A Big Hand For The Little Lady

A totally fun movie from 1966. I decided not to do the ending "segment," which has more than one surprise. If you've never seen this film, watch and enjoy it without trying to find out the ending first, as you'll just ruin things for youself. While the movie has tension to it at times, it also has a good many lighthearted scenes, and the cast is superb. By the mid 1960s, Henry Fonda had been a major film and stage star for many, many years, and Joanne Woodward had won an Academy Award for her performance in 1957's "The Three Faces of Eve" (the award ceremony was held in 1958). Jason Robards was a pretty well known face for his stage, film and television appearances, and Kevin McCarthy had received an Academy Award nomination in the early 1950s for his role in "Death of a Salesman," but many are more likely to remember him for starring in the famous science fiction thriller "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" released in the mid 1950s. Charles Bickford was a long time supporting actor and multiple-time Academy Award nominee, and this was his last film, although he then took on one of the starring roles in NBC's popular Western series "The Virginian" for about a year, until his death. Charles Bickford played a number of grumpy, grouchy, difficult characters in his long career, perhaps because he looked older than his actual years and because his voice was perfectly suited for such, and he played the same kind of character here. Burgess Meredith was born here in Cleveland, and when he made this film, he had been around on stage, films and television for quite some time. He later was nominated for a couple of Academy Awards, but right after making this picture, Burgess Meredith signed on to play the role of "the Penguin" in television's "Batman" series on ABC. Robert Middleton was one of those actors who was more likely known to many people by sight, rather than by name. He played a lot of "bad guy" types during his career. Paul Ford was well known to people my age or older from his earlier television role in "The Phil Silvers Show," although he was also in some movies. He had a distinctive voice and I still remember him in a television commercial for some model of car, where his name was used in the punch line, which was something like, "Go down to your nearest car dealer and tell them a 'Ford' sent you. That oughta shake 'em up." Finally, John Qualen had been in movies for many, many years, and he was a regular in movies directed by famous director John Ford (there's that name again). Like with Robert Middleton, Qualen was likely better known to audiences by sight than by name.         

 

Main Cast:

Henry Fonda as Meredith

Joanne Woodward as Mary

Jason Robards as Henry Drummond

Kevin McCarthy as Otto Habershaw

Charles Bickford as Benson Tropp

Burgess Meredith as Doc

Robert Middleton as Dennis Wilcox

Paul Ford as C.P. Ballinger 

John Qualen as Jesse Buford

Gerald Michenaud (real given name Jean-Michel) as Jackie

While there is no date given for the setting of the movie, it seems to be the latter part of the 1800s, as there is one scene where the doctor is listening to music on what is some kind of early gramophone which were in use in that era. The film is also set "out West," but this isn't a typical "western," with cowboys, cattle drives, Indian wars, outlaws and such. The five wealthiest men in the territory gather in the back of a hotel barroom for an annual marathon poker game: Henry Drummond, Otto Habershaw, Benson Tropp, Dennis Wilcox and Jesse Buford. The whole town is excited about the game and the town folks struggle to get bits of news about how the game is going, as no one except the five players and the hotel owner are allowed in the room, and the hotel owner only goes in and out to bring in poker chips and drinks. After the game had been going on for awhile, into the hotel comes a man, a woman, and a young boy (Meredith, Mary and Jackie). While the hotel owner tells them his hotel isn't really for women and children, after a few words of coaxing, the owner rents them a room. They tell him there is a bad wheel on their wagon and they need to get it fixed before they can move on. As they start to go to their room, out of the poker room comes one of the players, Dennis Wilcox. He pays for $3000 in chips, as Meredith stares on, but Mary has a bit of apprehension on her face. Wilcox takes the chips and goes back to the poker room. Meredith asks the hotel owner what this is all about, and he learns that there is a big poker game in progress. Mary interrupts and gets Meredith headed to their room, with a few words exchanged between them (not harsh words, but it's still obvious Mary is not pleased). A little while later Otto Habershaw comes out into the barroom where he is quite taken with Mary when she goes to take the wagon to the blacksmith, leaving young Jackie with Meredith. After a little talk with Otto, Meredith learns that Otto is one of the poker players, so Meredith asks him if he can just watch the game. Some of the townspeople tell him no one is allowed to watch, but the super rich Otto tells everyone, "He can watch, if I say he can watch." Otto takes Meredith and Jackie into the poker room with him. When he tells the other players about his new friends, they object, but Otto gets firm and Meredith and Jackie remain as the game takes up again. Meredith explains that they are on their way to San Antonio for a small farm of 40 acres, and the size of the farm makes the rich poker players laugh, as they each own many times that.

