comes down from the chair. He gets some iced water.
JIM (CONTD)
I dont blame her. I just cant do
all that. Marriage is something
they do on another planet.
ROBERTA
If you were escaping for some
purpose Id buy it.
She wets her face with a napkin dipped in ice water.
ROBERTA (CONTD)
At lunch last week I told your wife
that Id help her put the house in
her name. That you would give her
your interest in the house.
JIM nods silently, taking it on.
JIM
Thats a very good idea.
His ROBERTA looks at him over her water glass.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

ROBERTA
She needs to effect a legal
separation, if youre going to go
on as you are.
JIM
Going on as I am is the only thing
Ive got.
ROBERTA
That's sophistical. It's beneath
you. I think you would agree that
modifications are possible.
Looks around at the day. The blowing brilliant leaves.
Do you?

JIM

ROBERTA
I know youre in real trouble. I
know its quasi-suicidal. I know
its connected to what happened to
your book. Youre not narcissistic
enough to be putting on a show.
Youre not an adolescent, and we
dont even need to say that youre
far from stupid. Youre my son but
you need to understand that Ive
said goodbye before to people I
love.
JIM
Yeah, whatever did happen to Dad?
She turns on him coldly and doesnt answer.
ROBERTA
Ive done it many, many times. And
so has every person on earth who
lives an orderly and sanitary life.
You cant go around people who are
clean when youre unclean.
JIM
Thats what I was saying.
ROBERTA
I dont want to understand the
nature of your problem. I just want
you not to have it.
(a beat)
(MORE)

26.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

27.

ROBERTA (CONT'D)
Do you know why youre looking at
me like that? Because I just said
what you would say to someone else.
He cops to it.
ROBERTA (CONTD)
You dont have a problem. Youre
just spinning the cylinder in a
revolver and youre doing it on
purpose. Any money from me from now
on goes directly to your wife. If I
hear that you have ever touched a
dime of it, there wont be any
more. Even for them. And if you
dont stop gambling, Ill cut them
off.
Thank you.

JIM

He kisses her, briefly, and walks away across the court. She
turns away to get water. DEXTER has packed up. They walk
together towards the house.
JIM (CONTD)
Youre in the finals, right?
Sure am.

Dexter

JIM
Were all in the finals. Its the
end of Days, brother. Its the
apocalypse.
His mobile rings. Whatever number is on it, he doesnt
answer.
EXT. DAN TANA'S. NIGHT
JIM valets his car, handing off his keys and taking a ticket.
FOLLOW him into the crowded restaurant: scumbags in goldbuttoned blazers, prostitutes, dodgy looking host and
servers. JIM goes to the bar.
JIM
Johnny Walker Black, rocks.
PROSTITUTE
Theres a man who doesnt know his
scotch.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

28.

JIM
Yeah but he knows a few other
things, like the fact that that man
over there is an LAPD vice
detective, the other guy over there
is his partner.
The PROSTITUTE is shocked because her friend is getting on
with the partner.
PROSTITUTE
Clarisse! Were outta here!
JIM has been taken by the elbow by BIG ERNIE, and is escorted
to a table in the corner, where he is sat down in front of
FRANK, who is basically Sinatra, but Jewish.
FRANK
This is Big Ernie.
JIM
Hes not that big.
FRANK
Theyre not talking about his
jacket, brother.
JIM
With all due respect, Im not
interested in his johnson.
FRANK
Are you saying I am?
No.

JIM

FRANK
I admit that in this milieu we live
in, this demi-monde, there is a
little locker room humor to be
expected. Locker room anything
always turns out to be
fundamentally, in essence,
homosexual. I mean let's be frank.
BIG ERNIE
It has been so since the Greeks.
JIM
I cant argue with that.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

FRANK
They used to grease up and have at
each other. You dont bet on
football?
JIM
Footballs for homosexuals.
FRANK
A friend of mine says that youre a
teacher.
JIM
Im an associate professor at UCLA.
FRANK
My daughters at The New School.
Linguistics. Hey, shes not the
Barbra Streisand Professor of
Gender Studies...But its a job.
Listen.
JIM
Im listening...
FRANK
The amount of cash you want is more
than I am ordinarily disposed to
loan out unless, say, youre a
medium-sized country with the
ability to raise taxes under the
threat of military force. OR, a
Eurotrash cokehead who has a father
who can be squeezed after the kids
microbudget sci-fi film done under
the influence of Lars Von Trier and
Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance
(which is actually a good idea)
doesnt get picked up at Sundance.
Are you following me?
JIM nods, takes it.
FRANK (CONTD)
You got family that can be
squeezed? Im saying that
rhetorically.
JIM
Lets deal with this as gentlemen
who understand each other.

29.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

FRANK
No, I need us to treat each other
like were not gentlemen and that
were very very stupid.
JIM
Theres no family. Theres never
any family.
FRANK accepts that.
FRANK
What do you make, a hundred,
hundred fifty a year? Two hundred
before taxes.
JIM shrugs.
Frank (CONTD)
Whats wrong with you? You have
brain damage, some fundamental
disability? Two hundred is a monk.
JIM spreads his hands.
FRANK (CONTD)
And you, a monk, owe that Korean
son of a bitch, the prince of
fucking darkness, that much right
now, and then another fifty,
excluding the vig, to Neville
Baraka. Who will kill you because
when you cut cards he got the king
of spades and you laughed at him.
JIM
Youre pretty well-informed.
FRANK
You borrowed 50K from a very
dangerous man after he was already
going to kill you.
JIM nods.
JIM
Yeah. I did.
WAITER puts clams down on the table.

30.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

FRANK
Birth, education, intelligence,
talent, looks, family money, has
all this been a real comprehensive
fucking burden for you? I see two
problems. One, the world at his
feet, in this town, and hes a
fuckin monk. Because, apparently,
fuck it. Two, he wants to die for
some unspecified personal reason
and therefore owes money to Korean
murderers and talks about a
schwartzers hat in a place where
you can get killed and they merely
drop your body up the Angeles
Crest. Three, he wants to borrow a
quarter of a million dollars to pay
off debts which he will not, in
fact, pay off because, to go back
to point two, hes suicidal.
JIM
Just let me know what you can do
for me, all right?
(then without wanting to:)
I dont have a mortgage on my
house.
FRANK
The house your wife and kid live
in?
JIM
No, no no. No. The other one. I
inherited it from my grandfather.
Its worth 1.8, even now. Ill sign
over the while thing if I dont pay
you back. Thats why youre gonna
give me a light point load.
FRANK
Are you lying to me?
No answer from JIM.
FRANK (CONTD)
If I help you consolidate these
debts, even at a lesser point load,
do you think that I will be anybody
you want to fuck up the ass? Am I
likelier to be fucked up the ass?
JIM
Less likely, I imagine.

31.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

Satisfied, Frank eats clams.
FRANK
Listen to me, listen to me, Im not
your doctor, Im not your cognitive
therapist, but let me be your
uncle. You have to pay ten percent
a week
JIM
I know what I have to do.
FRANK
Well, where are you going to get my
money?
JIM
Ill get your money.
FRANK
How much you want?
JIM
Two hundred and fifty thousand.
FRANK
Whens the last time you ever had
money in your hand to pay a debt,
and paid it?
JIM starts to speak. FRANK raises his hand.
FRANK (CONTD)
Dont fuck with me. This will be
your first time when you pay. Am I
right.
JIM
Youre right.
FRANK
Were not done. I need something
from you.
JIM
Collateral...what....
FRANK
No, I need you to say to me I need
this money because Im a scumbag
gambler. Im a scumbag gambler
who takes food out of the mouths of
my wife and child.
(MORE)

32.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

33.

FRANK (CONT'D)
Thats the kind of man I am, Frank,
and I want you to loan me, a dying
suicidal asshole, a lot of money.
JIM
Thats too much to remember, to
repeat it.
Frank
Lets make it simpler. If you want
the money, you tell me I am not a
man.
JIM sits. He doesnt respond.
FRANK (CONTD)
Say it. Say I am not a man.
We don't know whether Jim is going to say it or not and we
CUT TO:
INT. JIMS OFFICE. DAY
He is sitting in the office, fretting, uneasy, looking at
piles of papers, unlooked at work, mail. He has a GOLD DOUBLE
EAGLE and is flipping it, heads. Heads. The door is ajar,
students pass in the hall. Tails. He looks up and AMY is
standing and looking at him. They look at each other for a
long time. Then he extends a palm. She sits down in the
chair. That he is in love with her is painfully obvious. That
she is in love with him is apparent. Its one of those times
when you know you could cross the room. He smiles, and then
doesnt. He looks at the ceiling. Another moment.
Yes?

JIM

AMY
Did you mean what you said? About
me having talent.
JIM
Is there something you dont get
about A plus plus plus, See Me?
AMY
Then you didnt see me as a
matter of fact.
JIM concedes it without speaking.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

Amy (CONTD)
It wasnt brought up again until
you embarrassed me in class.
JIM
I'm afraid of seeing you.
AMY
Because Ive seen you in your other
life?
JIM
No its not that.
She gets it.
Oh.

AMY

JIM
Do you know why Im in trouble
here? Apart from not giving a shit?
Because I tell the truth. Do you
want me to split the atom, succumb
to velocity, and tell you the
truth?
She already knows the truth.
JIM (CONTD)
Physiology doesnt lie. Everything
else does. Everybody else does.
Physiology...
He tosses a coin in the air and catches it.
JIM (CONTD)
...doesnt. Knowing what is right
in Art, for example, as you know
very well, is a physical sensation.
You can't explain it to people who
don't have that sensation, which is
post-intellectual...
AMY
What are you saying to me?
JIM
Im not in any position to say
anything.
Try.

AMY

34.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

JIM
Why should I try?
AMY
Because. What you said. I mean ok I
mean...
JIM
Im a dying, contaminated, suicidal
fuck-up.
AMY
Let me help.
JIM looks at the floor.
JIM
I need you to leave, right now,
because Im not going to make it
and I'm not hurting another person
on the face of this earth. Im
serious. Go. You have to go.
She throws his novel on the desk.
AMY
I want you to sign that.
JIM
Absolutely fucking not.
AMY
I want you to fucking sign it.
JIM
Im not being dramatic, but that
...
He pushes the book away...
JIM (CONTD)
...was somebody else.
AMY
You are being dramatic. Which is
not surprising since the novel is
ok but you're basically a
dramatist.
He concedes it. Putting the book in her bag:

35.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

36.

AMY (CONTD)
What do you propose to move on to?
Since you can, quote unquote only
cure so many lepers?
JIM is embarrassed: and he likes her boldness.
AMY (CONTD)
Whens the last time anyone told
you youre a genius?
JIM
We can't have this conversation.
AMY
Whats your wife like?
JIM
Inappropriate. I made a mistake.
She made a mistake.
AMY
I want to go to a restaurant.
JIM
Theres a whole bunch of things I
dont do any more. Thats kind of
up there.
Long silence.
When he looks up, she is gone. JIM picks up a PEN, looks at
it, and then violently smashes its point on his metal desk.
INK is all over his hand like blood and he looks at it.
EXT. THE CAMPUS. DAY
AMY, shrugging her bag over her shoulder, is moving fast. She
stops and looks back at the building: then moves on and out
of shot.
EXT. JIMS HOUSE IN THE HOLLYWOOD HILLS. DAY
Its a treehouse shack, termite-eaten, a divorcees hut. JIM
sits with a towel wrapped around him at the kitchen table,
drinking coffee and staring into space. He looks at a pile of
PAPERS, loses interest. His phone rings, vibrating on the
yellow linoleum of the 1950s table.
JIM
Guy with no money speaking, how may
I direct your call?

