Misadventures of an ambitious unlucky Irishman who goes on a long and arduous trip to Africa along with his wife and bumbling cousin in hopes of starting a trucking business there. Vic Brennan persuades his family to put up money for him and his wife to leave Dublin for the remote African town of Jebanda in order to start up a truck-hauling business. The family agrees to give Vic the money under the stipulation that his bumbling cousin Samuel goes with him to protect their investment. Their misadventures during their long trip along the Ivory Coast include a hijacking, catching a deadly fever, near drowning, thirsty natives and broken trucks. The story of three people (Stephen Boyd, Juliette Greco and David Wayne) that go all the way from Ireland to the Ivory Coast in Africa to put on a truck business there.<br/><br/>Real action is supposed to start when they take a cargo of beer by truck through half the dark continent, but it never quite does; in fact the film recalls one of those current PC games for kids where they mustremove lots of obstacles in order to reach a final goal; here they have to free the truck from the Custom house, put aside a huge down tree across the road, go backwards in a thin pass with a mountain and an abyss on each side, avoid a crook who wants to steal their cargo, cross a wide growing river with the vehicle and go down full speed on a narrow road without brakes, but in fact powerful action and thrills never appear.<br/><br/>Stephen Boyd does well as the leader of the group but doesn't add much to his acting career with this one. Juliette Greco looks sensual and interesting as his wife and David Brian just goes along.<br/><br/>Definitely not one of prolific and versatile director Richard Fleischer's best products, perhaps "The Big Gamble" stands a watch but no much more than that. Except for the beginning which takes place in a chic wealthy sullen family -which does not fit well in the main plot-,"linear" best describes this movie.A minor movie for highly talented Richard Fleischer who had already directed Juliette Greco in "crack in the mirror" the year before.Greco has some lines in French with her compatriots Fernand Ledoux as a customs officer and Jacques Marin.Which is very useful to her Irish husband Stephen Boyd.<br/><br/>It's the story of the odyssey of a lorry through the jungle and its fevers ,its thieves ,its precipices and its rivers in spate .A critic called it " a cross between "African Queen" and "Le Salaire De La Peur" (wages of fear).Some of the scenes were more or less "inspired" by HG Clouzot's work (1953)but "Gamble" never reaches its level of intensity.Boyd ,Greco and David Wayne team up for better of for worse,and armed up with three hundred boxes of canned beer,they struggle against a hostile nature.
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