Gloria (1980)

Description

Gena Rowlands won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was also nominated for Best Actress in 1980 for her plucky, brazen, inspired performance in Gloria, which remains a powerful, tension-filled noir thriller. John Cassavetes cast his wife Rowlands in the title role as Gloria Swenson, an ex-gun moll and showgirl suddenly forced to protect a child whose parents have been rubbed out by the Mob. Now the Mob wants the child dead too ? but first they'll have to deal with Gloria. It all begins when an accountant who is in possession of a ledger which could put a number of "bosses" behind bars for a long time is killed. Before he is murdered, he entrusts the revealing ledger and his son to Gloria for protection, who reluctantly takes the child and begins a life on the run while keeping the mob at bay, sometimes at the point of a gun. Finally, tired of running, she confronts them head on. Gloria's hot as a pistol.