Let's be realistic.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

This rarity, the last film to be directed by the great George Stevens (Shane, Giant) was shown on Turner Classic Movies (TCM).Typically of the sort of talky romantic mush that Taylor did at this point in her career, it's set in Las Vegas. She's described as being a chorus girl (a 38 year-old one, if my maths is correct) and Beatty, a handsome club piano player, who happens to have a history of gambling woes.He wants enough money to leave this town of temptation and bad memories, she wants him. And, when 5 year standing flame, the older, and married Charles Braswell, comes back to her, saying he's now divorced and wants to whisk her off to England, cue battle of words, emotions - and the usual. So, who will win her heart? Obviously, neither are suitable but this Hollywood!It's largely set-bound and often argumentative; Beatty is charismatically watchable but Taylor is just doing the same act and routine, whilst Braswell, intentionally cast as the solid, boring one, is just that. Being (I guess, I couldn't find an age rating) a PG certificate, there's no sex or swearing, both of which, frankly would have added a bit of 'life' into the mix. A jazz score by Maurice Jarre does add atmosphere, though, with melancholic saxophone solos wailing into the night, which helps.Whilst never quite slipping into tedium, the near two hour running time hardly helps but at least it looks good, with good colour and production values. There are a few casino scenes for those that like such. It's based on a play by Frank D Gilroy, who also adapted it and like so many similar dramas from theatrical sources, you can't help feeling that it'd work better on stage.So, is it worth watching? If it comes on TV or if you know someone with a copy, yes; you won't see anything new but Lizzy Taylor still is Elizabeth Taylor and Beatty keeps it ticking over nicely. But otherwise, unless you hold a special interest in any of the actors, or the play, then, it's hardly worth pursuing.

Miss Taylor may have already been too old for the part. There are scenes opposite Warren Beatty where her age is really starting to show.This is basically the story of two losers who find love in Las Vegas. If Beatty really wanted to leave Vegas, he could have done it in the way that an Oscar winner did it in 1995's "Leaving Las Vegas," where Nicolas Cage gave the performance of his career.Near the end of the film, the two stars are basically playing out their life stories. Beatty finally wants to settle down and Taylor is as usual, unsure about marriage.A better, gritty script was needed for this **1/2 production.

Dreary, poky, talky and practically non-existent as drama, The Only Game in Town features Liz Taylor, looking like a mature Millie Perkins(see Wild in the Streets), ridiculously cast as a Vegas showgirl. Taylor's pretty, but vacuous, and she and the boring, mumbling Beatty don't compel and they are an odd, uninteresting and unconvincing pairing. Neither one could be accused of acting, and their characters were intended for less stellar types. George Stevens who directed Taylor in A Place in the Sun and Giant brings only his name to this film, his last, and Frank Gilroy, who received a Pulitzer Prize for his play The Subject Was Roses, and whose film From Noon Till Three is a gem, hasn't written anything that seems worth putting on the screen. The audience, wisely, never showed.

Playing one of her rare working class girls, Liz is a Las Vegas showgirl who lives in a plastic little apartment and watches old movies on late night television… The ambiance doesn't take shape for Liz; we've heard too much about the diamonds and the yachts and the enormous household staff to believe her in such modest circumstances… Frank D. Gilroy's slight, sentimental script is about practically nothing at all… A girl meets a guy (Warren Beatty), they go to bed, they part, they get together again… He has a gambling problem, and she's engaged to an older married man who keeps promising to get a divorce… The gambler is a ladies' man; clever and suave, he tests his way into the girl's bed and then into her heart…In a lightweight romantic comedy-drama like this, the charm is everything… As the gambler, Warren Beatty has it; as the bruised, lonely, overage chorus girl, Liz doesn't… Her off-screen aura works 'against' the role, just as Beatty's image as her capricious lover works beautifully for the character… Liz tries, though, but she is really too old for this sort of thing, and far too heavy and matronly to pass as a chorus girl kicking up her heels every night to earn a meager living…Beatty transforms the material, making it seem much sharper and brighter than it is… His reckless, cocky charm, his clever comic timing, his light seductive voice reveal some of his best work… When she catches Beatty's light style, Taylor is pleasant, but when she goes weepy, when Stevens encourages her to play the dramatic actress with style, she misplaces the character