5 Card Stud



5 Card Stud is a 1968 Western Mystery directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum, The script, based on a novel by Ray Gaulden, was written by Marguerite Roberts, who also wrote the screenplay of True Grit for Hathaway the following year.

Plot
In 1880, a gambler in the small town of Rincon, 100 miles from Denver, Colorado, is caught cheating at a five-card stud poker game. The players led by the volatile Nick Evers take the cheating gambler to hang him. One of the players, Van Morgan, tries to prevent the others from administering frontier justice, but is unable to stop the man's lynching. Morgan leaves town, but later returns when he hears that a couple of the other players from that ill-fated game have become victims of grisly murders.

The town has a new resident, a stern and somewhat edgy Colt .45-carrying Baptist preacher named Reverend Rudd. As more members of the lynch mob are killed off one by one, it becomes clear that someone is taking revenge and it is up to Morgan to solve the mystery. Finally, only he is left. He discovers the identity of the killer just in time.

Cast

 * Dean Martin as Van Morgan
 * Robert Mitchum as The Rev. Jonathan Rudd
 * Inger Stevens as Lily Langford
 * Roddy McDowall as Nick Evers
 * Katherine Justice as Nora Evers
 * John Anderson as U.S. Marshal Al Dana
 * Ruth Springford as Mama Malone
 * Yaphet Kotto as Little George
 * Denver Pyle as Sig Evers
 * Bill Fletcher as Joe Hurley
 * Whit Bissell as Dr. Cooper
 * Ted de Corsia as Eldon Bates
 * Don Collier as Rowan
 * Roy Jenson as Mace Jones

Production notes
The song lead by Rudd at his first service in Rincon is the late-19th-century Baptist hymn, "Mercy's Call," written W. H. Doane.

This film marked the last appearance of Inger Stevens. Two years after she did both this film and another Western, Hang 'Em High, Stevens committed suicide. This film also marked the second time Mitchum played an unorthodox preacher; the first being 1955's The Night of the Hunter. This film brought together director Henry Hathaway and Dean Martin a second time since the 1965 film The Sons of Katie Elder with Martin doing double duty. He plays a gunslinger and performs the title song.

DVD reviews

 * DVD Savant review by Glenn Erickson
 * DVD Verdict review by Eric Profancik
 * digitallyOBSESSED! review by Mark Zimmer