Somebody's Great Acting in the Big Climatic Scene (MAJOR SPOILERS)

"The King of Marvin Gardens," along with giving us a bracing tour of faded and grim Atlantic City before casinos and The Sopranos came along, is also a key type of "early 70's movie," with an emphasis on artiness and weird dialogue that seems to go nowhere(but may be profound) and a certain amount of "anti-drama" because the director didn't want to go that way.

But things end with a bang -- literally, as our stars Bruce Dern and Ellen Burstyn yell at the top of their lungs in anger at each other as Jack Nicholson rather stands around in quiet, suppressed awe of them -- though, contrary to opinion, Jack DOES get to yell a bit in his usual style here a couple of times -- he is playing quiet and depressed, but not without temper.

Anyway, Burstyn does most of her yelling at Dern even as Dern is arguing with Nicholson and a point is raised -- this overemotional, definitively mental woman is trying to be noticed by two men who seem to be ready to throw her aside in search of their adventures. And eventually, she has a gun in her hand.

And the two guys take notice NOW...but Dern takes the gun away and gives it to Nicholson, who puts it in his back pocket(an interesting touch -- not the front where it might shoot his pecker off.)

The arguing continues among the three leads -- and the fourth( a pretty young woman) emerges in a towel from her shower to ask what's going on, and NIcholson answers:

"Oh, your mother just wants to shoot one of us and so far, you are the only one who has escaped her consideration" - or something like that.

Dern makes further fun of Burstyn's mad threats and says "I can see the headline: Matron shoots two in Jersey love nest" and --

--- just like that, Burstyn pulls the gun out of Nicholson's back pocket, and -- screaming away -- shoots Dern in the back, spinning him around for shots to his front -- including a shot to his heart as he falls backwards against the bed in the other room. And dies. Suddenly. Just like that.

THIS is the great acting in this scene. Yes, Dern, and Burstyn and NIcholson(somewhat reduced in volume) get to do all that yelling and screaming and angst that sometimes gets Oscar nominations(though not here) but it is ultimately Dern who pulls off the biggest coup: when that last bullet hits him in the heart(with bright red blood against his bright blue Hawaian shirt), there comes a millisecond where all life leaves his body and his brain and : he doesn't exist anymore as a human being. From boisterous, strapping yeller to...lifeless corpse with dead eyes. Dern gets there in one second flat...or less.

Great acting. Another actor in another movie that I can't spoil here once "did death from a bullet" with his own perfection (again, the soul leaves the eyes)...but Dern here was very, very good.

You believe's Dern's dead...and nobody gets a chance to say goodbye.