Five Card Stud

Amazon.com

Paramount released a first-rate Western, El Dorado, in 1967, and another, True Grit, in 1969. So why was the studio's 1968 oater such a hunk of buzzard bait? You know Five Card Stud's in trouble from the opening credits--they're too short to accommodate the Dean Martin title song, so that it spills awkwardly into the first scene. The timing never does come out right--not in the lethargic pacing, not in the lax editing (which often leaves cast members stranded onscreen at scene's end), and not in the herky-jerky screenplay, which either lurches over intervals of weeks (months?) or piles up enough calamities in one day to stock a sequel. Even the end comes five minutes and two anticlimactic scenes late.

An after-hours poker game is underway as the film begins. A stranger is caught cheating and, over the objection of professional gambler Dean Martin, lynched. Soon there's another stranger in town, black-clad preacher Robert Mitchum, and participants in the fatal card game start dying grotesque, solitary deaths. Five Card Stud wants to be a psychological mystery, but there's scant psychology and no mystery at all beyond why the filmmakers thought any viewer could fail to figure it out. Martin and Mitchum sleepwalk through their roles (Martin's includes a glum, ludicrously written romance with brothel-keeper Inger Stevens), while Roddy McDowall camps up his turn as spoiled son of the local range baron. Somewhere in the middle, the young Yaphet Kotto plays it admirably cool as a philosophical bartender. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews:

SEVEN LITTLE PLAYERS.......2007-07-01

5 CARD STUD, based on the Ray Gaulden novel 5 CARD STUD, was directed by veteran director Henry Hathaway in 1968. Aging actors Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum were the stars of the film while the younger generation was embodied by Roddy McDowall and Katherine Justice.

I was very pleased with this movie I discovered only recently at my local DVD store. The main theme of 5 CARD STUD mixes two conventional genres rarely handled together : mystery and western. So, mystery it is with several murders committed by an unknown killer who appears right after the lynching of a card cheater. As to the western ingredients, there are enough colts, saloons, ranches and horses in 5 CARD STUD to make you forget you're not in Mrs. Marple's St-Mary's Mead.

Several scenes will stay in my memory like the lynching of Frankie Rudd, filmed in a very crudely manner by Henry Hathaway, and all the scenes with Robert Mitchum who plays an ambivalent character hiding a gun in a book. If you like either the mystery genre either the western genre, 5 CARD STUD won't disappoint you.

A DVD zone curiosities.

Entertaining Murder Mystery.......2007-02-04

Yes, this is first and foremost a murder mystery rather than a Western, but the Western ingredients are oh so tasty as well. By no means a traditional Western, the plot is offbeat enough (borrowing heavily from Agatha Christie) that you can imagine it as a spaghetti Western albeit with a somewhat different treatment than it gets here.
The story is this: A game of five card stud goes wrong when one of the men is revealed as a cheat - he is lynched, despite Dean Martin trying to stop the proceedings. Later, the members of the card game start dying, one by one in styles reminiscent of the death of the card cheat. Has one of the players gotten scared and is silencing the others? Is it anything to do with the preacher who just arrived in town (played by Robert Mitchum)? Did the story get out and someone else is taking revenge? It's not too difficult to figure it out at least in part - heck, just the casting gives it away. But the script is sharp enough to make the journey fun, and even the bit players are worth watching.
Henry Hathaway clearly wants to do something a little different with this Western ( this one is sandwiched between the classics `Sons of Katie Elder' and `True Grit') and he succeeds, though not as successfully as before and after. The movie is unfailingly entertaining - I remember it from my youth, and it still sticks in my mind, and brings a smile when I think of it.
Dean Martin croons the title song, part of an underrated score by Maurice Jarre. I say underrated because though not having the depth of his other works, this score is catchy enough to stick in your head - rather like the movie - no depth, but just plain entertaining. Dean Martin shows he can lead a movie effectively, and while he does not stretch his acting chops by any means, he could not be more convincing as the womanising gambler caught up in something murky and trying to figure it out. Robert Mitchum is kind of on autopilot here by his standards, but brings enough of his character from `Night of the Hunter' to make his part feel real. Bit parts too are worth mentioning - Roddy McDowell as the underhand nasty ringleader with a chip on his shoulder; Yaphett Koto before playing a Bond villain in Live and Let Die plays the black philosophical bartender - OK, it's a cliché, but it's one that works.
There is a love interest subplot which fails to ignite - Martin starts the movie in a semi romance with the young innocent daughter of the big rancher, and then tarries with the new woman in town, (Inger Stevens) - neither is completely convincing, as is the idea he would try and manage both at the same time. But then, this is a Dean Martin vehicle...
To summarise, this film has no depth, played by actors on autopilot and a director not firing on all four cylinders - and yet it is a hugely entertaining off beat Western that you are bound to enjoy. Just don't expect a bona fide classic!

Now if Roddy McDowall were in an ape costume..........2006-10-30

I can't believe how many reviewers are giving Roddy McDowall accolades for his performance in this monstrosity. Out of all of the shortcomings this movie has, its biggest one is the miscasting of Roddy McDowall in a tough-guy role. I couldn't help but laugh every time he was on the screen, because I couldn't believe a scrawny, short guy with impeccably-pronounced British English in the role of a tough, Old West cowboy. I'm not a macho brute by any means, but when I watch a Western, I want true (actually, make that typical Hollywood formula) cowboys and action.

