The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1991)

Gambling is about to be banned in the U.S., but one last high-stakes poker game is being organized in San Francisco.

Former madam Burgundy Jones (Reba McEntire) would like renown gambler Brady Hawkes (Kenny Rogers) to represent her and four other well-off women in that game.

They’re even willing to put up the $100,000 table stakes, as long as Hawkes can prevail in a primary match in which each of the other women is represented by her own hand-picked card player.

Hawkes prevails, of course, and heads off for San Francisco, accompanied by Burgundy and long-time friend Ethan Cassidy (Rick Rossovich).

Cassidy is fleeing Ruby Roy Bean, daughter of the hanging judge and a woman intent on making him her husband.

Hawkes and Burgundy have bigger problems. An outlaw gang led by Cade Dalton is after the table stakes they’re carrying.

So is a poor loser of a gambler named Lute Cantrell (Christopher Rich), one of the other poker players in that preliminary round.

And if they make San Fran, Hawkes and company are going to have to deal with Melody O’Rourke (Park Overall), a axe-carrying temperance leader determined to shut down that last card game.

Kenny Rogers as Brady Hawkes, dispensing wisdom at the poker table in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Reba McEntire as Burgundy Jones, off to a poker game with Brady Hawkes in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Review:

This gets one star for its entertainment value and one for its curiosity value.

Curiosity, you say. Well, check out the cast. It includes Hugh O’Brian as Wyatt Earp, Clint Walker as Cheyenne, Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain, Gene Barry as Bat Masterson and David Carradine as Caine.

It also includes Brian Keith, James Drury, Linda Evans, Claude Akins, Johnny Crawford, Doug McClure and Mickey Rooney.

And fans of Reba’s hit TV Series “Reba” (2001-2007) will certainly recognize Rich. He played her ex-husband in the series.

But, here, the filmmakers would have been much better served if they had focused less on rounding up Western stars of the 1960s and 1970s and cramming them into their rambling plot and instead focused on delivering an original, suspenseful TV Western.

Originality? Well, Reba does mow down a bunch of Mexican soldiers with a Gatling gun. And Juliana Donald and Park Overall are entertaining as the husband-hungry judge’s daughter and the temperance leader, respectively.

Plot? Let’s see, Reba needs Brady Hawkes to win the poker game because she’s in debt to the bank. In fact, the orphanage she runs for the children of whores (is about to be shut down) is about to be shut down. Yet she can somehow afford to put up $20,000 in table stakes to back Brady (???).

And there’s virtually no suspense. The film ends just as you suspect it will when you start watching what was, at the time, a two-part miniseries. In other words, it takes a long time to get to where you knew you were going.

Rick Rossovich as Ethan Cassidy, Brady’s sidekick, trying to reason with a temperance leader in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Park Overall as Melody O’Rourke, the determined temperance leader in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Directed by:
Dick Lowry

Cast:
Kenny Rogers … Brady Hawkes
Rick Rossovich … Ethan Cassidy
Reb McEntire … Burgundy Jones
Christopher Rich … Lute Cantrell
Jere Burns … Cade Dalton
Claude Akins … President Roosevelt
Gene Barry … Bat Masterson
David Carradine … Caine
Chuck Connors … Lucas McCain
Johnny Crawford … Mark McCain
James Drury … Jim
Doug McClure … Doug
Linda Evans … Kate Muldoon
Brian Keith … The Westerner
Hugh O’Brian … Wyatt Earp
Jack Kelly … Bart Maverick
Dion Anderson … Diamond Jim Brady
Mickey Rooney … The Director
Clint Walker … Cheyenne
Park Overall … Melody O’Rourke
Patrick Macnee … Sir Colin
Brad Sullivan … Judge Roy Bean
Juliana Donald … Ruby Roy Bean

Runtime: 186 min.

Christopher Rich as Lute Cantrell, unlucky at cards, but determined to win anyway in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Jere Burns as Cade Dalton, using Burgundy Jones (Reba McEntire) to get his way in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Memorable lines:

Burgundy Jones: “You know, judge, we have no better friend in this world than Ethan Cassidy.”
Judge Roy Bean: “Then you two can walk right out to my gallows and say goodbye to your friend.”

Writer: “Those dime novels that do nothing but glorify their subjects are a thing of the past, Mr. Earp. Now, my publisher wants the facts behind the legend — the real Wyatt Earp, warts and all, marshal.”
Wyatt Earp: “I don’t know that warts is how I want to be remembered.”

Burgunday Jones to Cade Dalton: “I’ve known this piece of trash all my life. I wouldn’t give you the sweat off my horse’s butt.”

Ruby Roy: “It wasn’t even exactly a weddin’ night. Well, you see, first he (Ethan Cassidy) had to race this horse. And then I found a jockey in my bed. He was so little. Oh, it was awful.”

Ruby Roy: “My daddy, Judge Bean, well, he always says, when you find a man, corral him, put a saddle on him, he’s all yours. Ethan slipped his bridle, and I need to round him up.”

Cookie: “I wish Diamond Jim would get rid of him (an assistant) and settle down in some big valley, build a little house on the prairie, surrounded by high chaparral. That’d be a real bonanza for me. I’m gettin’ too old for this wild, wild west.”

Brad Sullivan as Judge Roy Bean. reasoning with his husband-seeking daughter in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Juliana Donald as Ruby Roy Bean, a judge’s daughter determined to lasso her man in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain, showing up with his rifle just when he’s needed in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Clint Walker as Cheyenne, a stage driver helping Brady Hawkes out of a jam in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Brian Keith as The Westerner, humored by Lute Cantrell’s motorcyle in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Claude Akins as President Teddy Roosevelt, who briefly joins the high-stakes poker match in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

David Carradine as Caine, helping Brady and his companions out of Chinatown in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Gene Barry as Bat Masterson, worried about the outcome of a prize fight in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Hugh O’Brian as Wyatt Earp, showing why no one robs banks in his town in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick, ready to square off in a high-stakes game in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

James Drury as Jim, a cowpoke delivering stock to the rodeo in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Mickey Rooney as a film director Eghan and Burgundy encounter in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)

Teri Copley as Daisy McKee, one of the well-off women financing the trip to San Francisco in The Gambler Returns, Luck of the Draw (1991)