What a cast of characters in A Big Hand for the Little Lady: Henry Drummond, a rich and irascible rancher who put his daughter's wedding on hold just as the vows were starting; Otto Habershaw, a slick, handsome and morally questionable lawyer. Habershaw left a client probably to hang when he ran from the courthouse and jumped on his horse just as he was supposed to sum up for the defense; Benson Tropp, wealthiest undertaker in the region, who has no use for women unless he's burying them; Dennis Wilcox, another wealthy rancher, a big, loud man who enjoys joking at other's expense; and Jesse Buford, small, aging and just as wealthy. He, Wilcox and all the others are sticklers for the rules. High stakes poker rules, that is.
And what a cast: Jason Robards (Drummond), Kevin McCarthy (Habershaw), Charles Bickford (Tropp), Robert Middleton (Wilcox) and John Qualen (Buford). Plus Burgess Meredith as Doc Joseph Scully, a man getting old who is tired of saving people and getting produce as payment, and Paul Ford as C. P. Ballinger, a banker who knows the value of collateral.
The five are poker players, and for each of the last 17 years nothing, absolutely nothing, has stood in the way of their annual game. They hold it in the back room of a saloon and hotel in Laredo. It's become a legend in the territory for the money they've lost and won They're just starting the first hand when into town comes a hard-luck family on a wagon with a busted wheel, on their way to start again on 40 acres near San Antonio. Meredith (Henry Fonda) is a nice man trying to do his best. He's also a fool for cards, a man who has lost so much of his family's hard-earned money that his wife, Mary (Joanne Woodward) made him solemnly promise that he'd never touch cards again. Mary wants to believe him. Their 12-year-old son is about to get a lesson of a lifetime.
It's not long, while Mary takes the wagon to the blacksmith, that Meredith has begged for a chance just to watch the game. He can't help licking his lips. His son can't help begging his pa not to. Soon Meredith has taken the family's $4,000 stake, all the money they have in the world, to get in the game. You know the rest...he wagers and he loses.
Wait. He wagers, alright. He has the best hand he's ever been dealt in his life...but he's about to be out-raised. He begs for a loan so he can stay in the game...and has a heart attack. It's up to Mary, back from the blacksmith and who has never played a game of poker in her life, to convince the five hard-bitten players that it's only fair that she be allowed to play her husband's hand. The five bicker a bit but reluctantly agree, and are stunned when Mary takes the hand and marches to the bank, with them following, to convince C. P. Ballinger to use the hand as collateral for a loan on her bet.
Does the movie have a more satisfactory ending than a dead Henry Fonda clutching his heart, a tearful Joanne Woodward seeing these committed poker players take every cent her family has? Oh, yes, indeed. No one dies, and there is one of the most satisfying endings, with a twist and a sting, you'll ever hope to see.
What makes this movie so engaging - after all, it's basically 1 hour and 35 minutes of a poker game - is that twist at the end and the skill and charm of the actors. As good as Fonda and the others are, the movie really sits up when Woodward, Robards and McCarthy are doing their stuff. Woodward is so skilled an actress that I sometimes think we take her for granted. That would be an unwise action in this movie. Robards, who was probably America's greatest stage actor in the last 60 years and one of it's best screen actors, turns Henry Drummond into a fine mixture of frustration and selfishness. Robards can make us smile in sympathy over even an unlikeable character like Drummond. See just how good an actor Robards was with his performances in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten (Broadway Theatre Archive) and Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (Broadway Theatre Archive). Kevin McCarthy, a fine actor with great charm, could play weak, strong, sleaze or integrity with equal believability. Here, he's all charm and quite willing to make a move on Mary, but he holds back, surprising even himself. I don't want to short-change Fonda. As Meredith, he's stuck for most of the movie playing a weak man in the grip of poker fever, and henpecked as well. He captures our sympathy even while we pity the poor man.
A Big Hand for the Little Lady is something of a one-joke movie, but it's a first-class, clever joke with a great cast.
And what a cast: Jason Robards (Drummond), Kevin McCarthy (Habershaw), Charles Bickford (Tropp), Robert Middleton (Wilcox) and John Qualen (Buford). Plus Burgess Meredith as Doc Joseph Scully, a man getting old who is tired of saving people and getting produce as payment, and Paul Ford as C. P. Ballinger, a banker who knows the value of collateral.
The five are poker players, and for each of the last 17 years nothing, absolutely nothing, has stood in the way of their annual game. They hold it in the back room of a saloon and hotel in Laredo. It's become a legend in the territory for the money they've lost and won They're just starting the first hand when into town comes a hard-luck family on a wagon with a busted wheel, on their way to start again on 40 acres near San Antonio. Meredith (Henry Fonda) is a nice man trying to do his best. He's also a fool for cards, a man who has lost so much of his family's hard-earned money that his wife, Mary (Joanne Woodward) made him solemnly promise that he'd never touch cards again. Mary wants to believe him. Their 12-year-old son is about to get a lesson of a lifetime.
It's not long, while Mary takes the wagon to the blacksmith, that Meredith has begged for a chance just to watch the game. He can't help licking his lips. His son can't help begging his pa not to. Soon Meredith has taken the family's $4,000 stake, all the money they have in the world, to get in the game. You know the rest...he wagers and he loses.
Wait. He wagers, alright. He has the best hand he's ever been dealt in his life...but he's about to be out-raised. He begs for a loan so he can stay in the game...and has a heart attack. It's up to Mary, back from the blacksmith and who has never played a game of poker in her life, to convince the five hard-bitten players that it's only fair that she be allowed to play her husband's hand. The five bicker a bit but reluctantly agree, and are stunned when Mary takes the hand and marches to the bank, with them following, to convince C. P. Ballinger to use the hand as collateral for a loan on her bet.
Does the movie have a more satisfactory ending than a dead Henry Fonda clutching his heart, a tearful Joanne Woodward seeing these committed poker players take every cent her family has? Oh, yes, indeed. No one dies, and there is one of the most satisfying endings, with a twist and a sting, you'll ever hope to see.
What makes this movie so engaging - after all, it's basically 1 hour and 35 minutes of a poker game - is that twist at the end and the skill and charm of the actors. As good as Fonda and the others are, the movie really sits up when Woodward, Robards and McCarthy are doing their stuff. Woodward is so skilled an actress that I sometimes think we take her for granted. That would be an unwise action in this movie. Robards, who was probably America's greatest stage actor in the last 60 years and one of it's best screen actors, turns Henry Drummond into a fine mixture of frustration and selfishness. Robards can make us smile in sympathy over even an unlikeable character like Drummond. See just how good an actor Robards was with his performances in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten (Broadway Theatre Archive) and Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (Broadway Theatre Archive). Kevin McCarthy, a fine actor with great charm, could play weak, strong, sleaze or integrity with equal believability. Here, he's all charm and quite willing to make a move on Mary, but he holds back, surprising even himself. I don't want to short-change Fonda. As Meredith, he's stuck for most of the movie playing a weak man in the grip of poker fever, and henpecked as well. He captures our sympathy even while we pity the poor man.
A Big Hand for the Little Lady is something of a one-joke movie, but it's a first-class, clever joke with a great cast.
