The Gambler - Dostoyevsky - NBC University Theater

A portrait of the Russian fascination with Lady Luck.

Andrew C. Love (director), Dan O'Herlihy, Don Stanley (announcer), Ernest Kinoy (writer), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (author), Georgia Ellis, Nestor Paiva, Noreen Gammill, Ramsay Hill, Scott Forbes, Wade Arnold (producer). 29:24.

The Gambler (Russian: Игрокъ, romanized: Igrok; modern spelling Игрок) is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky about a young tutor in the employment of a formerly wealthy Russian general.

In this dark and compelling short novel, Dostoevsky tells the story of Alexey Ivanovitch, a young tutor working in the household of an imperious Russian general. Alexey tries to break through the wall of the established order in Russia, but instead becomes mired in the endless downward spiral of betting and loss. His intense and inescapable addiction is accentuated by his affair with the General’s cruel yet seductively adept niece, Polina. In The Gambler, Dostoevsky reaches the heights of drama with this stunning psychological portrait.

NBC University Theater (also known as NBC University Theater of the Air, NBC Theater of the Air or NBC Theater) was a brand the National Broadcasting Co. applied to a category of radio programming. Although not actually a university, some colleges and universities collaborated in some of the programming, either contributing to its content or including the programming in their curriculum. NBC University Theater's most well-known radio series was The World's Great Novels. NBC used the name "University Theater" or similar from about 1923-1947.

A Farewell to Arms is a novel by Ernest Hemingway set during the Italian campaign of World War I. First published in 1929, it is a first-person account of an American, Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant ("tenente") in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The title is taken from a poem by the 16th-century English dramatist George Peele.

The novel, set against the backdrop of World War I, describes a love affair between the expatriate Henry and an English nurse, Catherine Barkley. Its publication ensured Hemingway's place as a modern American writer of considerable stature.[2] The book became his first best-seller,[3] and has been called "the premier American war novel from that debacle World War I."

The novel has been adapted a number of times, initially for the stage in 1930; as a film in 1932 and again in 1957, and as a three-part television miniseries in 1966. The 1996 film In Love and War, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Chris O'Donnell and Sandra Bullock, depicts Hemingway's life in Italy as an ambulance driver in the events prior to his writing of A Farewell to Arms. (Wikipedia)