Movie review - "Five Card Stud" (1968) **

Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum were stars with a lot in common: bothspecialised in a laid back acting style, both were often under-rated asactors, both proved very durable, both could sing (Mitchum had a hit record, "Thunder Road"), both remain cool even after all these years,both were devoted womanisers despite having long-standing marriages. Both were also most effective when teamed with a different sort of actor eg Martin with the uptight, aggressive Frank Sinatra, or Mitchum with the classy, ladylike Deborah Kerr, or both with the lumbering John Wayne. So teaming the two of them together doesn't quite work - two laid back cats together isn't a recipe for fireworks. It's not entirely their fault - the script is just an episode of Bonanza, with Martin investigating the deaths of a group of men who lynched a gambler. Martin has a weak motivation for looking into the killings, the handling (music, etc) feels like a television show, no one seems very interested- though Martin does strike some sparks in his scenes with Inger Stevens. Mitchum is professional though his role - as a mysterious,gun-touting prisoner - is a bit irritating because it harks back to a much better film, The Night of the Hunter. This is one of those films which helped get people sick of the Western in the late 60s, like Chuka and others. Roddy MacDowall's English accent is slightly jarring but I liked Yaphet Kotto in the support role - it was around this point that Hollywood started to consistently acknowledge that there were blacks in the old west.