The Queen of Spades (1949)

Director
Thorold Dickinson

Main cast
Anton Walbrook; Edith Evans; Yvonne Mitchell; Ronald Howard; Mary Jerrold

Genres
Drama, Horror

Description
An elderly countess strikes a bargain with the devil and exchanges her soul for the ability to always win at cards. An army officer, who is also a fanatic about cards, murders her for the secret, then finds himself haunted by the woman's spirit.


Similar movies

A Sicilian widow earns her living as a clairvoyant, in Milan, but she hasn't got any power at all. Her son instead holds supernatural powers and with the help of his mother he becomes a strong sorcerer. But he fails perhaps to understand the real strength he possesses inside and unbinds uncontrolled forces that lead people that surround him to go mad.
Russia, 1835. Lieutenant Hermann, a compulsive gambler, is fascinated by an infallible martingale held by Countess Tomski, nicknamed The Queen of Spades. The day Hermann wants to wring the secret from her, the countess dies of fear. Following this tragic scene, Hermann sinks into dementia. Luckily, Lisa, his frail lover, brings him back to life and happiness.
Henry likes to kill people, in different ways each time. Henry shares an apartment with Otis. When Otis' sister comes to stay, we see both sides of Henry; the "guy-next-door" and the serial killer.
When the Solomons trade in the craziness of big-city life for the quiet of a North Dakota farm, little do they expect the nightmare that follows. Soon after arriving, teenage Jess (Kristen Stewart) and her younger brother see terrifying apparitions and endure attacks from a supernatural source. Jess must warn her disbelieving family before it is too late to save them.
As Aunt Alice, Ruth Gordon applies for the job of housekeeper in the Tucson, Arizona home of widow Claire Marrable in order to find out what happened to a missing widowed friend, Edna Tilsney. The crazed Page, left only a stamp album by her husband, takes money from her housekeepers, kills them, and buries the bodies in her garden. Alice is a widow too. So is neighbor Harriet Vaughn. Lots of widows here.
An architect's desire to speak with his wife from beyond the grave using EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon), becomes an obsession with supernatural repercussions.
A traveler obsessed with the supernatural visits an old inn and finds evidence of vampires.
A group of girls are terrorized by violent vagrants before succumbing to a horrific supernatural evil.
The sequel to House of 1000 Corpses – the Firefly family are ambushed at their isolated home by Sheriff Wydell and a squad of armed men guns blazing – yet only Otis and his sister, Baby, manage to escape the barrage of bullets unharmed. Hiding out in a backwater motel, the wanted siblings wait to rendezvous with their errant father, Captain Spaulding, killing whoever happens to stand in their way.
A hotshot lawyer gets more than he bargained for when he learns his new boss is Lucifer himself.
Ek Thi Daayan movie is a supernatural musical entertaining romantic thriller with an electrifying jolt at the end. The movie revolves around the character Bobo (Emraan Hashmi), an India's leading magician. But unknown to even his girlfriend Tamara, Bobo's life is falling apart. His constant hallucinations leave him with no option but to seek psychiatric help. Going through regression hypnosis, a terrifying story about his childhood surfaces involving a sinister power called Daayan who has not only destroyed his family but also promised to return to haunt Bobo. He chooses to ignore it and move on with his life. Just when his career and love life is at full throttle, enters the irresistible Lisa Dutt. Bobo is convinced that she is the daayan. But is she, really? Or is he just losing his mind?
A young couple, Ganga (Shobana) and Nakulan (Suresh Gopi), arrives at the ancestral home tharavadu called Madampalli of the latter. Hailing from a family that follows tradition and superstitions, Nakulan's uncle Thampi (Nedumudi Venu) objects to the couple's idea of moving into the allegedly haunted mansion, which Nakulan ignores. The couple moves in anyway following which seemingly supernatural events begin to happen.
George Lutz and his wife Kathleen, move into their Long Island dream house with their children only for their lives to be turned into a hellish nightmare. The legacy of a murder committed in the house gradually affects the family and a priest is brought in to try and exorcise the demonic presence from their home.
When two friends, Dominique and Ursula, uncover an ancient book in a graveyard one night, they discover that the book has the supernatural power to grant any evil desire written within it. In a series of escalating acts of vengeance, Ursula harms anyone who opposes her. Dominique realizes that the book fills all who possess it with the feeling of ultimate power. Seeking help from Father Mark Mulligan, a priest, and other people she knows, Dominique tries to destroy the book and save Ursula before it's too late. Unfortunately, cheerleaders Heather and Georgia find out about the book's powers as well, and plan to use it against Ursula and Dominique. The book keeps going to the person who wants it for wicked things. Eventually she manages to destroy it... or at least she thinks she does. In the last scene, someone else finds the book and the hellish cycle begins anew.
