Product Details

• Actors: Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum, Inger Stevens, Roddy McDowall, Katherine Justice
• Directors: Henry Hathaway
• Writers: Marguerite Roberts, Ray Gaulden
• Producers: Hal B. Wallis, Joseph H. Hazen, Paul Nathan
• Format: Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Paramount
• VHS Release Date: April 7, 1998
• Run Time: 103 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0792115449
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #155,533 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Paramount released a first-rate Western, El Dorado, in 1967, and another, True Grit, in 1969. So why was the studio's 1968 oater such a hunk of buzzard bait? You know Five Card Stud's in trouble from the opening credits--they're too short to accommodate the Dean Martin title song, so that it spills awkwardly into the first scene. The timing never does come out right--not in the lethargic pacing, not in the lax editing (which often leaves cast members stranded onscreen at scene's end), and not in the herky-jerky screenplay, which either lurches over intervals of weeks (months?) or piles up enough calamities in one day to stock a sequel. Even the end comes five minutes and two anticlimactic scenes late.

An after-hours poker game is underway as the film begins. A stranger is caught cheating and, over the objection of professional gambler Dean Martin, lynched. Soon there's another stranger in town, black-clad preacher Robert Mitchum, and participants in the fatal card game start dying grotesque, solitary deaths. Five Card Stud wants to be a psychological mystery, but there's scant psychology and no mystery at all beyond why the filmmakers thought any viewer could fail to figure it out. Martin and Mitchum sleepwalk through their roles (Martin's includes a glum, ludicrously written romance with brothel-keeper Inger Stevens), while Roddy McDowall camps up his turn as spoiled son of the local range baron. Somewhere in the middle, the young Yaphet Kotto plays it admirably cool as a philosophical bartender. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining Mystery Western., October 10, 2002

By 

Michael Serrano (Barkhamsted, Ct USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Five Card Stud (DVD)

This is a fine mystery thiller under the guise of a western.
The movie opens with a card game and one player accused of cheating,this player is hanged. Soon members of the card game
begin to die one by one. Card player Dean Martin attempts to
find out who the killer is before he ends up dead. While there
are a few suspects, most viewers will soon figure out who the
killer is. Why is not revealed till the end. Still this is a
movie that works, this is due to the entertaining cast. Dean

Martin retains his easy going style, while Robert Mitchum brings
a performance that is edgy and not as straight forward as he
appears. Roddy McDowall delivers an entertaining performance
as the spoiled rich kid at odds with Dean Martin. Yapphet Kotto
gives a strong performance as the bartender who helps Dean work
out the mystery. I have seen this movie a few times and enjoy
it due to the cast, as well as to the scenery. Attention to detail is well thought out in this western town. So saddle up.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Five Card Dud, March 8, 2008

By 

Scott T. Rivers (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Five Card Stud (DVD)

The idea of teaming Robert Mitchum with Dean Martin certainly had potential, but no one bothered to provide a worthwhile vehicle. "Five Card Stud" (1968) is a ludicrous Western "whodunit" directed by the usually reliable Henry Hathaway. Nothing works here - even Dino's title song falls flat. It's hard to believe Mitchum turned down "The Wild Bunch" in favor of this turkey.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A mystery western, May 31, 1999

By 

B. W. Fairbanks "Brian W. Fairbanks" (Lakewood, OH United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Five Card Stud [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A poker game ends in a hanging when one of the players is accused of cheating. Shortly thereafter, the players are murdered one by one. A western with a novel mystery angle, "Five Card Stud" is certainly no classic, but it is an easygoing, thoroughly enjoyable oater with Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum well-matched as adversaries. It is Roddy McDowell, however, who steals the show as the bad seed brother of Katherine Justice.