Other reviewers have rightly mentioned that the plot is a bit thin; it's so thin that you can see right through it. Robert Mitchum was a good actor, and he did the best job in this film even though his character was also poorly written. As for Dean Martin, I never did think he was much of a cowboy actor; he did okay in both "Rio Bravo" and "The Sons of Katie Elder," but it didn't hurt that those were star vehicles for John Wayne; without the Duke, Dino didn't fare as well in Westerns.

The only way they could have made this stinker of a movie entertaining would have been to have Roddy McDowall riding around in an ape costume with an ammo belt draped over his shoulder and a rifle in his hand (I know, I know - he was a 'good' ape). I'm not sure whether this movie or "Planet of the Apes" came out first (both were released in 1968), but that would have made a funny tie-in with "...Apes", and it wouldn't have been any more ludicrous than any of the things that are already in "Five Card DUD".

not a great western,not a great mystery,just an ok time killer.......2006-04-22

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

2 Star Dud.......2006-01-15

After a man is caught cheating in a poker game a lynch party is formed and the man is murdered. Soon after the murderers begin dying violent and mysterious deaths.

Dean Martin plays a ramblin' gambler in FIVE CARD STUD, a movie that probably didn't, but certainly could have, pounded the fatal nail into the traditional western before handing the franchise over to the Italians. Although it sells itself as a mystery/western - who's killing all these gambling varmints, anyhow? - a five-second study of the movie's poster will pretty much shuffle out who's the good guy, who's the bad guy, and who's going to ride into the sunset with Inger Stevens.

I watched this movie the first time years and years ago, back in the knee-britches days. It's possible some of synapses fired and connected and I somehow, after a generation plus, remembered how the plot - and I use that term loosely - ran. I doubt it, though. FIVE CARD STUD doesn't bother itself with keeping an edge to the mystery. Robert Mitchum plays a gun-toting preacher who opens a church soon after the lynching occurs, Roddy McDowell is an angry young man with a chip on his shoulder. Katherine Justice plays the shapely tomboy sister of McDowell and Inger Stevens is wasted, again, as a hair-cutting floozie. Both women, of course, have lips puckered for the six-shootin' gambling man Martin.

This one was pretty excruciating, and it's really tempting to blame it all on the bored, and boring, Martin. That's probably not fair, though. The script is murky, the dialogue laughable (at the wrong times,) and, like I said, the mystery is never all that much of a mystery. Martin, like Mitchum, was best in movies that let him play it laid-back and coolly bemused. He needs manic energy to react to - think Shirley MacLaine, a young Sally Fields, or even Jerry Lewis. He doesn't have the chops to carry a movie without someone like that, though. Mitchum could, but the movie doesn't put him at the center. It wouldn't matter anyway, because the only hope for this trite oater would be razing the story and starting over. About the only fun this one provides - besides a scene with Mitchum and Yaphet Kotto near the end - is trying to decide who looks more bored, Martin or Mitchum. My money's on Mitchum, but Martin gives him a go at it. A waste of a good cast, and, save for a scene or two, a waste of a viewer's time.

Average customer rating:

Five Card Stud

Manufacturer: Echelon Entertainment 2
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

When Greg, the risk-averse leader of the weekly poker game unexpectedly falls for Aly, a girl with a reputation and a boyfriend, he is forced to battle his neuroses, Aly must confront her insecurities and his buddies have to reluctantly reconsider their state of arrested adolescence.

Average customer rating:

Five Card Stud [Region 2]
Director: Vince Benedetti
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( F ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000085ROJ

Average customer rating:

Follow the Bitch

Manufacturer: CustomFlix
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

If you want to know what's wrong with the world, just ask Bill. In fact, if you don't want to know... he'll tell you anyway. Yet, for a man who hates almost everything, there is one thing Bill loves. That's when he and Andy, Ty, Blake, Gordon and Karl gather for the great ritual of their Friday-Night Poker Game. Whether it's Texas Hold'em, Five Card Stud or Follow the Bitch, it's the sanctity of the game that matters, and Bill has been the host and keeper of this weekly, all-night event for over ten years. But tonight, things go terribly wrong. Andy brings news that may jeopardize the game forever: he's getting married. Also, Gordon and Ty let Andy in on a little secret that could destroy their friendship. Then, as if things weren't bad enough, for the first time somebody's invited a woman to join the game. And she's damn good. Will Bill be able to keep the one good thing in his life from falling apart? Will he have to settle for a different kind of game or no game at all? Either way, the odds are against him, and it's gonna be a long time til dawn. This 'Special Edition' DVD comes with the following additional features: Cast and Crew Audio Commentary Behind the Scenes Featurettes: - "Anatomy of a Shot" - "Anatomy of a Scene" Cast and Crew Interviews Photo Gallery This is a must own film for any fans of the poker scene.

Average customer rating:

Five Card Stud

Manufacturer: Echelon Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

When Greg, the risk-averse leader of the weekly poker game unexpectedly falls for Aly, a girl with a reputation and a boyfriend, he is forced to battle his neuroses. Aly must confront her insecurities. Greg's buddies have to reluctantly reconsider their state of arrested adolescence.

DVD:

DVD

DVD