JIMMY GAMBLE

IN DEVELOPMENT - Scripted Feature

The Story

Chicago native Jimmy Gamble, the greatest handicapper in the country, is in way over his head. On the run from a vigorish collector, Jimmy is running out of time to move his ailing grandmother out to California to enjoy the sunset of her life. The stress and anxiety of a life on the run is taking its toll.

Jimmy lives for his grandmother, the woman that raised him. Their bond is unbreakable. The first time she took him to the racetrack he was nine years old. She realized early on that he’s a swift kid, a knack for reading people, and picking winning horses at the racetrack. They have a shared dream to leave the windy city of Chicago and move west to the oceanside of sunny California.

Waiting in the doctor’s waiting room for one of his grandmother’s routine medical visits, Jimmy stares up at a beautiful seascape painting with the sun sinking over California. Wondering if the sun is setting on their dream, he decides to forge ahead out west alone. On the way he stops through Las Vegas risking and losing a lot of money. He finally slips out of Las Vegas in the cover of night. Arriving in California, Jimmy is confronted by the news of the sudden death of his grandmother. Haunted with guilt and loneliness and the loan shark making his presence known, truth and reality are catching up to Jimmy. Outside Del Mar Racetrack, picketers and protestors are screaming to have the sport abolished. Has their dream passed him by. The stakes are high as everything is wagered on one last bet.

Origins

Jimmy Gamble is based on a stage play written and performed by Gary Bairos. The work was created as a one-character drama Bairos performed in Chicago and Los Angeles, receiving rave reviews.

Jimmy Gamble is based on a stage play written and performed by Gary Bairos. The work was created as a one-character drama Bairos performed in Chicago and Los Angeles, receiving rave reviews.

“One man on stage brings a world alive.”

“A superb, beautiful, devastating, inspiring monologue…”

“…This is what theater is all about!”

“Riveting.”

Program for the stage play

The Importance of this Project

Jimmy Gamble follows in the vein of The Grifters, LA Confidential and Chinatown while updating the canon of horse racing films such as Seabiscuit or Secretariat. This is a film about gambling, loss, sorrow, reality versus illusion, and the complicated relationships we have with family. This film, set against the decay of American horse racing, addresses the stark realism that its customs and accepted ways of life are ending because of changing attitudes. The leisure sport of racing has come under attack recently for doping of horses and numerous deaths of these animals around tracks in America. There is a social movement being driven by animal rights groups to abolish it. This decay of a once regal sport is symbolic for the emotional trauma Jimmy is going through. Through Jimmy’s eyes, this once glamorous pastime, is the last connection he has with family and a vital part of his journey through life with the woman that cared for him the most.