 

Meredith is almost drooling as he watches the game, and finally he asks if he can play. He's told he must have the price to play; that is, $1000. Jackie protests to Meredith, but Meredith takes off and goes upstairs to get the money. (Note: Remember, this is the second half of the 1800s and $1000 was QUITE a sum of money.) He comes back downstairs, and Otto orders the hotel owner to give Meredith chips for the $1000. Meredith goes back into the poker room and learns that the rules of the game say that if he doesn't have enough money to stay in the game during a betting sequence, he must leave his money on the table and exit the game; thus, he will lose all of his money. The game resumes, but now with Meredith as a player, Jackie watching, and Mary at the blacksmith's. Meredith's chips dwindle as the game goes on, and he says the cards have got to soon break his way. With the next hand, Meredith shows indications that he's happy, and he stands pat with his hand, but his problem is, he's low on chips and the ruthless men at the table see it, so Drummond ups the ante past the amount Meredith has in front of him in an attempt to drive him out of the game. Meredith hands his cards to Jackie and tells him not to let anybody see them and Meredith rushes back upstairs and takes all of the money left in the traveling bag, $3000. The money is for the farm he had told the others he will be starting near San Antonio. He gets the chips and the game takes ups again, with Drummond telling him he essentially will try to force Meredith from the game, causing him to lose everything. All the players act as if they have good hands to play, and the pot increases substantially, but the players seem to believe Meredith must have a pretty good hand. 

 

Mary returns from the blacksmith's and when she enters the barroom, no one will tell her what has been going on. The owner lets her into her room, where she sees the empty travel bag. The owner then tells her Meredith is in the backroom playing poker. Mary begins to cry. In the backroom, Meredith needs over $400 more to stay in the game. He gets $100 for his gold watch, but the more than $300 still needed seems beyond him. Mary comes into the room, much to the anger of Benson Tropp, the undertaker for the area. He earlier made it clear that he hates women. Otto shuts up Tropp and Meredith begs Mary to understand that he has a great hand that could earn them a huge amount of money. Meredith offers to sell his wagon and team of horses for $500. He claims these are actually worth $700, but he finds that these wealthy men have no need of a team and wagon, as they already own horses and wagons. (Note: A hard and brutal law of business is, what do you need to sell something? Most people guess "a price," but nope, that's not it, although it will tie in. The anwer is, "a buyer," or preferably, "buyers." To Meredith the horses and wagon cost $700, but since these men aren't interested in buying the horses and wagon, the value is "zero, zilch, nuthin'.") Meredith is tense and he suddenly grabs his chest and collapses. They send someone to get the doctor, who had made a rather brief appearance in the barroom earlier. Meanwhile, Mary sends Jackie to their room to get a bottle of pills they have with them. He returns and they give Meredith one of the pills. The doctor arrives and he has Meredith moved into the kitchen. Henry Drummond yells into the doctor to ask if Meredith will be able to continue the game. Mary is shocked to hear such a question as Meredith is possibly dying. Otto speaks out against Drummond asking such a question, but Drummond argues there is nothing any of them can do to save Meredith and that he (Drummond) had interrupted his daughter's wedding to leave and take part in this poker game as he had promised. Otto, who is an attorney, answers back that to play in the game, he left his client in court, and that his client could have been hanged by now. 