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

37.

NEVILLE
Im reading your book.
And he is:
INTERCUT NEVILLE lying on an empire daybed in a fantastical
boudoir.
JIM
Yeah? I just had a bit of a
conversation about it.
Long beat. Pages turn.
NEVILLE
Its not bad.
JIM
If you want to get into producing.
Theres only about a hundred grand
against it at Warner Brothers. Good
script. I know the guy who did it.
NEVILLE
Its an indie if anything.
JIM
Thats what they thought.
NEVILLE
I hear you went to Little Frank for
money and that he wouldnt loan it
to you.
JIM
Well you heard wrong because he did
try to loan it to me, and I didnt
take it.
NEVILLE
You didnt like the terms?
And this, as we come around on Jim, is Jims shred of hope in
himself, however casually he says it:
JIM
No, the terms were unacceptable.
NEVILLE
But youre into me. I aint Fannie
Mae. Aint no bailouts.
JIM
Why did you loan me the money?

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

38.

NEVILLE
A gamble, brother. Two players who
like to play. You and me. Stakes
high. You know the time frame. Tick
tick tock. This could be good for
you, brother, but either way, you
owe me. Peace out.
CUT TO:
EXT. A MARINA. DAY
A mahogany yacht from the 1930s is swarming with its
uniformed crew. On the rear deck an old man in a wheelchair
sits like a lizard in the sun. It is Jims grandfather, Ed.
Ed is not only on an IV for hydration, a bag attached to the
wheelchair receives an occasional trickle of money-colored
BILE. JIM is looking: a sudden increase in the bile.
ED
(a broad swamp Yankee
accent)
I drink a ginger ale, it comes
right out. But I still like ginger
ale.
JIM smiles at him.
ED (CONTD)
(meaning drinking the
ginger ale)
Its like being alive. Theres no
point to it any more but I like
sitting here in the sun better than
being dead I aint going anywhere
until they come and get me.
JIM
Do you know who I am?
Yeah.

ED

A long beat.
ED (CONTD)
Youre my Jim.
JIM has to put his sunglasses on.
ED grabs his steward by the white coated arm.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

39.

ED (CONTD)
This is my grandson, Jim.
STEWARD
(disapproving)
I have met your grandson many
times.
JIM
(to STEWARD)
He said I could use the boat,
brother. If youre not careful Ill
use it again, and bring more
Mexicans.
The STEWARD, who is Mexican, grimaces politely and fucks off.
JIM (CONTD)
He doesnt like Mexicans. I cant
figure it out.
ED
Takes all kinds. Got any more kids?
JIM shakes his head no.
ED (CONTD)
Writing anything?
JIM
Thats all done.
ED
Well I wont waste time calling it
your prime of life.
JIM
No, I wouldnt bother doing that.
ED
Just be around to bury me.
I will be.

JIM

ED
Not to get the money because you
wont. Thats our deal, remember?
JIM
I remember.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

ED
Nothing is the best thing I can
give you. I dont care about the
other sons of bitches, they can
have the money. They need it. None
of them except your mother could
organize a one-car funeral. Funny
thing. Everybodys alive at once.
When my mind goes. Ill see a dream
and in that dream... everyones at
the table. My father. His father.
Youre there too, which is
impossible. So I know it isnt real
unless it is realer than this. My
mother came in this morning and
woke me up. Then of course she
wasnt there because it was back to
this. I have to let go of this.
Because theres this other world
that keeps getting bigger, where
everybodys alive...and I say that
as an atheist.
JIM stares through his sunglasses.
ED (CONTD)
I told your mother the other day
that Id just been playing cards
with my sister on a porch in
Connecticut in a lightning storm.
Your mother convinced me otherwise.
JIM
Shes not big on letting people
hang onto illusions. Shed prefer
you had a dream but she has to
think of it first.
ED
How do you be a writer when your
mother is a literary biographer is
what I want to know.
JIM
You dont. The situation is very
nearly Greek.
ED
Any book about you would be half
about her.
JIM looks at the old man with great appreciation.

40.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

41.

ED (CONTD)
You come from nothing. You go back
into it. Despite whatevers in your
head. So in between, you have to do
what you have to do. So I did. And
it dont matter. The only thing I
got apart from what I remember,
even though its all mixed up, is
hoping everybodys all right.
JIM, who isnt all right, takes this on as it was intended.
It may play big later.
JIM
Tell me what you remember.
ED thinks.
ED
Childhood. Conventional for the
time. Rural. College. Goddamned
useless. Already read everything
before I was 14, up in Vermont.
Wanted the real world.
JIM
I know what you mean.
ED
Office somewhere, teaching, not for
me. Went down the oil fields,
Tampico, Mexico. Nationalized, but
a gringo could still make his way.
I had ten percent of the revenues
out of Tamaulipas when I was twentythree years old. War come. Already
a millionaire. Not a penny from the
old chancer up in Vermont. My point
to you. War come. Knew Jimmy
Roosevelt. Got in with Wild Bill.
Thought things up. Fucked up
Germans. Various ways. You never
had a war.
JIM
I never had a war. The upper
classes dont fight them. Same as
Rome.
ED
Glad Im out of it. Ought to be a
National Service. George Patton my
cousin by the way. Your cousin too.
After the war drinking face off.
(MORE)

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

ED (CONT'D)
Myopia Hunt Club. Sailing. Reading.
Im on boards. This and that, State
Street, train to Boston. Cant
think of anything to do. Polo...is
bullshit.
(JIM smiles, listening)
Met your mother.
JIM
Grandmother.
ED
Red Roof over on Eastern Point.
Grandmother not mother. They were
the same. One produced the other.
She said Edward unless you get
your elephants to Croydon and stop
dissipating yourself I am marrying
Fred Sitwell. Well I couldnt
stand the thought of that. I wasnt
going to let Fred Sitwell to get
anything. How many of us succeed
not because we want what we get but
because we cant be seen to lose?
You sit there right now because I
hated Fred Sitwell. Male behavior.
Is what it is. Ladies different.
Long study of subject. Been at it a
hundred years. First man to build a
bridge, know what his wife said to
him?
JIM shakes his head, smiling.
ED (CONTD)
What are you, too lazy to row?
JIM laughs.
ED (CONTD)
So because I was a jackass who had
to defeat another jackass in combat
there I was married fifty two years
to a woman who by and large only
gave me a hard time. I got my
elephants to Croydon though.
Computers then were cards. Holes in
cards. Never understood it. Said I
did. Invested in it.
JIM
Did you ever gamble?

42.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

43.

ED
No. Gambling is synthetic
experience. Cowards do it, instead
of doing something in the world.
JIM gets it. And the GRANDFATHER, now looking up, isnt as
senile as he may have seemed.
ED (CONTD)
There have been some calls at the
office.
JIM
What sort of calls.
ED looks off into the marine haze.
ED
Doesnt matter. Whoevers after
you, youre on your own. You'll get
out of it or you won't.
They sit there.
ED (CONTD)
You want something to eat?
EXT. JIMS STREET. HILLS. DAY
His orange 135i is being hooked up by a tow truck by guys
with tatoos and weird hair and is dragged off in a cloud of
diesel smoke.
INT. JIMs HOUSE. DAY
Jim is aware of the repossession but he sits in his bathrobe
eating cereal watching a college basketball game. UCLA.
In many of the shots we see, repeatedly, and were in very
close, LAMAR, a UCLA star.
JIM spoons cereal and milk, watching.
ROBERTA walks past the porch windows and then comes in. She
sits down.
ROBERTA
You always said you lost interest
in sports after you stopped playing
them.
JIM gestures with his spoon.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

44.

JIM
Its not about the game. It's about
replacing reality.
ROBERTA
You have money on this game?
JIM doesnt answer. He looks back at the screen. LAMAR sinks
a three-pointer.
JIM
Hes in my class.
ROBERTA
Is he good at English?
JIM thinks, weighs it, and then says:
No.

JIM

And eats cereal again.

ROBERTA
Do you really want to be a man who
goes to his mother for gambling
money?
JIM thinks about it, milk on his lips.
ROBERTA (CONTD)
That you dont want to live with
your wife, I accept. You never
should have married her. Why did
you?
JIM
Well, the odds werent good, but I
did it.
ROBERTA
How bad is the trouble youre in.
JIM
Im always in trouble.
ROBERTA
I mean: do you still need the
money?
No.

JIM

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

45.

ROBERTA
Truthfully?
JIM
Truthfully.
ROBERTA
I dont know when to believe you
anymore.
JIM reaches for a pad of paper and writes on it and folds it
and hands it to her.
ROBERTA (CONTD)
Whats this?
JIM
What I owe.
She opens it and reads.
ROBERTA
(trembling with rage;
getting up)
How is that possible?
JIM
It was the same as marriage. I
lost.
ROBERTA
Marriage is in the real world. Its
not a game of chance.
JIM
Now youre talking crazy.
He eats cereal again.
ROBERTA
What will they do to you if you
dont pay?
JIM looks at her.
JIM
Break every bone in my body. Or go
after the family.
ROBERTA whacks him across the face. JIM takes it.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

46.

JIM (CONTD)
I cant help doing this. You get
it. You die of it. Its that
simple.
ROBERTA
I dont believe in the disease
theory.
JIM
Neither do I. I just had a
considerable conversation about
character. Theres going to be a
moment when I want something again.
When I wont allow myself to be
seen in this condition. But it
isnt now, and it isnt up to you
or anything you or anybody says.
She sits holding the paper. Then:
ROBERTA
Are you degraded enough to go to
the bank with your mother?
INT. CITY NATIONAL BANK BEVERLY HILLS. DAY
JIMs dignity is somewhat covered by sunglasses as he sits
beside his mother waiting to see a private banking
specialist. A glass door is opened and they get up and go in.
INT. A CUBICLE. MOMENTS LATER
JIM and ROBERTA are seated.
ROBERTA
I wish to withdraw a hundred and
twenty thousand dollars in cash.
The BANKER looks up.
ROBERTA (CONTD)
I wish to withdraw a hundred and
twenty thousand dollars in cash.
The BANKER looks from ROBERTA to JIM and back to ROBERTA.
BANKER
In cases like this...I have to ask
if everything is all right.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

ROBERTA
Nothings all right when someone
needs a hundred and twenty thousand
dollars in cash, but its my money
and its none of your business.
BANKER
(to JIM)
Are you a relation?
ROBERTA
This is my son.
THE BANKER takes this on.
JIM
Are you implying shes under duress
or something?
BANKER
(not to be fucked with)
Should I?
ROBERTA
The moneys mine, theres plenty of
it, and please dont tell me even
once that your bullshit is for my
own protection. That is understood.
You have a withdrawal slip, you
have my ID, I have sufficient
funds, my family has been with this
bank since my father started it and
I need one hundred and twenty
thousand dollars in cash.
THE BANKER goes onto her computer.
BANKER
Youre absolutely sure you want it
in cash?
Cash.

ROBERTA

BANKER
I need to get the ok of another
officer.
ROBERTA
Do what you have to do.
LATER

47.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

48.

