The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)

 The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)

Directed & story by Bob Rafelson
Screenplay by Jacob Brackman

Atlantic City, NJ was a resort long past it’s most prosperous days in the early 1970s. In desperation of renewal casino gambling was legalized there in 1977, following that another sort of big buildup of new casino hotels, then Trump, then another downturn to present times.

One of the most interesting things about The King of Marvin Gardens is that it was shot in Atlantic City in 1972. That location shooting was quite extensive.

The cast is all star new Holywood of the day: Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Ellen Burstyn, with young and doomed Julia Anne Robinson, who died in an apartment fire in 1975 at age 24.

  It is the story of a couple of brothers. David (Nicholson) is a wannabe novelist who is a late night Philadelphia radio storyteller, sort of like Jean Shepherd. He has a dreamer older brother Jason (Dern). Jason is the kind of guy who is always looking for a big score. He thinks he’s a potential big business man, but actually is a small-time, petty operator with low level organized crime connections.
So Jason summons David to AC to get in on the big deal he has going on. He thinks he is going to buy an island in Hawaii and build a resort there.
He is living with two women. 40 year old Sally (Burstyn) and the younger Jessica (Robinson).
  Through the course of the story they run around and play in the off season AC while Jason tries to put together the big deal.

  The movie is mostly character study with fine performances and a lot of good old American hopefulness and dreaming in the dark.

  This is a classic New Hollywood movie, post Easy Rider. Actually it has a good deal in common with Easy Rider; a couple of young men trying to get out of the rat race by winning grandly at the American Dream. These guys don’t make out a lot better than the biker guys in Easy Rider do, but their characters are much more developed which makes it a more interesting movie to watch than Easy Rider and without all the counterculture youth music exploitation.