5 Card Stud *** (1968, Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum, Inger Stevens, Roddy McDowall) – Classic Movie Review 7442

Director Henry Hathaway’s strongly cast but saddle-sore 1968 Western gets a big lift from the eminently watchable, cucumber-cool performances of Dean Martin as gambler Van Morgan and Mitchum as a mysterious gun-carrying minister, the Rev Jonathan Rudd.

With a screenplay by Marguerite Roberts based on the novel by Ray Gaulden, this Western is about a crooked poker game and a lynching party, whose members bite the dust after they hang the card sharp. Martin and Mitchum link up to bring justice to the killer.

On the plus side, this is a very well produced movie. There are lashings of Maurice Jarre music, excellent Technicolor cinematography by Daniel L Fapp, good co-stars in Inger Stevens and Roddy McDowall, an ideal support cast and good Western atmosphere. But on the minus side, it is let down by a fairly lame yarn and surprisingly mediocre direction from action expert Hathaway. The film may not be great, but it is a poignant reminder of how much we too often underestimated Martin and now miss both him and Mitchum.

Also in the cast are Katherine Justice, John Anderson, Yaphet Kotto, Ruth Springfield, Denver Pyle, Bill Fletcher, Whit Bissell, Ted de Corsia, Don Collier, Roy Jenson and Hope Summers.

It is advertised as ‘From the producer of The Sons of Katie Elder, Gunfight at the OK Corral and Last Train from Gun Hill‘ – that would be Hal B Wallis. Interesting though it is, it is not in the same league as any of them.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7442

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