THE BANKER has returned with ANOTHER OFFICER, who is holding

the humiliated ROBERTAs ID.
BANK OFFICER
Im sorry to ask, but, do you have
anything else? Its for your own
protection.
ROBERTA stares forward.
INT. DOWNTOWN RESTAURANT. DAY
ROBERTA, shaking with rage, takes the yellow envelope of
money from her big bag and puts it on the table.
ROBERTA
This is the last of it, forever. If
I ever have to listen to your
problems again, I will never see
you again. Do you understand that.
JIM nods. ROBERTA smashes a glass on the marble floor.
Everyone in the restaurant stares.
ROBERTA (CONTD)
I need you to really...fucking...
understand that. And I need you to
feel like something not even human
when you pick up that envelope.
OTHER DINERS are staring.
ROBERTA (CONTD)
Do you even give a fuck that I am
embarrassing you or do you just
want to take the money. Do you want
to just take the money and go? Even
if I say goodbye to you and
consider it cheap to be rid of you?
JIM
I want to take the money and go.
She nods. JIM picks up the envelope. He goes, walking away,
fast, across the huge room. ROBERTA puts her face in her
hands. Then, tough old bird, she recovers herself.
TERRIFIED WAITER
My name is Bradley? Ill be your
server?
ROBERTA
No you wont. Sorry.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

49.

She gets up and goes.

INT. CAB. DAY
JIM, the yellow envelope on his lap, is driving through
Koreatown. He passes a dubious doorway, black cars parked in
front of it, a knot of Korean heavies smoking cigarettes on
the sidewalk. JIM is agitated. Hes struggling and losing.
There is a reason he doesn't want to pay.
JIM
No no no. I dont want to go here
anymore.
DRIVER
This is what you said.
KOREAN HEAVIES, who we recognize, have recognized Jim.
JIM
I dont want to go here any more.
Drive.
He sits back.
THE KOREAN HEAVIES stare after the CAB, one of them walking
into the road.
EXT. JIMS WIFES HOUSE. DAY
The CAB drives away.
INT. GARAGE AND HOUSE. DAY. VARIOUS
JIM, holding his envelope, notes that the car is gone. He
looks at the STROLLER in the corner, BEACH BAG, other objects
recognizable from previous life.
He uses a key on the interior door and after getting in
disarms the ADT alarm. He looks around the kitchen, the high
chair at the table, the washed-up bottles by the sink. He
sits down at the table and with a finger turns around the
babys placemat: it is a brightly colored map of the world.
He turns it back to where it was.
He goes and looks at the things stuck to the refrigerator:
baby pictures, but nothing of Jim. He clutches the ENVELOPE
full of money.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

50.

He continues through the house. He regards the LIVING ROOM.

He opens a door into what used to be his STUDY and sees that
the shelves are empty and the BOOKS are half put into cartons
and half stacked on the floor by the door.
There is no desk, merely four indents in the carpet where the
desk legs used to be.
He takes that on: he moves along to look into the bedroom. A
crib with a mobile, the babys things. He goes along and
looks into the other bedroom, and when he switches on the
light stands there with head cocked, looking at:
JIMS POV:
A mans boots, a rumpled bed, two water bottles and a wine
glass on the night stand. He goes into the bathroom and sees:
a leather bag of shaving tackle. Not his. He sorts through
the toilet kit and finds condoms, and, oddly, Rogaine
packets.
He leans against the wall and stays there, head back, eyes
closed, holding his crinkling envelope of money.
From OFF we hear two car doors slam close. JIM pushes off the
wall, and heads slowly back towards the kitchen.
INT. KITCHEN. DAY
JIMS WIFE has put the baby in the high chair and is putting
groceries away. She turns, startled, and stares. JIM stands
in the doorway.
JIM ignores his wife, and goes and looks at the baby. The
BABY knows him: smiles, three teeth only, and those on the
bottom.
JIM holds out his finger and the baby takes it.
JIMs wife, palms on the counter, has begun to cry.
JIM
Well. We cant really make anything
you could call a plan. I cant say
have him with his hat on at the
door on Friday. Its just not like
that. The house is yours. I dont
care what you do in it.
He looks at the baby.
JIM (CONTD)
Can I pick him up?

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

She looks at him and nods. JIM picks up the baby.
JIM (CONTD)
Well, buddy, at least youre
somebodys great-grandson. Exeter,
Harvard, and then youre on your
own. My father fucked up. I fucked
up.
(to wife)
When do we tell him that his
paternal grandfather shot himself?
JIMS WIFE
I dont think you should be here.
JIM
Well who should be here? Mister
Rogaine? This is my childs house.
JIMS WIFE
You dont get to say whose house it
is.
JIM
Theres a male thing. You have to
kind of fight it. Its this thing
called I dont want her but you
cant have her. Its responsible
for quite a few marriages and most
anniversaries. So Im kinda taking
that on, and that closet full of
shitty suits. What is he some kind
of salesman? A fucking salesman?
Furiously blushing:
JIMS WIFE
Hes not a salesman. Hes in
marketing...
Realizing thats the same thing, as JIM smiles:
JIMS WIFE (CONTD)
Fuck you. Some people are just
people.
JIM
I realize you might need some
company around here but Im
disturbed at the stepfather idea.
JIMS WIFE
Really? Enough to come home?

51.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

52.

JIM sits.
JIM
I cant come home.
JIMS WIFE
Why cant you come home?
JIM
Oh, Telemachus here isnt ready.
Ithaca has a new king.
JIMS WIFE
Theres no new king. Please dont
make more of it...more of it than
...
JIM
Why's his stuff in here? No, I
don't care. Im tired. Im tired.
Tired?

JIMS WIFE

JIM
I always was the golden boy. I very
badly needed to fuck up. I also
needed to see some assholes suits
in the closet. I really did.
He looks at the BABY as if it is a complete enigma.
EXT. A BOULEVARD. DAY
JIM, like a poor man, or a DUI case, sits at a bus stop. A
BUS comes along.
INT. JIMS OFFICE. DAY
QUICK SHOT of him putting the ENVELOPE into his metal desk
drawer and turning the key.
INT. JIMS MODERN NOVEL CLASSROOM. DAY
The same classroom as his seminar but filled with 40-odd
students. LAMAR, long legs stretched, sits texting on his
phone. He is the basketball player we saw on Jims TV.
JIM
In The Stranger, Camus protagonist
fires five shots.
(MORE)

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

JIM (CONT'D)
The sixth shot of the revolver, he
is reserving, symbolically, for
himself. Noticing that, originally,
is why Im here now. Along with the
being really fucking good at
English thing.
LAMAR
Maybe the dude he had a chamber
empty or it was a weird French
piece that only took five.
JIM
My idea works better if he has a
full six.
LAMAR
I dont understand suicide.
JIM
Thats because youre happy.
LAMAR
What are you?
JIM
Im teaching the Modern Novel.
LAMAR
You got the new M1.
JIM
It got repossessed.
(to class)
You know I used to do some
journalism and I was sent by a
magazine, The New Yorker, as a
matter of fact, to interview a
famous writer. I put the recorder
on the table, I got my pad and pen
out, and the great man came in and
do you know what I did? I got up
and left and I went home and
finished a novel instead. Sort of a
Frank Sitwell situation...
A hand is raised.
STUDENT
Who is Frank Sitwell?

53.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

54.

JIM
A major figure in American realism.
You know, we really should have
gone for American realism. I mean,
lets have more fuckin realism. I
mean, shouldnt I be teaching you
things? I know all youre here for
is a sufficiency of English
credits, but Jesus if Im here I
ought to be doing better. I ought
to be doing better but I cant be
fucked. Just write down that he
saves the sixth shot symbolically
for himself, and you wont find it
referenced anywhere because Im the
only one who thought of it. Its in
a monograph somewhere that got me
into this situation. Where I cant,
so I teach.
LAMAR watches: is the teacher cracking up? But then he gets a
text and looks at it.
JIM (CONTD)
Lamar, we talked about the cell
phone shit.
LAMAR looks up from the screen. And as the bell goes:
JIM (CONTD)
Stay after.
LATER
JIM is finishing up with an Asian student.
JIM (CONTD)
This is a very good paper. Its
very good indeed. Dont be an
English teacher.
Why not?

ASIAN STUDENT

JIM
Its like opening a mill to make
shoes for the Civil War. Trust me.
The ASIAN student goes, clearing our view of:
LAMAR.
JIM sits and looks at him. LAMAR sits and looks at Jim.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

JIM (CONTD)
Do I have to get ten guys and some
weapons, take out a life insurance
policy, and try to put that phone
up your ass? Because I will. Even
if Im losing my shit in here I
need you to pay attention.
LAMAR
Youre not the only one losing his
shit. I have stuff going on at
home, home things.
Like what.

JIM

LAMAR
I was gonna talk to you anyway. I
cant talk to anybody over there.
Gestures vaguely at the invisible athletic department.
LAMAR (CONTD)
Because all they say is what keeps
me in line for what they want me to
be. Which is Lamar and I dont
want to be Lamar. I done all that
just want to be a fuckin dude in
the universe. Or do more than being
Lamar.
Jim
Maybe I know all about it.
LAMAR
Fuckin coach dont know it, but
there is more than being Lamar. I
stick with this shit Ill go out of
my mind, be one of those brothers
talks about himself in the third
person. Talk about how Lamar
Hampton is at ease with his
celebrity.
JIM smiles.
LAMAR (CONTD)
You think Im stupid?
JIM
Nope. I just know you cant write
the way you think and so do you.

55.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

LAMAR
I'm thinking about the voice
recognition.
A beat.
LAMAR (CONTD)
You know I can't be anything else
cause they got me in a box where
they want me.
JIM
Trapped by talent. Imagine that.
LAMAR
In here its all existential
situations and shit no matter what
you start talking about. No matter
what you start talking about you
come around to be free or not free.
How to be yourself or just fuckin
kill yourself.
JIM
Is that what I talk about?
LAMAR
I never heard you talk about
anything else but to be or not to
be and I had four classes with you.
JIM
Maybe you got me.
LAMAR
I need to go pro.
JIM
I dont think youre gonna have any
trouble, Lamar.
LAMAR
I dont mean later, I mean now. I
already got a knee. Nobody knows
about it cause I dont say anything
but I already got a knee. Im not
gonna tell you my mom needs an
operation or my little sister got
spina bifida, and Im not gonna
tell you I dont already revenue up
within the system, but Im telling
you I got a knee.
(MORE)

56.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

57.

LAMAR (CONT'D)
I got a knee, Im a junior, and
whenever I say I dont want to play
college ball my senior year nobody
listens to me, its like Im
speaking fucking Chinese on another
fuckin planet, and the agent tells
me I dont have the market value I
will have if I play out my senior
year, but what he doesnt know, is
that I have a knee.
JIM
You have it looked at away from the
department?
Yeah.

LAMAR

They sit.
JONES comes in, pauses interrogatively. This is his classroom
now. He looks extravagantly at his watch.
JIM
Were just finishing up.
(to LAMAR)
You have my cell. Call me if you
want to talk or if you want to tell
me what the fuck to do cause I
dont know either, but I do know
that this guy really has to get in
here to really mispronounce
Chaucer.
LAMAR
(casually, tucking his
phone away)
Yeah I had him man.
As JIM passes JONES:
JONES
Everything all right?
JIM
I dont want to be me, he doesnt
want to be him, but you want to be
you. And, on the whole, that bears
some serious consideration.
JONES stares after him for a minute, then loses interest and
continues.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

58.

INT. CORRIDOR IN ENGLISH DEPARTMENT. DAY

JIM comes out of the classroom and walks along, passing AMY,
who leans against a wall outside the departmental office, and
stares after JIM as he goes....
INT. JIMS OFFICE. CONTINUOUS
...and we follow Jim along as he unlocks his door and goes
into his office and unlocks the metal drawer and takes the
envelope of money out and puts it on his desk and then he
looks up and sees someone and we come around to reveal that
AMY is standing in the door.
JIM indicates a chair. They sit there in the dense molecules
of the air.
AMY
If I have to draw you into an
inappropriate relationship, to get
you out of this job, Im ready to
go.
So am I.