Every culture has one - the horrible monster fueling young children's nightmares. But for Tim, the Boogeyman still lives in his memories as a creature that devoured his father 16 years earlier. Is the Boogeyman real? Or did Tim make him up to explain why his father abandoned his family?
After Laura and John Baxter lose their only child in a horrible drowning, they are greeted by strange sightings of her throughout their everyday lives. When two old ladies approach them in Italy with news that their daughter may still be alive, it seems too good to be true. Perhaps it is...
Slave traders bring back evil voodoo entity that is accidently freed by the Confederate army during the Civil War. The entity possesses the bodies of the dead soldiers to create an army of its own bent on conquest, using the corpses of both the North and South.
A twisted new tale of terror begins for a teenage girl and her family, predating the haunting of the Lambert family in the earlier movies and revealing more mysteries of the otherworldly realm The Further.
After vanishing from her family’s lake house, 15 year-old Mary Solis returns without any memory of the traumatic events she experienced—and without part of her soul. Even while a shocking mystery surrounds her disappearance, and her disembodied soul begins a grim haunting, the Solis family’s biggest fear has yet to be faced.   When it’s discovered that two little girls, the same age as Mary’s sister, Sophia, went missing on the lake the very night that Mary disappeared, the stakes are raised. Is Mary suffering from a centuries old condition known as Loss of Soul? Or, is it something more nefarious?   After enlisting the help of a Shaman, the Solis family embarks on a journey to the spirit worlds, hunting for a supernatural cure.
A troubled young man is drawn to a mythical place called Midian where a variety of monsters are hiding from humanity.
Powerful supernatural forces are unleashed when a young architect becomes pregnant after moving to an isolated and mysterious valley to build a house.
Kaitlyn is a high school student whose obsession with gambling leads to her accumulating a mountain of debt. Her habit also causes a high degree of family tension.
Chow Yun-Fat plays Ko Chun, an extremely talented and well known gambler. On the eve of a big confrontation with a famous Singaporean gambler, Ko walks into a trap set by Knife, an avid but a so-so gambler (Andy Lau), meant for an Indian servant. Struck on the head, Ko suffers from amnesia and regresses to a child-like state. Knife takes care of Ko and begins to exploit Ko's gambling talents.
When Joan Boothe accompanies husband-reporter David to Las Vegas, she begins gambling to pass the time while he is doing a story. Encouraged by the casino manager, she gets hooked on gambling, to the point where she "borrows" David's expense money to pursue her addiction. This finally breaks up their marriage, but David continues trying to help her.
Dae-gil has been skilled with his hands and has shown a strong desire for winning ever since he was a child. He will succeed his uncle and jump into the world of Tazza, risking his life in competition.
The Queen of Spades - a story by Alexander Pushkin.
As an ex-gambler teaches a hot-shot college kid some things about playing cards, he finds himself pulled into the world series of poker, where his protégé is his toughest competition.
An autistic boy witnesses his parents' double murder. Richard Dreyfuss as a controversial therapist, seeks to probe the child's mind in order to solve the case.
It's Harold's birthday, and his closest friends throw him a party at Michael's apartment. Among Harold's presents is "Cowboy", since Harold may have trouble finding a cute young man on his own now that he's getting older. As the party progresses the self-deprecating humour of the group takes a nasty turn as the men become drunker. Climaxed by a cruel telephone "game" where each man must call someone and tell him (or her?) of his love for them.
A television producer with a penchant for drinking and gambling is sent to Las Vegas to convince his troubled niece to enter rehab.
A down-on-his-luck farmer makes a deal with the devil for seven years of prosperity. When Mr. Scratch comes to collect, orator and hero of the common man Daniel Webster comes to the rescue.
Viridiana, a young nun about to take her final vows, pays a visit to her widowed uncle at the request of her Mother Superior. Banned in Spain and denounced by the Vatican, Luis Buñuel’s irreverent vision of life as a beggar’s banquet is regarded by many as his masterpiece. In it, novice nun Viridiana does her utmost to maintain her Catholic principles, but her lecherous uncle and a motley assemblage of paupers force her to confront the limits of her idealism. Winner of the Palme d’or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival, Viridiana is as audacious today as ever.
