Five Card Stud
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Movie Reviews of Five Card Stud
Movie Review: When He Played, He Played For Blood.
Summary: 3 Stars
Garden of Evil" director Henry Hathaway's western whodunit "5-Card Stud" pits 'hellfire gambler' Dean Martin against 'gunfire preacher' Robert Mitchum in a frontier tale about lynching, murder, and revenge. Mind you, deducing the whodunit will pose a minor challenge to astute audiences. You will spot the actor committing the crimes long before the film identifies him in its second-to-last scene. If you study the stable strangling scene, the killer's headgear gives him away. The characters in "True Grit" scenarist Marquerite Roberts' screenplay based on Ray Gaulden's novel are flat since they neither change either their their mentality or their morality. Nevertheless, Roberts boots around an interesting question about "who people were before they became who they are" which segues with the mystery. Otherwise, this Hathaway horse opera is sturdy enough, contains a believable cast and knows how to blend comedy with drama nimbly enough so that it rarely becomes either heavy-handed or repetitious.
Compared to Hathaway's other oaters, "5-Card Stud" doesn't top "True Grit," "The Sons of Katie Elder," "Garden of Evil," "From Hell to Texas," or "Rawhide." However, "5-Card Stud" surpasses "Shoot Out" and "Nevada Smith." Although some critics don't cotton to Maurice Jarre's orchestral score and denigrated it as "Dr. Zhivago" on the range, I contend that it is superb music and differs from anything that Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, or Ennio Morricone would have done. Jarre's score enlivens the action and enhances the atmosphere. The Dean Martin song at the beginning and end of "5-Card Stud" marks this sagebrusher as a traditional western As far back in the 1950s, many major westerns contained a ballad about the story or the hero with lyrics like ". . . play your poke and he'd leave you broke."
Interestingly, "5-Card Stud" makes some racial references that chipped away at the usual barriers. In one scene, Robert Mitchum's gun slinging preacher doesn't think it inappropriate that a black man be buried among whites, something that marked this western as a departure from Jim Crow mentality. John Sturges' "The Magnificent Seven" had broken ground earlier with a gunfight so that an Indian could be buried in a white graveyard.
Professional gambler Van Morgan (Dean Martin of "Sergeants 3") takes a break from a Saturday night poker game while Sig Ever's son Nick (Roddy McDowell of "Planet of the Apes"), stableman Joe Hurley (Bill Fletcher of "Hour of the Gun"), Mace Jones (Roy Jenson of "Big Jake"), storekeeper Fred Carson (Boyd 'Red' Morgan of "Violent Saturday"), Ever's ranch hand Stoney Burough (George Robotham of "The Split") continue to play poker with newcomer Frankie Rudd (Jerry Gatlin of "The Train Robbers") until Nick catches Rudd cheating 'red-handed' and organizes a lynch party. They take Rudd out to a stream and string him up from the bridge. Barkeeper George (Yaphet Koto of "Live and Let Die") warns Morgan and Morgan lights out after Nick and company to thwart the necktie party. "You don't hang a cheat," Morgan growls, "you kick him out of town." When Morgan arrives, Frankie is swinging with a noose around his neck, and Nick clubs Morgan on the back of the head with his six-gun.
Mama Malone (Ruth Springford of "Vengeance Is Mine") discovers Morgan strewn on the boardwalk the following morning and summons George to help the battered gambler to his room. Morgan decides to pull out of Rincon and try his luck in Denver. Before he leaves, he rides out to Sig Ever's spread to bid goodbye to Sig's comely daughter Nora (Katherine Justice of "The Way West") and deck Nick as repayment for clobbering him at the hanging.
Naturally, the town marshal (John Anderson of "Young Billy Young") can neither identify the lynch mob nor can he identify the hanged man. Later, participants in the card game begin to die. One is wrapped up in barbed wire, another is hanged in the church, and still another is suffocated in a barrel of flour. Indeed, Hathaway and Roberts make each death look different. Eventually, George visits Morgan in Denver and Morgan decides to ride back to Rincon. Two things have changed since Morgan rode out of Rincon. First, the town has acquired a gun-t0ting pastor who renovates the church and holds services, and second Lilly Langford (Inger Stephens of "Hang'em High") has opened a barbershop that features a $20 item that intrigues Morgan when he visits her establishment for the first time. Lilly and Nora contend for Morgan, while Morgan closes in on the new preacher Jonathan Rudd.