JIM

AMY
Well right.
JIM stares at the floor, into space, and then asks her:
JIM
Is today Friday?
She nods. They look at each other some more.
JIM (CONTD)
Have you got a car?
CUT TO:
INT. A PARKING STRUCTURE. DAY
JIM and AMY come along to an old VW RABBIT. AMY gets in and
clears a mess of books and papers and waterbottles off the
passenger seat, looking up at JIM cautiously. Then she stands
and looks at him over the car. JIM gets in.
JIM
Youve seen me. You know what I do.
AMY nods, nervously.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

59.

JIM (CONTD)
Is it ok if I say that if anybodys
gonna change me, that may be
possible and it may be you, but
its not going to be today?
AMY nods.
JIM gets into the car, and then
AMY gets into the car.
INT. THE CAR. CONTINUOUS
She puts the car in reverse gear. He watches it like a
mechanical move on a gaming table. The car moves and he looks
up at her face, twisted back over her shoulder as she
reverses.
AMY
Where are we going?
JIM
Either Koreatown, or a casino.
They drive fully out of the parking structure and Jim puts
his sunglasses on before he says:
Casino.

JIM (CONTD)

EXT. JIMS HOUSE. DAY

A CAR pulls up, containing two KOREAN GUYS (THE KOREAN
HEAVIES who saw Jim earlier that day). They look at the house
through their sunglasses. One gets out and goes up to the
door, and knocks.
CUT TO:
EXT. A PARKING LOT. DAY
We see AMYS CAR in an ocean of not expensive cars and then
reveal an Indian casino near Palm Springs, wavering in the
desert heat.
INT. THE CASINO. DAY
JIM turns from the caisse with chips and takes the stunned
AMYS arm.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

60.

He conducts her past gamblers: fucked guys in cowboy hats,

ladies with coin buckets and oxygen hoses, fat people in
structural wheelchairs, enormously fat freeform waddlers in
stretch pants. Jim is jubilant. AMY is having a good time.
AMY
Theres something wrong with
everybody here. They all ought to
be in the hospital.
JIM
Thats right. But theyre not. The
Man wants you to be in the
hospital. These people are
goddamned Americans making a major
stand for freedom.
(noting a walking frame
couple, one with an
oxygen backpack)
Well, assisted autonomy. This is
the inside of my soul, kid: this is
what I've got.
Bullshit.

AMY

JIM
Yeah, well. At least I'm going to
get rid of my mother.
CUT TO:
INT. THE BLACKJACK TABLE. DAY
JIM sits down beside a drunk RANCHERO, who eyes his chips.
RANCHERO
How far you going, man?
JIM
Far as it goes, buddy.
RANCHERO
I go about as far as that seat on
the other side of you man.
Meaning the seat in which Amy is sitting.
JIM
Save it for the old lady, cowboy.
The RANCHERO drinks his longneck, laughing. JIM puts chips in
and as AMY watches, the game begins.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

61.

DEALER
Thats five hundred dollars.
JIM
Yes it is. You a dealer or an
investment counselor.
A JACK. A deuce. JIM indicates: hit me.
He loses. He looks at AMY. Then he holds out the ROOM KEY.
She takes it.
He turns back to the table.
INT. CASINO. VARIOUS
Move onto a MONTAGE of JIM gambling, at everything, with
everything.
INT. A TERRIBLE ORANGE ROOM AT THE CASINO HOTEL. NIGHT
AMY is sitting in bed watching television. The door opens,
off, and JIM comes in. He has obviously lost everything.
He looks at her, and then goes into the bathroom.
He looks at himself, then he goes back out into the room, to
be confronted by Amy who has come to her feet.
AMY
Everything?
He looks at her and nods. He starts to strip off his jacket,
and she stops him.
AMY (CONTD)
No, were getting out of here.
She puts his jacket back on. She buttons it.
AMY (CONTD)
(very seriously)
Were getting out of here.
EXT. THE DESERT AT JOSHUA TREE. DAY
A HUGE SHOT OF THE DESERT.
Wind, deviled dust.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

62.

JIM wakes in the shadow of a boulder, lying on a blanket. He

sits up.
Amy is nowhere to be seen.
JIM grabs water and walks a little way out into the desert.
Giant rock formations all around, looking like human faces,
like Gods.
He comes to a little hill and sits on it looking down across
a plain. The moment seems to be biblical. JIM, face whitened
by dust, stares into himself, using the desert as a mirror.
Amy sits down beside him and he doesnt react.
Then after a moment he puts an arm around her.
JIM
I was in Morocco once and the
muzzein was going and the palms...a
wind came up and they rattled and I
thought, you know, I hope that
isnt god. Because if God existed I
couldnt deal with the humiliation.
No one needs that class of
competition. Whatever Descartes
says, games over, if theres a
god. Theres no game if theres a
god.
He looks at her.
JIM (CONTD)
Do you know that Im not a gambler?
She nods.
JIM (CONTD)
Do you know that if you saw me with
a needle in my arm that Im not a
junkie?
AMY
I saw you being a professor for
three years and I know youre not
one of those.
JIM
It's good to come out here. It's
good.
AMY
What about just being alive?

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

63.

JIM
Not good enough. Theres something
else. I dont quite know what it
is. I know a lot but I dont know
that. I have always sat on a
blanket in the middle of nowhere
with nothing around me but infinite
possibilities and Im sick of it.
AMY
High class of problem.
JIM
Well, I dealt with it. I reduced my
possibilities. I reduced everything
to a game. Ill live, or not. Ill
accept either way it goes.
BACK in the car, a cellphone rings. We stay on the car as it
rings and rings.
Then to Jims face, watching.
INT. A PRIVATE HOSPITAL ROOM. DAY
ED'S TRICKLING BAG is still filled with bile, but ED himself
is unconscious. Mere days have done him in. JIM sits beside
his bed in the room. ED comes awake, suddenly: and looks
around in wonder. He finally focuses on JIM.
ED
So what are you gonna do for me?
He looks around.
ED (CONTD)
We're gonna be straight that I've
had it. Everybody else is full of
baloney.
JIM
I'm gonna miss you...
ED looks at the accoustic tiled ceiling.
ED
Fuck that. I won't know about that.
I need to know what you're worth
when I leave you nothing.
JIM
I'm not...I've been...

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

64.

ED is waiting.
JIM (CONTD)
Sometimes...it's hard to give a
fuck.
ED
If you think life is hard you
should try this.
I know.

JIM

ED
You're a lucky fucker if you can't
do anything. Easy then. Take
orders. Nobody comes up and says
lead men into battle, whatever. Who
wants the world at their feet?
(looks at JIM)
It's confusing, isn't it.
JIM
I'll do the best I can. You can go
knowing that.
ED
You'll have to. I haven't changed a
lick of paperwork.
ED smiles and extends his hand to shake.
JIM smiles, and takes his grandfather's hand.
ED (CONTD)
In the original sense, farewell.
You're me now, if you'll have it.
EXT. A LOS ANGELES CEMETERY. DAY
JIM stands in a black suit, white shirt, one hand clasping a
wrist, watching as ED'S COFFIN is lowered into the ground.
ROBERTA stands some distance away, alienated one from the
other.
MOMENTS later
ROBERTA drops EARTH on the COFFIN.
Then JIM steps forward, picks up some dust, and does the
same.
MOMENTS LATER

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

65.

Jim is moving fast through the breaking up crowd, avoiding

ROBERTA, who stares after him, avoiding YOUNG MALE COUSINS
trying to come up to speak to him. He gets out of the GATES
of the cemetery and goes along to AMY'S parked and waiting
RABBIT, half a block down the road. As he moves along, he
sees that across the street is a BLACK MERCEDES containing
the two KOREAN HEAVIES. He ignores them, puts his sunglasses
on, and slips into AMY's CAR.
JIM
I want you to take off like a bat
out of hell and take a left on the
next street.
AMY
Where are we going?
JIM
Anywhere but my place.
EXT. AMYS BUILDING. DAY
It is an older Hollywood apartment building near Koreatown,
with an interesting penthouse. The unlit sign at the top
reads: LOS ALTOS. Angle on that.
INT. AMYS KITCHEN. CONTINUOUS
AMY moves back and forth, making tea. JIM sits, tired
mourning, the usual intensified sea of troubles. As in the
rest of the apartment she does not have much stuff. CUPBOARD
SHELVES are filled with BOOKS. Apart from books, she has
barely anything at all. A kettle, a pot, a cup. A beautifully
chosen thrift store table, at which JIM sits, admiring the
sun-filled room. Amy moves back and forth, making tea.
Thank you.

JIM

She sits down across from him and looks at him. She has had a
shower: her hair is still wet.
He continues to look around the room, registering its
normality.
AMY
Have you seen anybody?
What?

JIM

AMY
Have you seen anybody?

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

JIM
In what sense.
AMY
In the I have a problem sense.
JIM
Its not that sort of problem.
Cognition is the least of my
worries. I am the world expert.
What should I do, go and get advice
for middle management, a member of
the Kiwanis Club?
AMY smiles.
JIM (CONTD)
I'm in a situation where the only
way to stop what I'm doing is to do
it. You do one thing...and move on
to something else.
AMY
Do or die trying?
JIM
It's the only acceptable thing.
He stares off.
JIM (CONTD)
I'm in trouble. I'll not be, or I
won't be. That's not much to base
anything on.
AMY
You did it on purpose.
JIM
Yeah. I told you in the desert.
AMY
I need to know youre going to make
it.
JIM
No, you need to not care, cause I
can't tell you.
He finishes his tea.

66.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

JIM (CONTD)
If I come to your door, then I'll
have made it, and everything can
start to be all right. If I don't
come, then I didn't make it and
what you do with the dead is bury
them.
He gets up and gets his coat.
She nods.
All right.

AMY

He goes out the door.

EXT. A CAFE ON SUNSET BOULEVARD. DAY
TWO BENTLEYS parked. NEVILLE is at a table with JIM.
NEVILLE
My man over there said you dropped
the dime to the mega family and was
out of the country.
JIM
Why would I be out of the country.
NEVILLE
So you dont die.
JIM
Everybody dies.
NEVILLE
Youre not afraid of dying of
something other than natural
causes?
JIM
Not really.
NEVILLE
What about severe fuckin
discomfort. You afraid of that?
JIM
I gotta take whatevers coming
because I dont have the money.
NEVILLE
You dont have the money?

67.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

JIM
I don't have any money. My
grandfather thought it was a
character builder.
NEVILLE
Not even Ill have it? You just
say no? You pay the Korean any of
his?
No.

JIM

NEVILLE
Sorry about the old man. He was a
motherfucker.
Thank you.

JIM

NEVILLE
There's no fuckin' Mexico to go to
now. No more than there's an
America. No place they can even
drag your ass to. No New World
except maybe in the stars when
we're all dead. So we deal with
where we are.
JIM
We deal with where we are.
NEVILLE
You know Lamar Hampton?
No.

JIM

NEVILLE
Dont fuck with me.
JIM
Student of mine.
NEVILLE
Thing about Lamar is hes from
white people land.
(MORE)

68.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

69.

NEVILLE (CONT'D)
He has a uncle though who is deep
in the old neighborhood, in truth
defines the neighborhood, and in
deep in trouble in the hood, and if
I may say so talks a lot of shit
about Lamar, because you see, hes
a lost soul, the uncle, one of
Americas poor, also stupid as a
bag of fuckin hammers, and Lamar,
you see, is the ship he expects to
come in. If a man is in having his
leg broke and he says my nephew is
Lamar Hampton, maybe he does not
have his leg broke.
JIM
Whats this got to do with
anything?
NEVILLE
You know what its got to do with
everything. How much you know
Lamar?
JIM
I couldnt say I know him.
NEVILLE
You know his phone number? Cause
his uncle dont. His uncle dont
even know his own sisters phone
number or exactly where she live.
JIM
I dont have his phone number.
NEVILLE
I never had a professor didnt have
my phone number or couldnt get it.
INT. JIMS HOUSE. BATHROOM. NIGHT
He goes into the bathroom, starts the water running into the
tub. He stares at the water. After hesitating, he turns the
radio on.
ANNOUNCER
Hamptons at the top of the key,
looks to get inside, cant, now
goes behind the back to Franklin
who one-bounces to Jamal Kendal who
turns and fakes and passes to
Hampton. Hampton hooks and hits!
(MORE)

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

70.