Tired of the dangerous life as gambling boss, Ace Corbin 'retires' from the racket and travels cross-country by train to begin a new life with a new name. On the train, he meets Eleanor and they fall in love. Eleanor is afraid to tell Ace she's a soiled dove and Ace doesn't tell Eleanor of his shady past. Old enemies won't let Ace begin his new life, and old commitments's won't free Eleanor of her sordid ties. Ace's old life and Eleanor's deception collide with the typical results. But love conquers all!
ROB THE MOB is the true-life story of a crazy-in-love Queens couple who robbed a series of mafia social clubs and got away with it… for a while… until they stumble upon a score bigger than they ever planned and become targets of both the mob and the FBI.
Silver-screen icons Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney star in this classic drama as Nick and Jack Venizelos, two brothers whose fateful trip to the big city to do a little gambling results in a tragic turn of events. Directed by filmmaker Alfred E. Green, this film marks the only time in Robinson and Cagney's historic careers that the pair would team up on-screen.
At a family reunion, the Cooper clan find that their parents' home is being foreclosed. "Temporarily," Ma moves in with son George's family, Pa with daughter Cora. But the parents are like sand in the gears of their middle-aged children's well regulated households. Can the old folks take matters into their own hands?
Gambling addiction bring the stories of three otherwise unconnected people together as it destroys each of their lives.
A retired ex-cop and private detective gets mixed up in murder when he is asked to deliver blackmail money and walks into a 20 year old case involving the mysterious disappearance of an actress' former husband.
The film tells the story of a lonely housewife, known as Charu (Madhabi Mukherjee), who lives a wealthy, secluded and idle life in 1870's Calcutta. Her husband, Bhupati (Sailen Mukherjee), runs a newspaper, The Sentinel, and spends more time at work than with his wife. However, he notices that Charu is lonely, and asks his cousin, Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee), to keep her company. Amal is a writer a
Dan Mahowny was a rising star at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. At twenty-four he was assistant manager of a major branch in the heart of Toronto's financial district. To his colleagues he was a workaholic. To his customers, he was astute, decisive and helpful. To his friends, he was a quiet, but humorous man who enjoyed watching sports on television. To his girlfriend, he was shy but engaging. None of them knew the other side of Dan Mahowny--the side that executed the largest single-handed bank fraud in Canadian history, grossing over $10 million in eighteen months to feed his gambling obsession.
The devil has a stye in his eye, caused by the purity of a vicar's daughter. To get rid of it, he sends Don Juan up from hell to seduce the 20 year old Britt-Marie and to rob her of her virginity and her belief in love. She however can resist him and things get even turned around when Don Juan falls in love with her. The fact that he feels love for the first time now, makes him even less attractive to her and Don Juan returns to hell.
Three sisters with quite different personalities and lives reunite when the youngest of them, Babe, has just shot her husband. The oldest sister, Lenny, takes care of their grandfather and is turning into an old maid, while Meg, who tries to make it in Hollywood as a singer/actress, has had a wild life filled with many men. Their reunion causes much joy, but also many tensions.
New York City English professor Axel Freed outwardly seems like an upstanding citizen. But privately Freed is in the clutches of a severe gambling addiction that threatens to destroy him. After a heavy loss betting on basketball, he relies on his mother to bail him out to the tune of $44,000. Unfazed, he continues to gamble recklessly, winning big at a casino, only to blow it all just as quickly. When his debts become more than he can handle, the loan sharks begin to circle.
A French doctor (Boris Karloff) sentenced for treason performs brain surgery on the prison commandant's (James Stephenson) daughter.
Sully is a rascally ne'er-do-well approaching retirement age. While he is pressing a worker's compensation suit for a bad knee, he secretly works for his nemesis, Carl, and flirts with Carl's young wife Toby. Sully's long- forgotten son and family have moved back to town, so Sully faces unfamiliar family responsibilities. Meanwhile, Sully's landlady's banker son plots to push through a new development and evict Sully from his mother's life.
Based on a theatrical text by Romanian writer Ion Luca Caragiale (1852-1912), who was a bitter and funny witness of the turn-of-the-20th-century Romanian bourgeois mores, Carnival Scenes manages to preserve and further enhance the slightly hysteric atmosphere of his plays. Pintilie creates a strange combination of carnival scenes which is brought to the screen as a burlesque, fast-paced, screwball comedy with a meditative undertone. This film was banned in Romania for a decade until the death of Ceausescu in 1989 and was only released after the 1989 revolution.
