Review of Winner Take All

Shirley Jones looks effectively wrung-out as a Los Angeles-area housewife, recently remarried to a widower with a small child, who has gambled away her new husband's savings; she's an addict who needs $30,000 to save her marriage. TV melodrama, framed by the lead character telling her story in a Gambler's Anonymous meeting, has a fine supporting cast backing Jones, including Laurence Luckinbill as her unsuspecting spouse, Joan Blondell as the owner of a gambling joint, Joyce Van Patten as a man-chaser who plays the ponies (and tells Jones, "losing is contagious!") and Sylvia Sidney as Shirley's exasperated but sympathetic mother. This teleplay doesn't allow Jones much relief; she's at the end of her rope, she continually makes poor decisions and, instead of sitting down with her husband and explaining her actions, she drives around town begging money from everyone she knows. Unpleasant (and unpleasantly pedantic: folks, don't let this happen to you!), but undeniably absorbing.