ANNOUNCER (CONT'D)
And he was fouled! Yes and it
counts! 88 to 30, UCLA by 11!
COLOR MAN
Quite apart from the great night
that UCLA is having generally, Bob,
its another stellar night for
Lamar Hampton, who seems to have no
limit to what he can do with the
ball this season...If he continues
he...
But it stops there because JIM has pressed the button again,
and his finger raises from it now. He turns away.
MOMENTS later
JIM lies in the bath, staring.
NOW show the more intense scenes in the desert: the first
wild desperate kiss.
In the bath, JIM closes his eyes, and turns his head to the
side.
INT. JIMS HOUSE. NIGHT. LATER
JIM pulls down all the shades, stares briefly at the digits
flashing on his answering machine, signifying 27 calls,
equally stares at and ignores his mobile on the counter, then
takes the mobile and drops it into the filled sink. He
presses the button on the answering machine.
DEAN FULLER (V.O.)
Jim, this is Tom Fuller. Dean
Fuller. I hope theres nothing
wrong...You didnt come in today
...which of course you know...
Well. If you get this, call me. We
have to have a more general talk...
to see if we can...do something
about this situation. You know I am
your greatest proponent and, well,
and there are always things one
doesnt know about a persons
life...things that may mitigate
...and so forth...so Id prefer not
to do something without
JIM presses stop. He picks up the phone and dials. He gets a
machine. Waits out You have reached the office of Dean
Fuller...

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

71.

JIM
This is Jim. Look, youre a good
guy, but Im not coming back, and I
never should have started. Im
sorry. Ill be by to get my things.
He hangs up and looks into the empty refrigerator. Closes the
door. Then switches on the radio: more commentary on the
ongoing game. JIM switches that off as well, then pours a
drink and goes out onto the porch and stares out over Los
Angeles.
INT. JIMS HOUSE. DAY
Broad sunlight is shining into Jims room. He fell asleep
apparently trying to read, of all things. When his eyes open
he sees:
MISTER LEE, sitting in the armchair in the corner.
MISTER LEE
What are we to do?
A BIG KOREAN stands in the doorway. He is in the final act of
disassembling Jims gun. He tosses the pieces on the
bedspread.
MISTER LEE (CONTD)
Human weakness is not something I
discourage. How could I? I make my
living from on one hand stupidity,
and on the other hand error or the
part of those who should know
better. But I have to expect that a
person wants to live and will do
anything to live. Nothing makes
sense if this is not the case.
JIM watches him.
MISTER LEE (CONTD)
Debt is a terrible thing. I have
not been in debt for many years but
I remember the feeling. To be
obligated, unclean. Embarrassed.
And I merely had credit card debt
and a mortgage. Nothing like you?
JIM takes this all on without comment.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

72.

MISTER LEE (CONTD)

I think you want to hurt yourself,
but make others do it for you.
You're not gambling to win. You
want it all to be over.
JIM cant answer. He looks at the HUGE KOREAN, who is staring
at him.
MISTER LEE (CONTD)
I come to see you myself because
youre an interesting man. Youre
an educated man. Ordinarily, my
associates would come without me.
JIM
Im not going to tell you Ill get
the money, because I dont know if
I can. I wouldnt insult you.
Thank you.

MISTER LEE

JIM
I have made...errors. I could tell
you Ive realized that I wish I
could turn over a new leaf, that
I'll try to, but it doesnt make
any difference, and Im not going
to make any case for myself
whatsoever, because there is no
case. I have no position. Theres
only one thing that matters.... You
expected your money and I dont
have it. There we are.
MISTER LEE
How am I to collect?
JIM
Loan me another hundred thousand.
MISTER LEE stares, sitting with his palms on his thighs in a
shaft of sunlight.
JIM (CONTD)
Its how I got in. Its the only
way Ill get out.
MISTER LEE cocks his head.
The KOREAN heavies start to laugh, and JIM laughs, too. Then
he is conducted to the bathroom and his head is plunged into
the toilet.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

73.

LATER
JIM sits against the bathroom tiles, clutching a towel in his
lap. OFF, we hear the car doors close and the Koreans drive
away. He struggles to his feet and looks at the mirror, on
which has been written, in soap:
"MUNDAY"
JIM (CONTD)
That's not how you fucking spell
it.
He shoulders out of the room.
CUT TO:
EXT. JIMS HOUSE. DAY
A WOMAN in a business suit and high heels is struggling to
put the twin stakes of a metal a For Sale sign into the
earth through the ground cover just off Jims driveway.
INT. JIMS HOUSE. DAY
JIM purposeful, dressed, shaved watches a BOOKSTORE GUY
with a gray ponytail examining a book, writing down a price
in a buckled notebook, and then putting the book into a box.
He is pricing out Jims library.
JIM
Anything you dont want, stack it
in the fireplace.
BOOKSTORE GUY
Theres not too much here that I
dont want.
JIM takes a last look and goes out.
INT. BEVERLY HILLS JEWELRY STORE. DAY
An IRANIAN JEWELER, wearing a great deal of gold, is
examining Jims watch.
JEWELER
Perfectly good watch. Why do you
want to sell it?

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

JIM
Either I dont need to know what
time it is, or I need money. What
do you care?
JEWELER
I need to know if it is...
JIM places his CA DRIVERS LICENCE on the case.
JIM
What you need to do is to come up
with an offer, or not.
JEWELER
There are so many of these...
JIM looks away, annoyed, as the bullshit starts.
JIM
Look, thats an Omega. Its worth
more than six thousand brand new,
and when you have it, no one will
know it isnt brand new.
JEWELER
You are insulting me.
JIM
Were not going to fuck around, no
no no, dont talk to me, I dont
want you to name a price any more,
and I need you to understand that
when I say what I want for it, I am
giving you the figure that I will
take for it. Do you understand me
no, no, no. No no. Look at me. I
will say the price and you will
either say yes, or no.
JEWELER
It is impossible to...
All right.

JIM

He puts the watch in his pocket.

JEWELER
Wait wait wait.

74.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

75.

JIM
No. I told you not to say anything
but yes or no. Youre wasting my
time.
JEWELER
I am willing to listen to your
price.
JIM
You cant counter it. When I say my
figure, thats the figure, and you
either say yes or no. You got it?
JEWELER
How can I say yes or no until I
hear the price?
JIM
Youre not getting it.
JEWELER
I am getting it, I am getting it.
JIM puts the watch on the counter pad again and the Jeweler
picks it up. He wants it.
JIM
You need to understand fully that
what I say is not an opening
figure. You can say yes or no, you
cannot say a lower figure and
expect to meet at some point in the
middle. Do you understand?
JEWELER
Yes, yes, I understand. What is
your price?
JIM
You cant say another price.
JEWELER
I know I know I know I get it.
JIM
Three thousand five hundred
dollars.
JEWELER
(involuntarily)
One thousand.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

76.

JIM takes the watch and goes. ON JEWELER, as the door chime
goes:
JEWELER (CONTD)
Twelve hundred!
EXT. THE STREET OUTSIDE. DAY
JIM is walking away quickly when the JEWELER catches him at
the head of the crosswalk.
JEWELER
I cant help myself.
JIM
Yes you can.
The JEWELER looks confused.
JEWELER
Two thousand.
JIM presses the WALK BUTTON.
JEWELER (CONTD)
Why dont you let a man do
business?
JIM
Because you want to go home and sit
there chuckling tonight about how
you skinned a guy on his watch. You
dont need the watch, you just want
the watch. Where the need comes
in is you needing to fuck me up the
ass in order for you to feel all
right about yourself.
JEWELER
I am in business! You dont
understand!
JIM
Thirty five hundred dollars. Cash.
JEWELER
(involuntarily)
Two thousand two hundred.
(in a panic as JIM starts
off)
OK, OK, three thousand.
JIM leans his head against a lamp-post.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

77.

JIM
If I allow you to beat me for five
hundred dollars, only if, only if,
if you give me cash, instead of a
check, will you just shut up and
give me the money?
Yes.

JEWELER

JIM
You cant say anything else.
JEWELER
I wont say anything else.
JIM
You promise.
JEWELER
I promise to God.
JIM
I need you to promise because
youre fucking pathological.
The JEWELER touches his heart.
JEWELER
Please, we will have tea.
As they walk in tandem back to the store:
JEWELER (CONTD)
I dont have the cash.
JIM
Ill take a check.
EXT. A CAFE IN BEVERLY HILLS. DAY
JIM is sitting at a table under an umbrella, sunglasses on, a
beer in front of him. A NEWSPAPER shows a picture of ED. He
looks up as Amy sits down. They sit there silently.
AMY
Theres quite a lot of talk over at
the department.
JIM
Good. I dont care.
He drinks some of his beer.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

JIM (CONTD)
I already cashed out my IRA through
the credit union. Im selling my
books...Im selling my house. I
wont make any money on it. Its a
short sale.
AMY
What are you doing?
JIM
Oh, I'm raising money.
AMY
To pay everybody back.
JIM looks at her and doesn't answer.
AMY (CONTD)
I sit here and I wonder did I
precipitate some sort of breakdown.
JIM
There was a student...just the
other day...who said that my
problem, if ones nature is a
problem, rather than just
problematic, is that I see things
in terms of victory or death, and
not just victory but total victory.
And its true: I always have. Its
either victory, or dont bother.
The only thing worth doing is the
impossible. Everything else is
gray. Youre born... as a man...
with the nerves of a soldier, the
apprehension of an angel, to lift a
phrase, but there is no use for it.
Here? Wheres the use for it?
Youre set up to be a philosopher
or a king or Shakespeare, and this
is all they give you? This? Twentyodd years of school which is all
instruction in how to be ordinary
...or theyll fucking kill you,
they fucking will, and then it's a
career, which is not the same thing
as existence... I want unlimited
things. I want everything. A real
love. A real house. A real thing to
do...every day. I'd rather die if I
don't get it.

78.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

79.

A BENTLEY has pulled up at the curb. Two BLACK GUYS in it,

staring at JIM.
AMY
Please dont go with them.
He gets up and walks over to the car. HEAVY ONE (who is
really heavy) holds the back door open, and then gets in with
JIM and HEAVY TWO in the back, and the car pulls off.
INT. BENTLEY. MOMENTS LATER
The DRIVER is singing Weezers Beverly Hills as JIM rides
crammed between the two HEAVIES, Rodeo to Wilshire.
HEAVY ONE
Your house for sale.
JIM
Gotta raise some money somewhere.
HEAVY ONE
In this market I wouldnt count on
the real estate.
(to HEAVY TWO)
Check him.
HEAVY TWO goes through every one of Jims pockets and only
comes up with a few dollars and the fresh CHECK from the
jeweler.
HEAVY ONE (CONTD)
Whats this?
JIM
Sold my watch.
HEAVY ONE
This aint gonna cover it.
HEAVY TWO throws a bag over Jims head, a hotel laundry bag
from the Peninsula, and tightens the draw string, shoving Jim
onto the floor of the car. Heavy two counts out the money
that Jim did have - thirty two bucks, puts it in his pocket
and settles in to enjoy the ride.
HEAVY TWO
My theory is, theres no need to be
unpleasant.
(MORE)

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

80.

