Word: cardsharps
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Odious. About La Tour's life and character, very little is known. The man is faceless-the more so, because he left no known self-portrait; it is just possible that the quick-eyed, copper-haired young cheat at the right in The Cardsharp with the Ace of Diamonds may be La Tour himself. But his life is mostly conjecture, strung between a few documentary signposts. He was born in 1593, at Vic, a town in the duchy of Lorraine. At some time between 1610 and 1616, he is assumed to have gone to Italy and worked in Rome...
...Tour's themes was the vanity and vulnerability of youth; he embodied it in his extraordinary masterpiece The Cardsharp with the Ace of Diamonds. A boy, caparisoned in plumes, brocade and lace, is gambling against a courtesan who is about to get, from the cardsharp's waistband, the crucial ace. It is a familiar genre situation, but La Tour impregnated it with a subtle psychological tension. The shifty ballet of the eyeballs runs its counterpoint to the expressive gestures of the hands - the soft, uncertain dandyism in the boy, the momentary apprehension of the serving girl, whose glance...
...this new novel, his fifth to be issued in the U.S., Amado, 54, tells tall tales of Bahia, the great, sun-drenched seaport that the Brazilian government calls Salvador. The first of his three themes deals with the astonishing marriage of Corporal Martim-a cardsharp and famed capoeria* fighter-to Marialva, who is as beautiful as a saint in a procession but as dark and devious as Lilith. This story soon blends with one about Negro Massu and the christening of his blue-eyed son. There are problems here, since Ogun, the Voodoo god of iron, has been named godfather...
...Hand for the Little Lady may sound like a cue for applause, but the title actually refers to a cardsharp coup. Rigged to resemble a movie, this indoor western is really a hilarious old television show by Sidney Carroll, who has adapted his original for the large screen without obvious padding. Regrettably, though, the sneaky trick ending remains the sort of hokum that good writers have blue-penciled since O. Henry's heyday. Probably no one will object to the bottom dealing because Little Lady is handsome entertainment, mounted with leathery high spirits by a crew who would gladly...
Having dealt with the livestock, Debbie promptly takes on some other critters: a passel of outlaws, a crooked sheriff (Ken Scott) and a charming cardsharp (Steve Forrest) whose favorite game is stud. Elected sheriff, she soon has the bad guys where they belong, and the charmer where she wants him-making proposals instead of propositions...