"5-Card Stud" boasts several good scenes. The shoot-out in the streets of Rincon when paranoid miners go berserk because they fear that they may be the next victim of the local serial killer is well staged. If you slow down your DVD or VHS copy, you can see Dean Martin lose his Stetson when he grabs hold of an axle to let a wagon haul him out of harm's way. You can see his headgear fall off completely and in the next scene is hat is back on his head. Nevertheless, it is still a neat gunfight with Morgan and Rudd standing back to back against the opposition. The scene at a windmill where Rudd hits each of the windmill blades because he was aiming at the spaces in between the blades is fun, too. George plays a role in the story and provides his buddy Morgan with a clue to the killer's identity. The animosity between Nick Evers and Van Morgan is feisty throughout the action with Nora trying to do her best to dampen it. Van Morgan and Lilly have some amusing banter. The expository scenes about Nick's childhood almost make his character marginally sympathetic.
Indeed, "5-Card Stud" is no classic, but it good enough for a rainy day.
"Five Card Stud" comes with nothing in the way of illuminating special features, such as a director commentary track or a critical commmentary track.
Movie Review: Dino and Mitchum: Legends in search of a story...
Summary: 3 Stars
I saw this fim a number of years ago, and decided I liked it. Mostly, this was because of Dino and Mitchum. Upon a fresh viewing, I found other things to like (Yaphet Kotto's and Roddy McDowall's performances), but I also came away a bit unhappy with the picture. Despite being helmed by the great Henry Hathaway, and despite having a well-known supporting cast (including Inger Stevens, Denver Pyle, John Anderson, and Whit Bissell), the script just doesn't work. Inger's dialogue seemed particularly out of place for some reason, and you never actually get the sense that she runs a brothel.
Dino only croons on the short opening and closing credits, and the King of Cool is stuck with an unimaginative song to work with. There is a big shootout, and a nightime attack in a livery stable, in both of which Dino has some fair action scenes. Other than that, the movie is on the bland side. The only imaginative visual touch by director Hathaway comes during the livery stable shootout, in which we see the killer escape into a back-lit steam cloud.
Dino is supposed to be a professional gambler, but that never really comes across. He plays a bit of cards now and then, but he could be a plain old cowhand who likes an ocassional cardgame for all we get to see here. A real waste of Dino's talents, though of course he does his best with the role.
Mitchum is great, as always. He plays a fire n' brimstone preacher who packs a Colt 45. The script works against him, but like Dino, he does the best he can.
Roddy McDowall is also in top form as Dino's vengeful rival. His evil schemes help carry the movie along.
Denver Pyle plays a hardscrabble land baron, hardly a challenge for him. Ruth Springford does her best Thelma Ritter impression as saloon owner Mama Malone. Yaphet Kotto plays her bartender, and seems a bit more modern in his education, thinking, and attitude than 1880 would allow a black man to be. Sadly, Whit Bissell has what amounts to a walk-on as the town doctor.
Basically, seven men are playing cards one night, when an out-of-towner is caught cheating. Despite Dino's best efforts, the other players hang the card cheat. Then, the men start turning up dead, one by one. Dino tries to dope out the identity of the killer and save some lives. Along the way, he makes time with Inger Stevens, and trades witty remarks with the new town preacher, Mitchum.
Murder mystery westerns are all too rare (check out the film "Pursued", a fine Mitchum western noir!). That's why it's so regrettable that, for everything the movie has going for it (great star actors, great supporting cast, fabled western hand Hathaway, and a very interesting concept), the film falls a bit flat. Dino is never really in danger, and the hero needs to be a target for this kind of mystery to work. There just isn't all that much tension, and a murder mystery needs tension. The killer is revealed to us way too early, and it takes too long to get to the ultimate showdown with good guy Dino.