HEAVY TWO (CONT'D)

My associate here would like to
beat your fuckin head in until the
shit youve got for brains was all
over the fucking upholstery, but
thats more about his nature than
necessity. I expect you know your
situation is serious and lets leave
it at that. Internet age dont
solve anything but you leave your
laptop up and running when youve
got Find my iPhone open, homes,
then shit happens. As for your
books, that white dude with the
bald head and the stupid fuckin
pony tail is sending the check to
the right party, for the cover
price on everything, cause I
renegotiated for you, and I doubt
that realtor lady with her badly
unstaged open house is still as
cool about black people as she was
when she started her day, but all
in all its another perfect day in
Los Angeles and lets all get along.
Lets all just get along and be
really fuckin happy were not
somewhere else, because, you go off
LA, you go on it, but go home to
Detroit in February and you have no
fuckin trouble coming back out
here and having Los Angeles bend
over so you can kiss its ass. Stop
singing that Beverly Hills song,
man.
THE DRIVER DOES.
EXT. A STREET IN DOWNTOWN LA. DAY
The BENTLEY pulls into a little driveway beside a derelict
one story building that bears the sign AFRICA MEMBERSHIP
CLUB (which has a WHITE BUM talking to himself in the
boarded up entryway) and disappears behind the building.
INT. AFRICA MEMBERSHIP CLUB. DAY
THE PENINSULA LAUNDRY BAG is ripped off JIMS HEAD and he
reels back, blinking. NEVILLE sits looking at him, smoking a
cigar. He is wearing a perfect suit with English shoulders.
He is on the phone. He holds up a finger and turns away. THE
AFRICA MEMBERSHIP CLUB is a former function hall.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

81.

RAT TRAPS are set along the walls. An unexplained white

tennis shoe lies on the floor with blood on it.
HEAVY ONE
You scared?
JIM
Thats my problem.
HEAVY ONE rummages for water behind the bar.
HEAVY ONE
We have Fiji and this stuff.
JIM
Doesnt matter.
JIM catches a flipped water.
HEAVY TWO
When did it all become about
hydration?
HEAVY ONE
Recently, man. Recently. In my
youth, everybody was carbo-loading.
JIM drinks water. HEAVY TWO comes up to him, looks at him,
and says:
HEAVY TWO
Sit the fuck down with your water.
JIM sits down. THE GANGSTA ends his call and comes forward
from the shadows at the end of the room.
NEVILLE
You gave me the wrong number for
Lamar. That is fuckin feeble. Do
you know what I also know?
JIM
Whats that?
NEVILLE
Do you think all Koreans are all
Korean and shit and dont
communicate with the American
Negro?
JIM
I dont know anything.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

NEVILLE
I hear that you asked Mister Lee to
stake you out of your situation.
That he give you enough to have
another shot at the title of the
worlds stupidest asshole. By the
way, you are not to say anything to
Mister Lee about the information I
have, lest he speculate about the
source.
JIM
If you have a source you know he
didn't give me anything.
NEVILLE
You do know that all of your money
is mine.
JIM
All of it forever or just what I
owe you.
NEVILLE
Dont be ridiculous. All of it
forever.
JIM
If that were true were not talking
money any more, and you better kill
me, because my only option then,
because Im not the worlds
stupidest white asshole, would be
to kill you. I want to pay you off,
not to be married to you.
NEVILLE
All right, all right, I only want
my money.
JIM
Then I can deal with that.
NEVILLE
Youre going to tell me how youre
gonna make good on your debt right
now. Gimme Lee's money.
JIM
He didn't front me any.
Fuck you.

Neville

82.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

JIM
Your information's wrong.
NEVILLE
How you gonna pay me?
JIM
Well. What if I told you I quit my
job and Im going to write a novel.
NEVILLE
Yeah, what the first one make?
JIM
With the advance and royalties,
seventeen thousand dollars all in.
NEVILLE
Fuck me. For one of the better
reviewed first novels of 2007? I
think we have to make some other
arrangements. The culture evidently
has. Let's talk cash first and
other business later. You cant get
cash from your family?
JIM
I got all I could get.
NEVILLE
Could I get cash from your family
if I sent you down to Mexico
whoops, I dont know what happened
to him and had my friend Valerio
send them your dick?
JIM
My grandfather didnt make his
money because he pays up easy.
NEVILLE
Well thats apparently genetic.
Genetics is a cruel fuckin
mistress. Would you come up with
any money if I lit this cigar and
put it out on your eyeball?
JIM
Im not a magician.

83.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

NEVILLE
If you didnt think you was fuckin
magic occasionally you wouldnt be
in the Africa Membership Club
sitting there with a bottle of Fiji
water owing me almost two hundred
thousand dollars. Guess what?
What?

JIM

NEVILLE
I already asked your grandfather.
He sits down, affably.
NEVILLE (CONTD)
You see, my lawyer went to his
lawyer, and his lawyer came back to
my lawyer and said Fuck you.
JIM
Did he say it just like that?
NEVILLE
As a matter of fact he did. Im
gonna need the equity in your
house. Well paper it right. As a
sale. But that means I have to take
over the fuckin mortgage and get
some goddamned vice president of
animation or some other cocksucker
to rent it and I dont like that
shit. But you gotta make the turnip
bleed from whatever hole its got.
I respect your grandfather. Hes a
businessman. He might even want you
to get your shit together at any
price, you paying all of it. Now
Lamar, who you gave me the wrong
phone number for...
JIM
Lamars a good kid, he doesnt need
any of this shit.
NEVILLE
Youre not gonna say you made a
mistake with the number?
JIM
No, I didnt. I gave you a fake
one. I made it up.

84.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

85.

NEVILLE
Well Mister Jones here is gonna
give you a real one.
HEAVY TWO punches JIM and knocks him out of the chair. The
skin is split by Jims left eye-socket. He pushes himself up
off the floor, and stands.
NEVILLE (CONTD)
Thats the last time you lie to me.
Lamar dont need your help. Every
man has to go it alone. Lamar has
to make his choice. Let him make
it. But Im not going to call him
now. It would merely confuse the
issue. Youre gonna get me Lamar.
It will be more than an
introduction. I dont want an
introduction any more. I want Lamar
doing what I need him to do without
him ever seeing my face.
Deniability is where its at. I
hear Lamar is all Hamlet and shit
because he wants to go pro.
JIM
(bleakly)
Yeah he does.
NEVILLE
I need Lamar, and I need him before
they play Michigan tomorrow at
home. Theyre running eight points
on Michigan. You tell Lamar if he
wants he can win by seven - no
more. But you get him for tomorrow.
Or Ill kill every member of your
family and show you the pictures
before I kill you. Can I consider
you incentivized?
JIM stares at him.
INT. JIMS OFFICE. ENGLISH DEPARTMENT. DAY
He is cleaning out rubbish, papers, whatever. He isnt really
cleaning. He sits down and looks at the chair in which Amy
once sat. It stands, an ordinary chair, in a fall of light.
He runs a coin over his fingers, thinking. Then looks up at a
sound: JONES is there.
JONES
May I come in?

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

86.

JIM shrugs.
May I sit?

JONES (CONTD)

JIM is uncomfortable with that.

JIM
Thats a tricky chair. Why dont I
stand.
Well.
Well.

JONES
JIM

JONES
I thought the end would be heroic
in some way. Not just not showing
up.
JIM
Well now, however it happened, now
youre the Shakespeare guy. Roads
open, brother. I hope you seriously
give a fuck because I dont and it
would be nice to think that someone
did. Be all that you can be and
have a nice day.
JONES
We clubbed together and got you
something.
He rummages in his bag and brings out a small wrapped GIFT.
JIM reluctantly takes it.
JONES (CONTD)
In all honesty I wish you were
disliked. But you know thats not
the case and from time to time I
have found you admirable, charming,
compelling, and stupendously
fucking brilliant, much to my
horror. Though your erasure from
the department can only be viewed,
from my perspective, as a positive

LAMAR has ducked through the door and towers over JONES.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

87.

JONES (CONTD)
Good afternoon...I am not void of
the fear that you will go on and
through some endeavor or
accomplishment, make my existence
seem comparatively wretched....
LAMAR
Did I come in at the wrong time?
JIM
No, he was just finishing up saying
that he wishes I was dead.
JONES
Well. Bonne chance.
He ducks out. JIM sit looking at Lamar.
Sit down.

JIM

LAMAR does. JIM cant speak to him yet. LAMAR looks at Jim.
LAMAR
What happened to your face, man?
JIM
A little while ago you came to me
for advice about turning pro. I
know its about your knee. I know
you have a feeling you have to put
money in the bank.
LAMAR
I do, man. Im afraid every day
that the knee will go. Im afraid
every day anyone will even notice
it, because then I get...
JIM
Howd you like to make two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars in two
hours?
LAMAR
Depends on what you have in mind.
JIM
Throwing a game. You cant beat
Michigan by more than seven points.
LAMAR takes that on.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

88.

LAMAR
Well thats not throwing a game.
Thats winning by less than eight.
Thats not throwing a game. Who
wants me to do it?
JIM points to his eye.
LAMAR (CONTD)
What they got on you?
JIM
It doesnt matter.
LAMAR
I dont want to talk to nobody; I
dont want to see nobody; I dont
want to hear no names. Ill take
the money from you -- and Ill take
it up front.
JIM
Thats the way it works.
JIM reaches beneath his desk and brings up a SPORTS BAG. He
puts it on the desk. LAMAR looks into it.
LAMAR
They fucked you up? They didnt
need to fuck you up. Id have done
it.
JIM
I needed it. Theyll fuck you up if
you need it, too. You gotta
deliver.
LAMAR holds the bag.
LAMAR
I bet you wish I dont take this.
JIM
Thats up to you.
LAMAR takes the bag.
LAMAR
Im not gonna be immortal in this
game. Pretty soon Im just gonna be
a real fuckin tall dyslexic guy
selling fuckin Buicks. Im gonna
take what I can get.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

89.

JIM nods.
LAMAR (CONTD)
I take this bag I get you out of
trouble?
JIM nods.
LAMAR (CONTD)
Thats the other reason to do it.
He stands up. At the door he says:
LAMAR (CONTD)
This is nothing on you. I done it
before. I need you to know that.
JIM nods.
LAMAR goes.
JIM slowly unwraps the package given to him by the asshole on
behalf of the department. Inside is a small statue: a
representation of a bird: ideogrammatically, Freedom itself.
JIM
Well all right.
EXT. DEPARTMENT CORRIDOR. DAY
JIM is moving fast through the crowded hall, not looking at
anybody, not speaking to anybody. He passes the Deans office
and keeps moving even though the dean has spotted him and has
come to the door. Amy falls in beside him.
AMY
What happened to your eye?
JIM
Whatever happened it already
happened and it wont happen again.
AMY
You're starting to make promises?
He stops and looks at her.
JIM
I think I am.
JONES is there:

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

JONES
Did you open it?
JIM
Yes. Very nice, thank you.
JONES
I didnt pick it myself.
JIM
I could sorta tell that, Larry,
thank you anyway.
AMY
Whats going on?
JIM
Im getting out of here as fast as
I can and as everybody and their
aunt is eyeballing me right now it
might be better if you werent
chasing along as if youre my wife,
unless you want to be, in which
case I dont mind.
AMY
Jesus Christ.
JIM
I tell the truth. That's all I got.
That first sight thing really
works. I want you to stop looking
concerned, I want you to stop
walking with me, and I want you to
shake my hand, and let me say
goodbye to you.
She looks more worried.
JIM (CONTD)
Youve got months to go here and
you dont need the trouble. Hold
out your hand and say goodbye.
She holds out her hand.
JIM (CONTD)
Goodbye, Ms Phillips. Good luck.
AMY
Goodbye, Professor Bennett.
Goodbye.

