Film Number 42 – A Big Hand for the Little Lady
A poker movie from 1966 today, the film concerns an annual card game in a small town where the five richest men get together and play for high stakes. They stop everything in their in their life for the game, one man stops his daughter’s wedding, a lawyer stops the closing case quickly to run away. As the game begins a small family Henry Fonda, Joanne Woodward and their son enter the barn looking for a place to stay. Unfortunately this long exposition before they get to game takes ages; a good seven to eight minutes of the five men traveling across the giant landscapes went on far too long and hurt the beginning of the film. When they get to the barn the card game is set up wonderfully the entire town’s folk gather to the barn to watch and share stories about the games’ infamy.
Henry Fonda takes a drink ends up meeting one of the players, they form a quick little friendship and the man allows him to go and watch the game, whilst watching the man realizes that these players are terrible. Fonda asks them if they can play, they agree but tell him that they play western style rules that is, if you can’t match the bet because you don’t have the money, you’re out. Ignoring his sons huge protests Fonda goes and digs into the family savings to enter the game, the action carries on Fonda’s money goes down so he clears out the family savings, sure that he can beat these people. They play until he gets the monster hand, but as he looks around everyone else seems to break their poker face in the same way. Unfortunately Fonda is nearly out of money and the bet has gone up, he puts up his watch, his horse and cart and then he makes his son watch the cards to go and get a loan from the bank.
Fonda faints, the wife takes over, the stakes get higher, and she has to try and raise more money. I’ll stop the plot here because it does get pretty fun and I don’t want to ruin it. The scenes of poker are very tame compared to what we’ve seen in films like Rounder’s; it’s almost a farcical game the obvious poker faces and silly bets, but it is fun, all the characters work so well together. The actors all have their fun quirks and qualities that make them entertaining and watchable. Fonda is a compulsive gambler, it is heartbreaking to watch him put his family’s life savings on the line. The dialogue is seamless blends in perfectly and is nice and snappy. My main problems with the film is that it takes a long time to get into the premise the film just kind of meanders around the game building up this almost godly competition that turns out to be just a very simple card game. The acting is great Henry Fonda is charming to watch we have so much empathy for him as just a simple man who is incredibly weak but also is doing it to try and better his family’s financial situation. The ending is pretty wonderful and it has been emulated so many times over the last ten years that I’d be surprised if it hits anyone of this generation very hard.
I feel ashamed saying this and it goes against my usual way of thinking but I would say that this film is completely ripe for a remake. I’m picturing a kind of It’s a mad mad mad world tale where the card game happens at the beginning is completely superfluous and just a very simple backdrop to the real story of the wife going around town trying her best to raise the money for the game.
The film isn’t brilliant but it is also much better than half of the comedies that we see today. A very misleading poster as well.
7 out of 10
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