Picture this you have the money, the cameras the go ahead to make a movie like Shade what kind of scenes, cons, gambling moves or famous lines would you like to have put into your movie in order to make it a hit?

All ideas and plots are welcomed.

Doc

That will take some thinking about Doc. But make it as real to life as you can. It will be better than shade and every other card and con film I have seen.

Tommy

I would like a professional 3 Card Monte con done on a Monte box that I saw in the Scoundrel's DVD.

Doc

Perhaps if the story evolves around the charachter rather than the moves and the gambling scenes. The center of the story must focus on the life of the "cheat" . Why does he do it? The other side of the character off the table. The lay audience don't care much about Vernon, Miller, Marlo etc....

I saw the movie and enjoyed it because I am a student of card magic and gambling moves. It was never a hit because it only pleased a particular market.

If I wanted it to be a box office hit and had the resources, I would pop in guys like Russel Crowe, Nicole kidman and Have Quentine Tarrantino direct it. Yeah, have De Niro do a cameo maybe .

The general viewing public must be considered .

As Tommy has posted , a biography of a real Cheat is a good idea. Provided that he indeed had a colorful life on and off the table.

Take it easy Doc,and welcome back to the Café!

Rannie

Rannie that was a nice write up I wish more would write their ideas. Don't forget people that this is your movie not mine so Rannie you can have any character you wish to play any roll that you want.

Doc

P.S. I was always here there was just nothing to write about so I didn't.

Hey Rannie, great post!! I would also like to include carefully coreographed roulette scams(sleight of hand and hi tech) as well as some dice scams(switches in slow mo, mabee even in b/w)I would also have some of the scams from the surveillance viewpoint(camera) and the exposed angles switching back and fourth in slow mo for the audience to understand... Other games might also include big baccarat scams, 3 shell game, 3 card monte, pickpocketing and some jedi mind tricks that will work on the audience (something like the pink elephant in denver trick but much shorter and less complicated)

I would like to the scene which Ed Marlo describes on his DVD, where he is talked into going out to cheat and when it comes to it the guy is that nervous he can not even cut the cards.
In life I have seen guys freeze at the table and it has happened me. I have never seen the terror of cheating portrayed in a movie. It would good to see that side it. I have seen a guy be physical sick after cheating it scared him that much. I am fed up of seeing the cardsharps in films being as smooth as silk and acting like there is nothing to it. When ever I see films about crime, the thief never as any fear but in real life stealing is scary.

Tommy

How about this...

Dave The Great is a professional magician, making his living working the tables at a family restaurant three times a week plus any weddings and kid's parties he can scrape together. He does his thing with the spinning bow tie and the card vest.

Dave is a pretty good card mechanic but only uses his skills for entertaining the folks down at the Stuff Yer Face Steakhouse. One day, local small time mobster Vito Demarino comes to the Stuff Yer Face for his nephew's birthday and Dave wows him with his card stuff.

Vito hits on a great idea, Dave will teach Vito how to cheat at cards so Vito can clear a few old debts by scamming the local card rooms. Dave tries to get out of it telling Vito that you need TWO people to make a succesful cheat. So Vito hits on the idea that he Dave play the tables together and makes it very hard for him to say no. (if you catch my drift) Dave tries to convince them a card cheat and a card magician are two very different things but Vito won't listen....

So Vito keeps Dave neck deep in trouble with organised crime and the magician has to use all his skills as a performer and sleight of hand master to get himself out of the mess.

The key to the film's success would be to have a uncool, geeky magician (like most of us) trying to hold his own amongst the gangsters. Perhaps he makes them all balloon animals at one point......

I'm reminded of the Clown College episode of The Simpsons....

Set it back in the 16th century, instead of now.

Two very good looking people get involved with the world of the card shark ( a guy and his girl). A Plot with a good story. Less slang being said by people that have no idea what their talking about.

"Murphy Snow"

A young writer, Penny Hack, seeks out legendary hustler Murphy Snow.
She eventually find Murph, now in his eighties and using a different name, living in the deep south. After some bantering Murph agrees to tell his story.
A tale of cons, scams, hustles and people Murph met unfolds taking the audience thru the countrysides, back rooms and dark allies of major cities.