JIM

90.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

91.

He surges on.
INT. A DARK SPORTS BAR. DAY
A higher-end old line bar in the Valley with red banquettes
and just a few customers. Jim comes in from the blinding
light and removes his sunglasses. FRANK and BIG ERNIE sit at
the bar watching a basketball game on a huge television and
eating peanuts. A moronic din. JIM comes up.
FRANK
Sit down.
(a beat)
Do you drink? I dont remember if
you drink. Of course theres drink
and drink. I drink but I havent
been drunk since Reagan was
president. Gods honest truth. I
got a DUI. And in jail I actually
fell down and pissed my pants. You
dont need to do that twice. I am
telling you this so you know that
everybodys been there.
BIG ERNIE
Everybodys been there.
FRANK
Once. If youre there twice...after
having been there once....I cant
help you. You know I listen to the
drunks, and its like youre
listening to a fairy story about a
fight with a fuckin monster when
the actual title of the story is I
cant handle my liquor, by Mr
Crybaby.
Amen.

BIG ERNIE

FRANK
I dont know, maybe they have a
problem, but fuck 'em if they do,
cause I dont. Which leads me to
ask: are you pulling this shit just
now, or forever.
JIM doesnt answer.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

FRANK (CONTD)
I mean do you have a problem? Wah
wah wah like some little fucking
girl wah wah wah, or some Somali
who cant process that theres no
food where they live, or are you
just fucked up temporarily because
youre temporarily fuckin stupid.
BIG ERNIE
Are you long business or short
business?
JIM
Whats the difference right now?
FRANK
I need to know if you have the
fuckin brains to walk when its
time to walk. People dont, you
know? Ball players who cant play
any more, assholes trying to
maintain a standard of living not
possible any more. Lot of them
around. Ive seen you be half a
million dollars up.
JIM
Ive been up two and a half million
dollars.
FRANK
What you got on you?
Nothing.

JIM

FRANK
What you put away?
Nothing.

JIM

FRANK
You get up two and a half million,
any asshole in the world knows what
to do.
(MORE)

92.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

FRANK (CONT'D)
You get a house with a twenty five
year roof, an indestructable Jap
economy shitbox, and you put the
rest into the system at three to
five percent to pay your taxes, and
thats your base, get me, thats
your Fortress of Fuckin Solitude,
and you are for the rest of your
life at a level of fuck you.
Someone wants you do do something?
Fuck you. Boss pisses you off?
Fuck you. Own your house, have a
few bucks in the bank, dont drink,
thats all I have to say to anybody
at any social level. Did your
grandfather take risks?
Yes.

JIM

FRANK
I can guarantee he did it from a
position of fuck you. Which is
what he means to you when he says
fuck you also, and what he would
mean when he said fuck you to me.
The wise mans life is based around
fuck you. The United States of
America is based on fuck you.
Youre a king? You have an Army,
the greatest Navy in the history of
the world? Fuck you, blow me.
Well fuck it up ourselves.
(raises his drink)
Which we have done. Beautiful fuck
you position, lost forever. King
George the Third looks like a
fuckin birthday present.
(to BARTENDER, with Zapata
mustache)
This is the grandson of the
seventeenth richest man in
California.
BARTENDER
Does he drink?
JIM waits it out.

93.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

FRANK
What he wants is money because he
doesnt know when to say Thats
it, Im two million ahead, fuck it,
fuck you, I have a car and a house
and a family, its all paid for,
fuck you.
BIG ERNIE
Even I did that, of course its out
by Pearblossom.
JIM
Ill have a beer. Just like anybody
else.
What kind.
Any kind.

BARTENDER
JIM

BARTENDER
I got thirty seven beers. Dont put
this on me.
FRANK
He fuckin put it on you.
THE BARTENDER goes.
FRANK (CONTD)
You still owe large, two places you
shouldnt. Why you want door number
three?
JIM
How else do I get out?
FRANK
Time payments, sell your sperm,
sell your ass, how the fuck should
I know. Your grandfathers boat
ever go to Mexico?
JIM
Its been to Mexico many times.
FRANK
What if it stayed there.
JIM stares at the bar.

94.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

95.

FRANK (CONTD)
Im not saying I need you to get
the keys, I could do it myself.
Well not personally. But me selling
a fifty million dollar yacht to
some narco for ten percent of its
value would not absolve you. You
havent looked at this game once.
Whats wrong with you, you dont
watch sports?
JIM
Its watching other guys do things.
FRANK
Sos readin.
Theres a point: Jim concedes it.
FRANK (CONTD)
Im so sick about that ColumbiaBrown game, Im lucky I can swallow
my fuckin drink. I got middled on
the game. Rotten lowlife Ivy League
faggots, no offense if youre a
lowlife Ivy League faggot.
JIM
None taken. I was at Harvard but I
have also been in Cleveland.
Neither experience was definitive.
FRANK
I am of the universe and you know
what its worth.
BIG ERNIE starts singing Yer Blues and pounding the bar.
BIG ERNIE
Yes Im lonely...wanna die....Yes
Im lonely...wanna die...etc.
FRANK
I give you this money, and you
dont pay it back, there are no
rules. You never, ever, get to say
fuck you to anybody. Youll get
not just what you owe me from your
grandfather, youll get me his
accounts so I can have them
vacuumed from Russia.
(MORE)

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

96.

FRANK (CONT'D)
You commit suicide, you can do it
knowing that Ill kill your whole
fuckin family. Do you understand
the gravity of your situation.
JIM
I understand.
FRANK
You get up? You get out.
He holds out car keys.
JIM
Whats this?
FRANK
This kinda money, whats a car.
What do you want to be able to say
to me?
Fuck you.

JIM

EXT. BAR PARKING LOT. DAY

JIM uses the key and looks into the trunk. There is a duffel
in it. He closes the trunk.
EXT. LOS ANGELES STREET. DAY
JIM is gassing up the car, standing with the hose, the moment
absolutely banal.
EXT. LOS ANGELES STREETS. DAY
JIM is driving around. He drives past the Africa Club...does
a u-turn, and looks at it. Bentleys parked in front. He sits
doing what he did at the beginning of the picture: snapping
his Zippo. He puts the car back into gear. Then into park.
Then back into gear, and drives off. After JIM is gone we see
LAMAR emerge into the light, wearing a hat, and get into one
of the Bentleys.
INT. CAR. DAY
JIM drives on.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

97.

INT. JIMS HOUSE. DAY

BLACK, barred with light. Then light bursts in as Jim removes
a ventilator panel (the air feed to his heater) and shoves
the DUFFEL in. Outside, sitting on the tiled floor of his
hallway, he replaces the Phillips screws, and screws them in.
He takes one last look at the VENTILATOR PANEL, then puts the
screwdriver way back on the top shelf of a closet. What hes
doing is maybe even obscure to himself. He straightens his
clothes. He walks into the living room and
BLACK.
INT. JIMS HOUSE. LATER
He comes to consciousness lying on the floor. The first thing
he can focus on are...shoes. Black, polished, shoes. A KOREAN
grabs Jims lapels in his fists and hoists him leglessly
upright.
MISTER LEE
Where is my money?
JIM
I dont have any money.
The KOREAN punches him twice, brutally, and lets him fall.
MISTER LEE sits fastidiously in his chair, palms on thighs,
feet together. He watches JIM crawl.
MISTER LEE
Debt. Its terrible. You make
promises. Impossible.
JIM sits back against the wall.
JIM
I didnt make promises.
You will.
I cant.

MISTER LEE
JIM

MISTER LEE
Why did you see Frank?
I didnt.

JIM

The BIG KOREAN kicks him.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

98.

JIM lies on the floor.

MISTER LEE
What can I do with you?
JIM sits up and says:
Stake me.

JIM

MISTER LEE stares at him as if he is a limitless curiosity.

And we:
CUT TO:
INT. ARENA. NIGHT
The basketball court at UCLA. A big crowd. JIM sits way up in
the Gods, watching down. NEVILLE and PART, of course, are
closer to the bench. The players of both teams are warming
up, and among them, swishing one, is LAMAR, looking cold and
complicated and alone. THE GAME AND HOW TO HANDLE IT: Shoot a
real game, then bring back a quarter of the crowd and all the
refs and players. LAMAR is the only actor and he must be a
great basketball player at the level his character is
intended to be. JIM watches uncertainly.
And let's go to TOBACK:
As the game progresses, several things become apparent:
(1) LAMAR (though looking flashy and, from appearances of
form, easily the best player on the court) is playing a
horrid game -- throwing the ball away, missing shots,
allowing his man to score. He is so good at his act that he
makes it appear to be a lack of quickness or grace on the
other players part that is to blame.
(2) The rest of the UCLA team is playing remarkably well.
Wild shots are falling through, loose balls are bouncing
lucky, rebounds are coming perfectly off.
(3) MICHIGAN is having a bad night. Only because of LAMARs
errors is anything at all going right for them. There is a
lid over the rim for their shooters and they throw the ball
away continually.
(4) Consequently, there is rising sense of panic in JIM (and
distress in FRANK). When LAMAR loses the ball to a Michigan
playing who in turn loses it to a UCLA player who scores, the
Michigan coach calls a time-out.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

99.

At this point UCLA leads 47 to 40 with 8:08 remaining in the

game so that JIM and ONE are only one point ahead of what
they need. JIM sees the coach motion LAMAR to the bench and
another player to get up to replace him. The new player joins
the huddle. LAMAR, on his way to the bench, glances up
nervously at
BACK TO MONAHAN:
NEVILLE and POSSE, sitting courtside.
UP IN THE BOOTH:
TWO JOCK-SNIFFERS, ANNOUNCER AND COLOR MAN.
ANNOUNCER
With one exception, UCLA has played
great ball tonight, and,
ironically, that exception is Lamar
Hampton, who has been the leader of
the club this season...he's having
a bad night...
COLOR MAN
He's lost the ball repeatedly and
his defense is sub-par.
ANNOUNCER
Let's be serious: a sub -par Lamar
is better than anybody else on this
court. We're judging Lamar by Lamar
and maybe that's not fair.
COLOR MAN
It's fair to judge a man against
his best.
On JIM (off this idea) as the buzzer sounds, ending the timeout. As the game recommences, JIM leaves the arena, fighting
his way through the crowd. The SCOREBOARD shows UCLA up by
exactly 5. JIM can't think about it: he keeps going. As he
goes we hear a roar from the crowd:
LAMAR puts on a dazzling exhibition of ball control - passing
up several easy shots as he dribbles out the clock: during
the last five seconds before the buzzer sounds to end the
game, he dribbles under the Michigan basket unmolested -passing up an easy chance to score - and then (the game
finished, the buzzer going) - twirls the ball on the tip of
his finger like a Harlem Globetrotter and stares over at
HIS COACH, who stares aghast.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

100.

LAMAR throws the ball away and walks off the court. UCLA has
won by exactly seven.
JIM, walking along, hears his cell phone ring. He looks at
the screen, which reads:
"DEXTER"
JIM
How's Vegas?
INT. AFRICA CLUB. NIGHT
NEVILLE is sitting in a ruptured banquette smoking a cigar
and drinking cognac. At another one nearby, HEAVY ONE AND TWO
are counting money. JIM stands there.
NEVILLE
Your boy delivered.
JIM nods.
NEVILLE (CONTD)
You delivered. You know how rare
that is? A man delivers? You get so
used to every motherfucker not
delivering that when one does, you
wanna cry.
JIM
So are we square?
NEVILLE looks hesitant: clever.
NEVILLE
What if I told you you keep your
job at the University forever and
you make sure you teach English 101
to a lot of tall brothers.
JIM
Id tell you to kill me.
NEVILLE
I get it. Have a drink.
JIM
Dont want one.
NEVILLE
You got your face fucked up by
Koreans.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

101.

