A Throw of Dice (1929) review: Elephants, gambling, and a really bad cousin

You should definitely watch this if you like grand, old-fashioned stories that actually feel big. It is perfect for people who appreciate real locations and don't mind a silent film being a little melodramatic.

If you can't stand slow-moving plots or actors who make big faces to show they are sad, you will probably hate it. Honestly, it is much better than something like The Road to Ruin which feels way more preachy.

The first thing that hits you is the scale of everything. There are thousands of extras and so many elephants that I lost count after the first ten minutes. 🐘

It was filmed in India and you can tell it is not a studio set. The dust looks real because it probably is real.

The story is about these two kings, Ranjit and Sohat. Ranjit is the "good" one, but he has a serious gambling problem that makes him hard to root for sometimes.

Sohat is his cousin and he is just a total jerk. He spends the whole movie plotting to steal Ranjit's kingdom and the girl, Sunita.

Himanshu Rai plays Sohat and he has this amazing villain face. He doesn't have to do much, just look sideways and you know he's thinking of something mean.

There is this one scene where they go on a tiger hunt. It feels a bit chaotic, like the cameraman was actually worried about getting eaten. 🐅

The tiger looks small compared to the elephants, but the tension is still there. I wonder if they had a safety plan for that shoot.

Sunita is played by Seeta Devi and she is mostly there to look beautiful and worried. She does a lot of both.

Her father is a hermit who lives in the woods and he seems like the only sane person in the whole movie. He just wants to hang out with his daughter and avoid the royal drama.

Then we get to the actual dice game. This part of the movie is surprisingly tense for something made in 1929.

You can almost feel the sweat on Ranjit's forehead as he keeps losing everything. It reminded me a little of the stress in Racing Through but with way higher stakes.

The dice themselves look heavy and old. They aren't like the plastic ones you use for board games today.

I noticed a small detail where one of the servants in the background looks like he’s bored out of his mind. It made the scene feel more real, like even in an epic drama, some people are just waiting for their shift to end.

The music in the version I watched was really good too. It kept the rhythm going even when the middle section started to drag a little bit.

Some parts are definitely too long. There is a sequence with a poison arrow that feels like it takes forever to resolve.

But then something cool happens, like a massive parade or a shot of a beautiful palace, and you forget about the slow parts. It has more life in it than Zongar for sure.

The ending is pretty predictable if you have ever seen a movie before. But it doesn't matter because the journey there is so pretty to look at.

I kept thinking about how hard it must have been to move those cameras around in the heat. There are these wide shots of the mountains that are just breath-taking.

It’s funny how a silent movie about gambling can feel more exciting than some modern action movies. Maybe it's because when they throw a dice, it’s a real physical object and not a CGI effect.

The villain's eventual downfall is satisfying, though a bit fast. He goes from being in total control to falling off a cliff in about two minutes flat.

I wish we saw more of the common people in the kingdom. They mostly just stand around and cheer or look scared when the kings are fighting.

Still, for a movie that is almost a hundred years old, it holds up. It feels like a window into a different world that doesn't exist anymore.

If you've got a free evening, give it a try. It’s much better than watching something like The Poor Rich Cleaners which is just... well, not this.

Just be prepared for a lot of staring. Everyone in this movie is a professional at staring intensely at things. 👁️

It’s a solid bit of history that actually manages to be fun. Not many "important" movies can say that.