Guys and Dolls

In New York, a gambler is challenged to take a cold female missionary to Havana, but they fall for each other, and the bet has a hidden motive to finance a crap game.

• Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
• Genre:Comedy / Crime / Musical / Romance
• Runtime:149 minutes

Cast

Marlon Brando : Sky Masterson
Jean Simmons : Sergeant Sarah Brown
Frank Sinatra : Nathan Detroit
Vivian Blaine : Miss Adelaide
Robert Keith : Lt. Brannigan

Although there are detail differences between the stage and movie versions, the plot is essentially based around the activities of New York petty criminals and professional gamblers in the late 1940s.

Gambler Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra) is under pressure from all sides: he has to organize an unlicensed crap game but the police, led by Lieutenant Brannigan (Robert Keith), are “putting on the heat”. All the places where Nathan usually holds his games refuse him entry due to Brannigan’s intimidating pressure. The owner of the Biltmore garage does agree to host the game provided Nathan pays him $1000 in cash in advance. The garage owner will not even accept a “marker” or IOU, he insists on having the money itself. Adding to Nathan’s problems, his fiancée, Miss Adelaide (Vivian Blaine), a nightclub singer, wants to bring an end to their 14-year engagement and actually tie the knot. She also wants him to go straight, but organizing illegal gambling is the only thing he’s good at.

Trying to obtain the money for the garage, Nathan meets an old acquaintance, Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando), a gambler willing to bet on virtually anything and for high amounts. Nathan proposes a $1000 bet by which Sky must take a girl of Nathan’s choosing to dinner in Havana, Cuba. The bet seems impossible for Sky to win when Nathan nominates Sergeant Sarah Brown (Jean Simmons), a straight-walking sister at the Save a Soul Mission (based on the Salvation Army) which opposes gambling. Read more