JIM
Yeah I did.
NEVILLE
Thats just valedictory, man.
Youre just moving on to the next
phase of bullshit. You know what
the only trouble is with the game
tonight?
JIM
Whats that?
NEVILLE
Someone else bet a five point
spread. Now would you know who that
was?
JIM shakes his head.
INTERCUT:
DEXTER, in Vegas, handing over the very recognizable DUFFLE
OF CASH that Jim got from Frank.
No idea.

JIM

NEVILLE
You dont tip no one?
No.

JIM

NEVILLE takes this on: blows smoke into his glass: drinks.
NEVILLE
Whats your life plans?
JIM shrugs.
NEVILLE (CONTD)
Make part of it never seeing me
again. I dont need you, brother. I
have Lamar, forever. Hes going
pro, not doing his junior year.
I know.

JIM

NEVILLE
You think I want you out there
knowing that?

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

102.

Gestures over at the MONEY being counted.

NEVILLE (CONTD)
Knowing this?
JIM
Im gonna tell you that Im not
going to do you the discourtesy of
assuming what youre thinking, but
I know youre going to do the right
thing.
NEVILLE
Whys that?
JIM
Because thats what you do. Thats
what you are.
NEVILLE doesn't want to wear that halo.
NEVILLE
Why am I so fuckin' transparent.
JIM gets up.
NEVILLE (CONTD)
Odds still not in favor of you
getting out of the other mess
youre in, but youre done with me.
Were square.
Jim starts to go....and then...
JIM
No were not.
He sits down.
NEVILLE stares.
JIM reaches into his coat and puts an envelope on the table.
JIM (CONTD)
Thats the whole amount. And
points.
NEVILLE
Where you get it?
JIM
Borrowed it from Frank.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

103.

NEVILLE
Fuck you you did.
Ask him.

JIM

NEVILLE
I will ask him.
JIM
Then youll find out that I did.
NEVILLE LOOKS at the MONEY and then up at JIM. He knows
exactly what JIM did and
JIM knows that NEVILLE knows.
Finally NEVILLE puts the envelope in his coat and holds out
his hand.
NEVILLE
That Lamar was crooked anyway.
Everybodys ready to be bent, or
ready to be straight. Personally
Im ready to be straight. Get
myself a avocado farm or a winery.
I do what I have to do but Im not
a huge fan of low company. A man
can transform his shit.
JIM starts to go.
Brother.

NEVILLE (CONTD)

JIM stops, turns around.

NEVILLE (CONTD)
If I find out you suddenly paid
Frank back in any sort of mystery
fuckin situation, then I know what
you did. And nothing changes.
JIM nods, and goes.
EXT. JIMS HOUSE. NIGHT
JIMS BAGS are packed and by the door.
DEXTER, the tennis player, is sitting on one of the few
remaining bits of furniture, a hard chair in what used to be
the dining room. JIM is washing his face in the kitchen sink.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

104.

On the floor near Dexters feet is a backpack, at which he is

staring.
DEXTER
I have never done anything like
this. I didn't think I was gonna
get out of there alive.
JIM
Open it, and take out fifty grand.
that's yours.
DEXTER doesn't move.
DEXTER
Im gonna have my picture on the
Wheaties Box within fuckin months,
dude. Unless I'm on Youtube doing a
bong hit. I don't need it.
JIM
Do what you like. If you want to
make it a beau geste, I get it.
DEXTER
I take fifty grand you cant pay
back this Frank guy.
JIM
Im not using this to pay back the
Frank guy.
DEXTER
What was the point of me going to
Vegas then?
JIM
Obviously it wasnt to earn fifty
grand.
JIM looks out the window as a car passes slowly.
JIM (CONTD)
Its time to get away, Dexter. Far
away.
INT. CAR. NIGHT
JIM, driving downtown, picks his cell phone up off the seat,
and speed dials.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

JIM
Frank, its Jim. Ive
money. No, I cant go
thing is, you have to
Koreatown. The place,
place, right?

105.

got your
there. The
meet me.
you know the

INTERCUT FRANK in his own car.

FRANK
Everybody knows the place. Whether
I want you in that place with money
in your hands is another fuckin
story.
JIM
Thats the only place Ill meet
you.
FRANK
You have all the money plus
everything?
JIM
I have all the money plus
everything. I have all the money to
pay everything I owe to everybody.
FRANK
What do you do when youre in fuck
you position?
JIM
Weve had that discussion. You
gotta meet me there.
FRANK
If there was a list of places where
nobody gets ripped off I believe
thats at the top.
EXT. KOREATOWN. NIGHT
Establish a non-descript building with a corner entrance.
INT. KOREATOWN GAMBLING DEN HALLWAY. NIGHT
JIM comes up some stairs and heads down a corridor
door guarded by two KOREAN GUYS we have never seen
stops. One of them snaps his fingers and JIM hands
a CARD with Korean writing on it...a passport from
Lee.. and then, for inspection, the backpack.

towards a
before. He
over first
Mister

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

106.

The BIGGEST KOREAN looks up in wonder after inspecting what

is inside. Then they open the door...and Jim passes through
into...
INT. KOREATOWN GAMBLING DEN. NIGHT
...another world. At low tables around the room, Korean
businessmen are drinking and being served by submissive,
attentive, women. They refill the mens glasses and cut their
food for them.
JIM, backpack on his shoulder, stands looking at the GAMING
TABLES.
Blackjack, roulette, the usual. All games here are played
with CASH masses of cash, deployed by not only Asian
businessmen but serious and rich professional gamblers. In an
side room, poker is being played at a lighted baize table.
JIM refocuses on the roulette wheel, obsessively. He moves
forward. Then stops. All or nothing: what about nothing. For
the first time the tables have no allure.
MISTER LEE materializes.
MISTER LEE
You have my money?
JIM looks at him.
MISTER LEE (CONTD)
If you have the money, I advise you
not to play. It's all over.
JIM
I know that.
MISTER LEE
My partner is in the corner.
JIM looks, not wanting to. The PARTNER is a big Korean,
having his meat cut for him by a bottle girl. He is merely a
businessman...except for the security with folded arms. JIM
looks back at Mister Lee and then at the TABLES.
MISTER LEE (CONTD)
If you lose, the money does not go
to me.
JIM
I know that.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

107.

FRANK and BIG ERNIE have entered. They see JIM in the room,
standing with MISTER LEE, and instead of approaching (FRANK
looks worried), they move to the BAR, from which they can
observe JIM.
JIM is very aware of them: very aware too of Mister Lees
HEAVIES.
MISTER LEE
I cannot take money off you by
force in here.
JIM
I know that. Thats why were here.
They stare at each other.
MISTER LEE
You have enough money to pay me?
Yes.

JIM

MISTER LEE
You must come outside.
No.

JIM

MISTER LEE
You owe Frank?
JIM nods.
MISTER LEE (CONTD)
You are going to play?
JIM nods.
MISTER LEE (CONTD)
What are you going to play?
JIM
Everything.
You cant.

MISTER LEE

JIM
Its the only way Ill do it.
JIM is watching the ROULETTE WHEEL. The ball doing its thing.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

108.

JIM (CONTD)
Red or black, all or nothing. All
the money down. Thats all Ill do.
MISTER LEE
If you lose, you will not leave
here alive. I cant allow it.
JIM
Exactly. Is the table clean?
MISTER LEE
This is not my establishment.
This is terrifying: but JIM is committed.
JIM
Theyll take a sizeable bet?
MISTER LEE
That is what this establishment is
for.
Good.

JIM

MISTER LEE
Let me have my money.
JIM surges forward.
BIG ERNIE intercepts him.
BIG ERNIE
What the fuck are you doing?
JIM looks down at the hand holding his coat. A KOREAN BOUNCER
comes and deliberately removes BIG ERNIES HAND.
BIG ERNIE (CONTD)
What the fuck are you doing?
FRANK is standing alarmed by the bar. BIG ERNIE is hustled
out of the room, going along, because it would be very unwise
not to.
JIM goes to a table, unzips his backpack, and stacks his cash
on the table. He discards the backpack. He picks up the block
of cash and heads towards the roulette table.
JIM moves forward, fast, and puts HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF
THOUSAND DOLLARS in cash on the table, putting down one lump
after another.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

109.

The croupier stares.

Jims gaze wanders over the table...reds and blacks blurring.
He is dimly aware of SPECTATORS crowding in....FRANK...MISTER
LEE...
JIM
All on black.
THE CROUPIER spins the wheel. The ball goes into the wheel.
JIM closes his eyes and listens to the clatter of the ball.
IMAGES cascade through his mind: the DESERT SUNRISE, AMY in
the desert, his child staring at him from a basin in the
delivery room, his mother, himself leaning in a balcony
doorway and looking out over a foreign city on the best
morning of his life, an image of a typewriter, with a blank
page, on which we PUSH IN.
We are on his face, covered with sweat, when the clatter of
the ball stops. There is nothing but silence from the Korean
spectators.
JIM opens his eyes and sees:
THE BALL LYING IN BLACK.
JIM turns immediately from the table and begins walking out
of the establishment: out of everything.
FRANK is staring.
THE OWNER of the ESTABLISHMENT is standing right in front of
him. JIM walks up to him.
JIM (CONTD)
I was playing for Mister Lee, and
for that gentleman over there.
He points at FRANK who stands there stunned.
JIM (CONTD)
Im not actually a gambler.
Everyone watches as he crosses the room, and goes to the
door, and is let through by Koreans.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

110.

EXT. THE BUILDING IN KOREATOWN. NIGHT

FRANK and BIG ERNIE come out, escorted as far as the
sidewalk, carrying the winnings. FRANK looks around and sees:
JIM leaning against the black borrowed MERCEDES, flipping the
car key in his hand.
BIG ERNIE and FRANK come up to him. Theres not much to say.
JIM holds out the car key and FRANK takes it.
FRANK
You need a ride?
JIM shakes his head.
JIM
No, Ill walk. I feel like walking.
FRANK
You got anything on you?
JIM
Not a fucking cent, brother.
FRANK
Thats not fuck you position.
Yes it is.

JIM

FRANK
Then say it to me.
Fuck you.
Good boy.

JIM
FRANK

JIM shoves off the car and begins to walk down the old
downtown street: as SCORE comes up and carries us along into
his new world (needless to say this is about the music), we:
CUT TO:
EXT. THE LOS ALTOS BUILDING. NIGHT TOWARDS DAWN
ESTABLISH THE BUILDING, with its red "Los Altos" sign lit now
for the first time in the film.
We are at Jim's POV.

THE GAMBLER -- WM -- 1st DRAFT -- 3/5-7/12

111.

JIM stands across the street, head slightly cocked, looking

at the building, hands in the pockets of his coat. He seems
for a moment to have his old look, his solitary look, and
moves on along the sidewalk, to pass the Los Altos by...but
then he stops and looks again, and crosses the deserted
boulevard the way he walked towards the roulette wheel in
Koreatown.
MOMENTS LATER
He is leaning, humped in his coat, in the entrance way. He
takes a deep breath: he's redeemed: it's over. He reaches and
(in the greatest act of his life) presses the intercom
button.
FROM ACROSS THE BOULEVARD
We see JIM, now a small figure, waiting for the doorbell to
be answered. Finally he pushes through the glass and goes
inside and as a RED AND BLACK VAN wipes the screen very close
we go to
BLACK