5 Card Stud (1968)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Henry Hathaway

Writers:

Marguerite Roberts (screenplay)
Ray Gaulden (novel)

Release Date:

22 November 1968 (France)

Genre:

Western | Mystery

Tagline:

A card cheat was hung... then all hell broke loose!

Plot:

The players in an ongoing poker game are being mysteriously killed off, one by one.

Plot Keywords:

Poker | Beautiful Woman | Lynching | Serial Killer | Cardsharp

Cast

Dean Martin	...	Van Morgan
Robert Mitchum	...	The Rev. Jonathan Rudd
Inger Stevens	...	Lily Langford
Roddy McDowall	...	Nick Evers
Katherine Justice	...	Nora Evers
John Anderson	...	U.S.Marshal Al Dana
Ruth Springford	...	Mama Malone (saloon owner)
Yaphet Kotto	...	Little George (Mama's bartender)
Denver Pyle	...	Sig Evers (rancher)
Bill Fletcher	...	Joe Hurley (livery stable owner)
Whit Bissell	...	Dr. Cooper (Rincon, Colorado)
Ted de Corsia	...	Eldon Bates (head of Miners Association)
Don Collier	...	Rowan (gold miner)
Roy Jenson	...	Mace Jones (Evers' hand)

Also Known As:

Five Card Stud (USA) (alternative spelling)

Runtime:

103 min | Argentina:105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

West Germany:12 (re-rated) | West Germany:16 (nf) (original rating) | Australia:M | Argentina:13 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG (certificate #21845)

Filming Locations:

Durango, Mexico

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Goofs:

Continuity: In the scene where Van Morgan and the Reverend Rudd are shooting at the wind mill they empty their guns. The next scene shows them reloading both weapons. The revolvers had swing out cylinders. Later in the gunfight in town, when they reload their pistols, they are now using Colt Peacemakers that have a loading port to the right side of the cylinder.

Quotes:

Van Morgan: You've preached a lot of funerals around here lately. You got something new for this one?
The Rev. Jonathan Rudd: The funeral is for the living, Mr. Morgan. I'll say what his folks want to hear: that Nick Evers was a good son, a good brother, a loyal friend and a respected citizen.
Van Morgan: You think you won't gag on all that?

Soundtrack:

5 Card Stud

Great murder mystery western

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 5 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; the whole movie doesn't amount to much more than enjoyable entertainment, but the actors and the acting in it are really worth watching.