Set in a seaside resort in the Caucasus, the story centers on n'er do well, Laevsky (Andrew Scott) and his illicit relationship with his mistress Nadya (Fiona Glascott). Laevsky has convinced Nadya to leave her husband for him, but now wants to abandon her.
Two card sharks, pretending to be brother and sister, clean out a small-town banker, then take over a crooked gambling joint.
Six actors portray six personas of music legend Bob Dylan in scenes depicting various stages of his life, chronicling his rise from unknown folksinger to international icon. This stylized portrait reveals how Dylan reinvented himself many times.
Jean Fournier (Claude Mann) is a young bank employee who is encouraged by his friend Caron to take an interest in gambling. After winning money in a game of roulette, he decides to vacation in Nice, where he falls in love with Jackie (Jeanne Moreau), divorced and mother to a child she rarely visits. Though Jackie also enjoys Jean's company, she constantly warns him that her passion for gambling will always be greater. Jean becomes jealous of not having all of her attention and has mixed feelings about gambling, yet he too is to some extend seduced by this new life style that involves taking risks. Despite Jackie's cool façade and alleged control over her choices - she claims she is unattached to the money itself, but rather the thrill of the game, and doesn't mind going from rich to poor in a matter of seconds -, she soon begins to reveal her vulnerability and the emptiness she often feels as result of her addiction.
Satyanathen (Jayaram) is a teacher at Vivekodayam school, Thrissur . His wife Priya (Gopika) is a bank employee and he has a fourteen year old son Bhaskaran. Satyanathan is an alcoholic. After school hours, he can be seen with his friends in the local bar or at thekkinkad maithanam where they play cards.he is dissatisfied with his life and wife. He befriends some young men of the new generation whose lifestyle tempts him to take up their style. The film follows the events that follow as a flashback from his son.
Homicide detective John Hobbes witnesses the execution of serial killer Edgar Reese. Soon after the execution the killings start again, and they are very similar to Reese's style.
While a woman is in the hospital preparing to deliver her child, her husband has all day to reflect upon his wife and their relationship. As he tends to his job as a television repairman, Slavek fondly remembers how he first met Ivana and the days they spent getting to know one another. Slavek also grows increasingly aware of the environment that surrounds him and questions the society his new child will be entering. Loaded with a repeated plea for social change, this is the first feature from Czech writer/director Jaromil Jires.
New York gangster Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womanizer with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.
Jannat is the story of a man caught in a quagmire of crime and consumerism as he struggles to find heaven on earth. Arjun is a reckless young man with an obsession for making money at card games. A chance meeting with a girl in a mall, Zoya gives him the reasons he was looking for to move out of his ordinary life. He steps up from playing small-time card games to becoming a bookie.
A former stripper's (Rebecca Hall) talent with numbers lands her a job with a professional gambler (Bruce Willis) who runs a sports book in Las Vegas.
A story of two teenagers trapped in the world of illegal underground boxing. One is fighting to save his fathers life and using the money pay off gambling debts accumulated by his father. The second is fighting for the money to get out of the ghettos. While being exploited by a boxing promoter the two teens become friends. An explosive ending puts the two friends in the ring against each other.
Wearing torn Japanese shoes, English trousers, a red Russian cap, and a Hindustani heart, orphaned Ranbir Raj comes to Bombay to make his fortune. He pawns his gold medal, gambles with the money, loses everything, & the balance is pick-pocketed. He ends up on the beach, meets with Vidya Shastri, a teacher who runs a private school, and both fall in love. Ranbir gets a job in a laundry. When he goes to deliver some clothes to Maya, she notices that he has a way with cards, gets him to accompany her to a casino of sorts, where he wins Rs.20000/-, which unfortunately is pocketed by Maya. Then a rich industrialist, Sonanand Dharmachand, approaches Ranbir, hires him to work for him, and soon Ranbir is on his way to a wealthy life. Vidya gets a first hand look at this wealthy life, and decides to break up with him. Sonachand teaches Ranbir that in order to make money one must never discriminate between the rich and poor...
A gambling countess comes by a secret three card combination that wins her a fortune, but she is allowed to use it only once and not gamble again. She passes on the info twice, and the recipients both die violently. She is warned that if she passes it on again, she too will die. Many years later, a young soldier discovers that the countess has the secret, and he resolves to get it out of her.
Gambling fever -- along with a brutal bookie -- leads three crooked cops into a double-dealing scheme that lands them in hot water way over their heads.

© Valossa 2015–2024