Search - Five Card Stud on DVD

Dino and Mitchum: Legends in search of a story...

Mark Savary | Seattle, WA | 06/04/2002

(3 out of 5 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."