Poker Alice (1987)

Elizabeth Taylor is Alice Moffitt, a Boston socialite who has been disowned by her family because of her love of gambling.

She’s fed up with the West, until she wins a $3,000 house in King City in a poker game in which the male players mistake her for a lovely novice.

Once in King City, she realizes what she’s really won is a whorehouse.

That puts her at odds with Sears (Richard Mulligan), who owns a saloon and is her main competitor in providing companionship for lonely males.

He’d like nothing better than to buy her out. Especially if he can get her place for a bargain price.

Cousin John (George Hamilton) is Alice’s constant companion and protector.

And he goes into full protection mode when bounty hunter Jeremy Collins (Tom Skerritt) starts showing interest in her.

Collins is a man with plans. One last bounty, and he’s off to California to start a horse ranch.

He decides he wouldn’t mind taking Alice along.

Elizabeth Taylor as Alice Moffit, wondering what the future holds if she and Cousin John don’t part ways in Poker Alice (1987)

George Hamilton as John Moffit, who has a special place in his heart for cousin Alice and is her constant companion in Poker Alice (1987)

Review:

Liz looks great for age 55, but you have to wonder about the premise — a Western built around her — and this made-for-TV film never really takes off.

Hamilton’s character is most interesting — a writer who drinks a lot, who doesn’t write, but is clearly in love with the cousin he trails around the country. And it’s not love of the familial type.

Meanwhile, Alice is a reluctant madam, who refuses to take her cut of her girls’ carnal earnings, forbids them from working on Sunday and orders them to read the Bible that day instead.

But Baby Doe, the only whore who can read, can’t bring herself to follow that order. She’s reluctant to even pick up the Bible, given all the “wicked things” she’s done in her life.

While Baby Doe’s fighting her conscience, Alice is catfighting with Mad Mary, who dared bed a man on Sunday. You can bet it was a body double, not Liz, tumbling down that flight of stairs.

There really was a Poker Alice. And for a time in the early 1900s, she ran a saloon, complete with whores, in South Dakota, that always closed on Sunday. This film, however, is not intended as a biography.

Tom Skerritt as Jeremy Collins, hoping to collect one more bounty before heading to California to start a horse ranch in Poker Alice (1987)

Richard Muligan as Sears, who desperately wants to buy out Alice, his only rival in the King City bordello business in Poker Alice (1987)

Directed by:
Arthur Allan Seidelman

Cast:
Elizabeth Taylor … Alice Moffit
Tom Skerritt … Jeremy Collins
George Hamilton … Cousin John
Richard Mulligan … Sears
David Wayne … Amos
Susan Tyrrell … Mad Mary
Pat Corley … McCarthy
Paul Drake … Baker
Mews Small … Baby Doe
Annabella Price … Miss Tuttwiler
Gary Bisig … Gilmore
Liz Torres … Big Erma
Gary Grubbs … Marshal
John Bennett Perry … Frank Hartwell
Ed Adams … Harris
Will Hannah … Mason
Henry Kendrick … Carter
Jace Kent … Pellum

Runtime: 90 min.

David Wayne as Amos McCarthy, who bets his ‘house’ during a card game with a lady gambler who knows much more about poker than he suspected in Poker Alice (1987)

J.D., the outlaw Collins is seeking for a final bounty. Does anyone know who plays this part?

Memorable lines:

Cousin John, as Alice breaks off a relationship with a rancher: “I warned you in New Orleans, didn’t I? I told you you couldn’t believe anything a Westerner says. They’re the most adept liars in the whole world.”
Bounty hunter Jeremy Collins, overhearing their conversation: “I wouldn’t say that.”
Cousin John: “Then don’t.”

Station manager, explaining how King City got its name: “Named after a poker hand where a pair of kings beat a full house.”
Alice Moffit: “How could a pair of kings beat a full house?”
Station manager: “Easy. The fella with the pair of kings pulled a .45.”

Mason: “I’ve never been after a bounty hunter before.”
Gilmore: “I never even heard of goin’ after a bounty hunter.”
J.D., an outlaw with a $5,000 price tag on his head: “Look, there’s a lot of things ain’t been done til somebody done ’em. There’s a first time for everything. Except, dyin’. And that ain’t a first time, it’s an only time.”

Cousin John: “I’d hate to think I wasted a lifetime on you.”
Alice Moffit: “Even if you’d never heard of me, you’d of wasted your life on something.”

The girls who come with the ‘house’ won by Alice Moffit, including Mews Samll (left) as Baby Doe and Susan Tyrrell (third from left) as Mad Mary in Poker Alice (1987)

Elizabeth Taylor as Alice Moffit, confronting a bordello customer who refuses to pay one of her girls in Poker Alice (1987)