5 Card Stud (1968) Reviews

• Great murder mystery western

  Marta1999-02-27

  Murder mystery westerns don't come along every day, and while this one is kind of slow moving, it's still a great movie. Dean Martin is cool and steady as the gambler who takes part in a game of five card stud that turns deadly. When he tries to stop the lynching of a cheating player, he's overpowered. Soon after the lynching, every one in the game is methodically murdered in the most inventive ways. One man is strangled with barbed wire, another is drowned in a flour barrel, etc. Dean spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out who's doing the killing. While Dean is great, Roddy McDowall is fantastic as the sniveling brother of Dean's girlfriend. He's a mean, cowardly, lying weasel, and no one ever played a weasel better. Yaphet Kotto is fine as the bartender, and Inger Stevens has a small, shining role as the local purveyor of tonsorial delights (a barber). Robert Mitchum comes into the film a little late; while he's straight and true as the scripture-spouting preacher who sweeps out the long abandoned church and begins hold services, you know he's hiding something. All in all a fine film. Maybe a little too long, though; the whole movie doesn't amount to much more than enjoyable entertainment, but the actors and the acting in it make this really worth watching.

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• Ended up pretty good

  shortbread2262009-12-02

  Probably wouldn't have stuck with this one if I didn't know Robert Mitchum was showing up eventually but it ended up getting a lot better as it went on. The plot was interesting and I liked the way they didn't reveal the killer in a sensational twist seeing as most people would have worked it out by then. A good example of suspense being better than surprise. That being said the structure of the film was a bit loose, It spent a lot of time on things that didn't really have any importance to the story when I thought it could have spent more time establishing certain characters motivations and relationships and I thought sometimes the snappy style dialog was a bit stilted. Some of the acting was also a bit awkward. It was only about a third to about a half way through the movie that I decided I liked it but in the end it was quite enjoyable and once again Mitchum was awesome

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• Great sleeper western

  occupant-12001-09-03

  The corrosion of any sort of quality in the screenwriting of recent decades makes tight plotting a surprise wherever one finds it. Here it is. The ongoing verbal duel between Martin and Mitchum is Shakespeare compared to the posturing of recent tough-guy flicks. Also see Martin's acting in "Rio Bravo" to find significant talent in an often-overlooked comic actor.

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• When he played he played for blood.

  Spikeopath2013-11-30

  5 Card Stud is directed by Henry Hathaway and adapted to screenplay by Marguerite Roberts from a novel written by Ray Gaulden. It stars Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Inger Stevens, Roddy McDowall, Katherine Justice, John Anderson, Ruth Springford and Yaphet Kotto. Music is by Maurice Jarre and cinematography by Daniel L. Fapp. Rincon, Colorado and when a gambler is caught cheating at poker, the rest of the players administer frontier justice and hang the man. All except one man that is, Van Morgan (Martin), who tried desperately to stop the lynching. When members of the card school from that night start being killed off, it's clear that somebody is also administering their own brand of retribution justice. Morgan teams up with the new unorthodox preacher in town, Reverend Jonathan Rudd (Mitchum), to try and crack the case. I don't think anyone would seriously try to argue that 5 Card Stud is a great movie, but it is a fun picture made by people who knew their way around the dusty plains of the Western genre. Basically a Western take on Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, it's a whodunit at the core, but surrounded by Western staples as fights, gun-play, murders, barroom shenanigans and thinly veiled prostitution exist during the run time, while the Durango location photography is most pleasant (TCM HD print is gorgeous). It's not short of flaws, mind. Jarre's musical score is simply odd, I'm not even sure what film genre he thought he was scoring, but it's about as far removed as being in tune with a film as can be. McDowall as a whiny weasel villain doesn't work, the costuming is a bit sub-par and the reveal of the perpetrator is revealed too early. Yet film overcomes these problems because being in the company of Mitchum and Martin brings rewards. Dino harks back to his Western glory days in the likes of Rio Bravo, and Mitch gets to parody his Night of the Hunter preacher whilst adding six- shooter charms into the bargain. The girls are short changed by the writing, but both Stevens and Justice grace the picture with their presence, and Kotto enlivens a role that quite easily could have been standard fare. A good time to be had with this Poker Oater © 7/10

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• A group of card gamblers are killed one by one and Martin and Mitchum investigate the murders

  ma-cortes2012-07-23

  It's a film noir/Western/suspense of bizarre beauty and extraordinary performances ; being based on a novel by Ray Gaulden and interesting screenplay by Marguerite Roberts . A card shark is caught cheating, he is taken out and lynched , later on , this engenders several murders . The players in an ongoing poker game are being mysteriously killed off, one by one . A professional gambler (Dean Martin) who attempted to prevent the lynching tries to ensnare the assassin with the aid of a preacher (Robert Mitchum) with a weapon . Suspenseful film dealing with a card player who is lynched by the drunkards he was playing against. Tension from the opening game going on until ending and never lets up , being for Agata Christie aficionados . This is a tremendously exciting story of an obstinate card player and a strange preacher with a gun . It begins as a slow-moving Western but follows to surprise us with dark characters , strong supporting work , solid plot and in whodunit style . The tale is almost grim , a priest comes to a town just in time to make sure its citizenry but later the events get worse . Main cast is frankly magnificent . Sympathetic Dean Martin as as a reluctant card gambler and nice Robert Mitchum as a gun-toting preacher . First-rate Robert Mitchum in similar role and performance to ¨Night of the hunter¨ that was the acting of his life . In addition , Roddy McDowall steals the show as the cynic Nick . Supporting cast is extremely good such as Inger Stevens as Lily Langford , Katherine Justice as Nora Evers , John Anderson as Marshal Dana , Yaphet Kotto as Little George , Denver Pyle as Sig and Whit Bissell as Dr. Cooper , among others . Good Technicolor cinematography by Daniel F. Fapp . Enjoyable musical score ties up a top-notch Western package ; it is composed by the maestro Maurice Jarre . Furthermore , agreeable song by Dean Martin , including lyrics by Ned Washington . Watchable results for this offbeat Western . This well-paced in cracking style flick is compellingly directed by Henry Hathaway and usually works very well , taking a firm grip on the action and suspense . Here he directs efficiently Dean Martin and with strong screen presence by Robert Mitchum , both of whom collaborated in some Western . Hathaway himself was only even nominated for an Oscar , but his movies themselves are testimony to his skills to heighten narrative tension and shoot action so exhilarating it made adrenalin run . He does the human touch and full of insight that accompanied him during most of his films and the story develops pleasantly in a large frame with an interesting plot and fully adjusted to the requirements of the action . Henry was a craftsman who had a long career from the 30s with successful films , and especially Westerns , as ¨Brigham Young¨ and ¨Raw Hide¨ . In his 60s Hathaway still got the vigour to make some fiery movies as ¨From Hell to Texas¨, ¨How the West was won¨, ¨Nevada Smith¨, and ¨Shoot out¨ . He was an expert on Western genre as he proved in ¨True grit¨ , ¨Five card stud¨ , ¨Nevada Smith¨ ,¨How the West was won¨ , ¨Rawhide¨ , ¨Brigham Young¨ , ¨Buffalo Stampede¨, ¨Garden of evil¨ and ¨The sons of Katie Elder¨. Rating : nice Western that will appeal to Robert Mitchum and Dean Martin fans .

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