 

The doctor comes out of the kitchen for Mary. As Meredith clutches his cards to his chest, he struggles to tell Mary she'll have to play his hand in the game. Mary is stunned, but she and Jackie go out to the poker table where she asks the five other players, "How do you play this game?" The men are shocked that the inexperienced Mary will replace Meredith in the card game. The doctor calls Mary into the kitchen again and tells her he's having Meredith moved out of the hotel and into his home, where has some medical equipment that will help him to better take care of Meredith. Mary returns to the poker table and asks the men to explain to her how to play the game. Most of the men complain, but Otto Habershaw offers to calm everyone down with his explanation of the game's current situation, essentially telling Mary that each of the five men thinks he has better cards than the other men and that each has bet $3500 to remain in the game. He explains further that Meredith only bet $3000 and that he needed $500 to remain in the game or he had to drop out and lose everything, but that Meredith then took sick. Mary understands, but Henry tells her that she will need more than $500, because the pot is going to grow, with Henry essentially indicating that he intends to up his bet, and that this could drive her out of the game. After some squabbling among the men and another refusal to lend her any money on the team and wagon, Mary asks if there is a bank in town. The bank is across the street, so Mary prepares to go there, initially with (a lustful) Otto accompanying her to insure that she does not tamper with her cards in any way. Otto tells her that she has to think about the four men she's leaving behind, and that they could tamper with their cards; so, four of the five men march across the street to the bank behind Mary. (Note: This bothers me, because one man is left at the poker table.) At the bank, Mary eventually gets in to see the owner of the bank, C.P. Ballinger, a cantankerous conservative lender known for his toughness before approving loans. Mary explains the basic situation and asks to borrow money using her hand in the card game as collateral. Ballinger thinks it's all a joke, although Otto tries to assure him it is not. Ballinger snarls and turns down Mary's request. The group returns to the poker table and some of them begin to laugh about all of the goings on. Only Otto and Benson Tropp, the undertaker, seem to think about how Mary, Meredith and Jackie are about to lose their life savings, along with their new life in San Antonio. 

 

Suddenly, in walks C.P. Ballinger. He says he came to see for himself if this is all a big joke, especially because several of the men are laughing so much. Otto again assures him this is no joke. Ballinger goes over how he once had a man who wanted to borrow $2 on a cow he had that gave 6 quarts of milk a day. In order to prove the collateral was good, Ballinger had the man move the cow into Ballinger's backyard, where he watched the man milk the cow for a week. The cow actually gave a little more than 6 quarts of milk a day, so he made the loan to the man. So after this speech about making loans on good conservative principles, Ballinger declares he's never been offered better collateral than Mary's cards. C.P., as the men call him, sits down at the table and buys $5500 dollars in chips. He puts in the $500 to keep Mary in the game, then he raises by $5000. Now the tables are turned, and it is the five men who must each put up $5000, or lose their bets. The now nervous men all look at their cards, and one by one they throw their cards down and drop out. 

 

That's as far as I'll take this, as it would be grossly unfair to ruin things for those who have never seen this movie; so, please watch this film, you won't be sorry. The performances are great all around.          

 

 Photo is of the Warner Brothers 2013 DVD 

WORD HISTORY:

Milt-This word is closely related to "smelt" (to melt metal), "malt" and "mild" (all from the Germanic roots of English). It goes back to Indo European "meld," with the meaning, "to soften, to make soft." This gave Old Germanic "miltjo," which meant "spleen" (perhaps because of its softness, but more likely because they believed it softened food products in the body. Don't laugh, because the spleen was long thought to be the center of anger; thus the expression, 'vent one's spleen'). This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "milte," with the same meaning. The ending 'e,' pronounced "eh/ah," was gradually dropped. The late 1400s and early 1500s saw the meaning become "reproductive fluid from male fish." Relatives in the other Germanic languages: German "Milz," Low German "Milt," Dutch "milt," West Frisian "milt," Danish "milt"^ Icelandic "milta," Norwegian "milt," Swedish "mjälte."

 

^ The general forerunner of the North Germanic languages, Old Norse, seems to have had a few forms of the word: "milti," "milta," "mjalti."