Lindsay Crouse
Margaret Ford
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Oct 14, 1987 · House of Games: Directed by David Mamet. With Lindsay Crouse, Joe Mantegna, Mike Nussbaum, Lilia Skala. A psychiatrist comes to the aid of a compulsive gambler and is led by a smooth-talking grifter into the shadowy but compelling world of stings, scams, and con men.
House of Games is a 1987 American neo-noir film about con-men and confidence scams by David Mamet, his directorial debut. He also wrote the screenplay, based on a story he co-wrote with Jonathan Katz. The film's cast includes Lindsay Crouse, Joe Mantegna, Ricky Jay, and J. T. Walsh.
Richard Osman's House of Games is a British quiz show hosted by Richard Osman and produced by Banijay UK Productions subsidiary Remarkable Entertainment for the BBC. The show is played on a weekly basis, with four celebrities playing on five consecutive days to win daily prizes, and the weekly prize of being crowned as "House of Games" champion.
It stars Crouse as a best-selling therapist whose patient has been threatened with broken legs by a gambler. She goes one night to the House of Games, crossing a street that is an Edward Hopper landscape, to confront the gambler (Mantegna). Through an open doorway, she sees a card game in progress.
Galvanized by David Mamet's punchy dialogue and a winding succession of surprises, House of Games is a terse thriller where confidence is currency. After one of her patients threatens suicide...
The gambler ( Joe Mantegna) has never heard anything like this before. But he offers her a deal: If she will help him fleece a high-roller Texan in a big-stakes poker game, he will tear up the marker. She does so. She also becomes fascinated by the backroom reality of these gamblers who have reduced life to a knowledge of the odds.
During a session one day, her patient Billy Hahn (Steve Goldstein) tells her his life is in danger because he owes money to a criminal figure named Mike Mancuso (Joe Mantegna), and threatens suicide, brandishing a gun. Margaret persuades him to surrender the weapon to her and promises that she will help him.
