Drawn to an alluring beauty he meets aboard a train, a Russian writer follows her into an elegant casino. There he is intrigued by the obsessive life she and her father share, risking their fortunes and their futures on the spin of a roulette wheel. At first the writer is a mere observer. But soon he is drawn inexorably into a madness that threatens to destroy him. An all-star cast headed by Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner headlines this lush period drama inspired by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Gambler, etching portraits of sinners great and small caught in a vortex of self-destruction. Robert Siodmak (The Killers, The Spiral Staircase) directs, capturing the grandeur of red-velvet gambling halls and the desperate seediness of cramped pawnshops. - Lucky writer helps girl and father in debt to casino boss.