Cast:
Murphy Snow - Sean Penn.
Murphy Snow as a boy - ?.
Sam Cross - Billy Bob Thorton.
Penny Hack - Lili Taylor.

Ok, so this is set up like "Interview With A Vampire".

How about the life of Erdnase? How he got into the world of hustling, how he developed his skill, how he worked the tables alone...

Jaz: How will you get Sean Penn to look like a eighty year old man? If you could, he could also play himself as young

Makeup??

Tommy - In "The Sting", the famous cold deck done by Doyle Lonnegan (I think?) ends with the camera filming his shaky hands under the table, which I thought was a nice touch. It's subtle, but it's there.

Also, in "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" the main character cheats but finally ends up losing a half million pounds. He is consequently sick. I'm not sure if it was the cheating or the loss, but chronologically: he got sick after he cheated.


Doc - I would include scenes in which the cheater practices his moves. When the actual move was done in the game, I would cut to 3-4 different occasions on which he would be doing it in the privacy of his own room.
I would also think it professional if the amount of exposure (real work, and next-to-real work as well) was kept to a comfortable minimum. It's a tough highwire to balance, but if exposure is relatively frowned upon on a message board visited almost entirely of magicians, laymen should be bestowed no priviledges.

Cheaters cheating cheaters would be a nice scene as well.

Andrei

I would actually seriously consider doing some "exposure", something the like of what was done in Shade. The reason for this is that I would probably wish to build the film up like this:

A young dude playing poker with friends. Just for fun. He decides to try to figure out techniques to earn more money playing poker. Then follows a lot of training, where we can se that the moves is difficult to master. One shot, with lots of quick editing, where you can se him practising the same move from after dinner until dark and until the next morning. Just to portray the difficulty of the cheating.

Then of course, the difficult part of the movie - making it interesting for the "commonman". There I have nothing to add, most of the ideas already mentioned is good My own idea could probably fit into some of your ideas as well - I don't know.

In regards to cheating, my objective was only to show that it is possible, but incredibly difficult, to master it.

First of all I found it HILARIOUS that Shade used some EXACT LINES from The Sting. Remember when The Dean gets the call telling him what decks are being used? He says, "Good work JJ" and tossed one of each color into his bag. I starred in the stage version of the Sting and played the role of Henry Gondorff.....hence I recognised this immediately...word for word.

I would make a movie about a young card shark who gets through life performing magic for local events. When some great personal tradgedy happens (Such as a death or an exploding house), he needs to make some money fast. He grabs a couple Pickpocketing DVD's and gets to work. His life soon turns to cheating at cards and pickpocketing in busy subway stations.

Life smacks hims in the face when he sits down across the table from a knee shakingly gorgeous redhead who beats the pants off of him. Destined to find out who she was, he goes on a hunt. As it turns out she's the daughter of world Famous magician "Hug Denning". After a bunch of interesting movie stuff, he turns his life around and they end up together performing magic for the rest of their lives. Probably donating a bunch of money to preventing whatever cause put him in trouble in the first place.

Hmmm....I should come up with bas movies more often!

Andrei

Thanks, I never noticed that touch in the Sting, which was a great because it came close to the real thing. It was based on real guys and that cold deck was switch was a real move. These small things gave it class.

Yiannis

I do like true life stories and Doc would love to see the The Phantom, Walter Scott on the big screen but I would love to see Scott or Erdnase in fact I would to see both made.

I like Rannie would also like see it directed by Quentine Tarrantino.

Also Vernon and his search for cardsharps and their moves would make a good film. You could get a mix of magic and cheating in that, with lots of card work in it.
Tom Cruze is a big magic fan. I am still waiting for that film about Maskerlyne that he was said to making. When is that out?


Tommy

Now that is a GOOD movie chris_stolz.

Problem with all this talk is someone will take them and write a script and make a million and no one here will see a dime. Don't give away what you can sell. All the plots sound good but you get away from what make a movie commercially viable. Think about the character first and his skill last. You have to sell his emotional roller coaster not the moves involved to show him as a good cheat. Something going wrong in his life and him taking up cheating is good but concentrate on his emotions not on his practice to become a better cheat. Also the plot for the magician and mob as a comedy can work. Somebody write the script already. If Doc asked for ideas I wouldn't be surprised if he's taking up script writing. After all selling a script is also a game of chance.