Five Card Stud (1968)

Dean Martin is Van Morgan, a womanizing gambler in the middle of a late-night, seven-player card game at a saloon in Rincon.

He steps away from the table for a bit. By the time he returns, a stranger in town has been caught cheating and the other five players have turned into a lynch mob.

Morgan tries to intervene. His rule: You run tinhorns out of town; you don’t lynch them. And having your card players wind up dead isn’t good business.

But he’s unsuccessful. The man caught cheating winds up buried on boot hill with no name on his grave marker.

Then the other card players start turning up dead. Shopkeeper Fred Carson is found suffocated in a barrel of flour. Ranch hand Stony Burrow is found with barbed wire strung around his neck. Mace Jones hangs from the church steeple.

Morgan decides to head back to Rincon to lure the killer out of hiding. He suspects one of the other card players is cracking under the pressure of guilt.

Nick Evers (Roddy McDowall), the sharp-tongued, mean-tempered brother of a girl he’s romancing is his prime suspect.

But sharp-shooting Reverend Jonathan Rudd (Dean Martin) is encouraging all the good folks in Rincon to forsake violence and let God dispense justice as he sees fit.

Dean Martin as Van Morgan, upset with Nick Evers, one of his fellow card players in Five Card Stud (1968)

Robert Mitchum as the Rev. Jonathan Rudd, giving his first sermon in Rincon, pistol at the ready iin Five Card Stud (1968)

Review:

A bit of a muddled mess of a Western. What was the goal here? A Western whodunit? A James Bond Western? A thriller? A standard Western revenge story?

It doesn’t wind up being a very good version of any of those. It comes closest to a whodunit, but isn’t nearly dark or suspenseful enough. And there are times when it seems like the scriptwriter came up with a nifty line, then created a scene to fit it.

And try not to bust out in laughter at the silly scene where Dean Martin’s character gets the final clue about the real killer’s identity.

Of course, any Martin flick must have love interests. Here there are two — Nora Evers (Katherine Justice), a rancher’s daughter, Nick’s sister and an all-around good girl; and Lily Langford (Inger Stevens), who runs a barbershop where someone can order miscellaneous for $20.

Martin, naturally, chooses the bad girl and miscellaneous.

Inger Stevens as Lily Langford, scolding Van Morgan for a late-night visit to her home in Five Card Stud (1968)

Katherine Justice as Nora Evers, a young woman infatuated with Van Morgan (Dean Martin) in Five Card Stud (1968)

Directed by:
Henry Hathaway

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 … Marshal Dana
Ruth Springford … Mama Malone
Yaphet Kotto … Little George
Denver Pyle … Sig Evers
Bill Fletcher … Joe Hurley
Whit Bissell … Dr. Cooper
Ted de Corsia … Eldon Bates
Don Collier … Rowan
Roy Jenson … Mace Jones

Runtime: 103 min.

Title Tune:
“Five-Card Stud” sung by Dean Martin

Roddy McDowell as Nick Evers, sharing his difficult upbringing with an acquaintance in Five Card Stud (1968)

Yaphet Kotto as Little George, warning Van Morgan (Dean Martin) not to return to Rincon in Five Card Stud (1968)

Memorable lines:

Van Morgan to George: “You know, when a gambler lets his game wind up in a killing, pretty soon he doesn’t have a game.”

Van Morgan: “Nora, do you know what you are? The most foolish thing in the world — a good woman.”
Nora Evers: “What’s foolish about it?”
Van: “Well, a good woman has a way of pushin’ herself up against a man until he forgets she’s a good woman. Then she expects to end up married.”
Nora: “Well, how else would she end up?”
Van: “Well, with me, she could up end picking hay from the back of her dress.”

The Rev. Jonathan Rudd: “The Lord saw fit to sprinkle gold on this land and man and his greed is turning paradise into a pigsty.”

Lily Langford rings the bell twice in her barber shop.
Van Morgan: “If I got you for one bell, what am I going to get for two?”

Sig Evers to his son: “Nick, what would it take for you to lose your appetite?’
Nick Evers: “A belly full.”

Ruth Springford as Mama Malone, a saloon owner welcoming Van Morgan (Dean Martin) back to town in Five Card Stud (1968)

Bill Fletcher as Joe Hurley, one of the last card players surviving in Five Card Stud (1968)

Van Morgan: “If you were going to do a man in, what kind of weapon would you use?”
Lily Langford: “It wouldn’t be a gun.”
Van: “I bet it wouldn’t.”

Nick Evers to The Rev. Jonathan Rudd: “I’ve got just one rule: Me first, nobody second.”

Nick Evers: “It’s bite or get bit, reverend. And I’m biting.”

Mama Malone: “I hope you win.”
Van Morgan: “I can’t miss. I’m playing with six dead men.”

Dean Martin as Van Morgan, Ruth Springford as Mama Malone and Yaphet Kotto as Little George, alarmed by gunfire in Five Card Stud (1968)

Katherine Justice as Nora Evers and Inger Stevens as Lily Langford, fearing for Van as they watch a gunfight in Five Card Stud (1969)

John Anderson as Marshal Dana, discussing the string of murders with Van Morgan in Five Card Stud (1968)

Katherine Justice as Nora Evers and Inger Stevens as Lily Langford, fearing for Van as they watch a gunfight in Five Card Stud (1968)

Robert Mitchum as the Rev. Jonathan Rudd, with a surprise hiding in his Bible in Five Card Stud (1968)

Dean Martin as Van Morgan, confronting a suspected killer in Five Card Stud (1968)