If only the movie had been handled with a bit more care by Hathaway, "Five Card Stud" could have been a real classic. Alas, the overall impression I was left with was that this was a made-for-TV movie.
Still, Dino, Mitchum, and McDowall's performances make this one worth seeing at least once.
Movie Review: Mildly entertaining Western whodunnit
Summary: 3 Stars
The story opens as Dean Martin is playing a card game in a saloon late at night. One of the players is exposed as a cheat and the rest of the players, led by Roddy McDowell, decide to lynch him. Martin unsuccessfully tries to stop the lynching. Several months later the players in the card game start dying one by one. Is one of the lynch mob trying to silence the other witnesses, or is someone else doing the dirty work and why? Dean Martin has to figure out who is doing the killings before he becomes a victim. Along the way he makes googly eyes at a beautiful ranchers daughter and the owner of a bordello (I won't spoil the fun and tell you which he rides off into the sunset with - watch the film). Robert Mitchum co-stars as the moral conscience of the small town.
This is a mildly entertaining Western that isn't as bad as some of the most negative reviews claim, although this is certainly no classic. Definitely a step below the middling Randolph Scott works. Not much tension, but there are enough twists and turns to keep your interest until the big showdown at the end when the mystery is revealed. Roddy McDowell is horribly miscast in this film (and I couldn't stop thinking about Cornelius as I was watching it). Workmanlike performances by Martin and Mitchum, Ingar Stevens does a nice job as the bordello owner/love interest for Martin. Yaphet Kotto has a minor role as the bartender and is probably the most interesting character in the film. I wouldn't spend $10 to add it to my collection, but certainly worth a look as a rental.
Movie Review: not a great western,not a great mystery,just an ok time killer
Summary: 3 Stars
this is a movie that for some reason i like to watch even if i think is not that good. i can't explain why, maybe it's like looking at a car wreck, you want to look away but you can't,i don't know.
an after hours pocker game turns ugly after one of the players is caught cheating. while dean is out of the room the other players hang the cheater and life(no pun intended) goes on. a year later(maybe we never know for sure) people that were playing in that game start to get killed in very nasty ways. funny how no one thinks much about the fact that people start to die as soon as rev. robert mitchum(doing a repeat of his night of the hunter role)gets into town. like i said the mystery is never very hard to see and the western action is not much so we are left with mitchum looking like he's asleep, martin looking like he could care less,and as unbelieveable as it sounds we have roddy macdowall(yes english planet of the apes star roddy macdowall) chewing everthing in sight as ,now hold on to your hats, a gunslinger.
like i said i can't understand why i watch or why i bought this ,but i did and i do watch it a least once a year. maybe it's my punishment for some old sin in my life . most will not like this but if you REALLY love dean martin or just want to see roddy macdowall as a gunslinger, check it out
Movie Review: "When a gambler lets his game wind up in a killing, pretty soon he doesn't have a game."
Summary: 3 Stars
Despite his attempt to stop the execution, Van Morgan (Dean Martin) was hit by a gun on his head and thrown out, at night, in the streets of Rincon, Colorado and the clumsy crook was lynched...
Feeling uncomfortable, Van Morgan leaves for Denver the next day ... In the days of his absence, two of the seven card players have been dead, one being drowned in a flour barrel, the other got it with a twist of wire...
For Little George (Yaphet Kotto) who went to see Van in Denver, it looks to him somebody is out to kill every man at that party which is a real good reason for Van to steer clear of Rincon if he is figuring on coming back...
Meanwhile, a gold rush has brought a bunch of outsiders to the town so, on his return, Morgan finds new faces like Jonathan Rudd (Robert Mitchum), the preacher with a Bible in his hand and a Colt in his belt ; and Lily Langford (Inger Stevens), with her elegant barbershop and her gorgeous lady 'barbers.'
Robert Mitchum plays the man who is looking for the man who is looking for him... Tension mounts when Nick Evers (Roddy McDowall) saves the hunter a long hunt... Dean Martin waits as the gambler who doesn't bank on his cards, because if he does, he winds up broke...