A 1966 American Western film directed by Fielder Cook which has a couple (Henry Fonda and Joanne Woodward) getting involved in a high-stakes poker game between five of the territory's richest men, and the husband betting more than he can possibly pay back.
Screenwriter Sidney Carroll adapted the story from his 1962 television play Big Deal in Laredo. The cast also includes Jason Robards, Paul Ford, Charles Bickford, Burgess Meredith, Kevin McCarthy, Robert Middleton, and John Qualen.
It was released on May 31, 1966.
Tropes for the film:
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: The focus is on a yearly poker game played by "western rules" in which there are no table stakes. The player can raise the bet to as much wealth as one can possibly raise, and if another player can't meet it, they have to fold their hand and forfeit what they've put in the pot. The film revolves around a hand in which Mary must run around town trying to find someone to lend her the funds to call an astronomical raise.
- Big Bad: Drummond mainly. He's the one that doesn't tell Meredith the poker game is not table stakes, and loudly protests the most when Meredith has a medical issue and "Mary" takes over for him in the game. He also protests her trying to get the loan from the bank manager. Subverted in the end. He sheepishly folds, and her actions lead him to re-evaluate his own choices, without ever realizing Mary didn't really exist.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: A variance. Drummond, Tropp, Habershaw, Wilcox, and Buford, extremely wealthy men who take part in a high-stakes poker game, are more than happy to let Meredith, seemingly a recovering gambler, but into their game. They don't tell him, however, that the game is not table stakes, and when he bets all his money on his hand, and is raised, he's told he has to meet the bet or forfeit the pot and fold. We discover that his participation was all part of a con, and in the end, the five players fold their own hands when the tightwad bank manager (who's in on the con) agrees to take the hand and a raise, and they lose the money they themselves put into the pot trying to reraise Meredith out of it.
- Chekhov's Gun: Meredith's ultimately winning poker hand. Subverted in the end when we find out it wasn't good at all, and the main characters conned the expert gamblers into beliving it was and getting them all to fold.
- The men were conned because they swindled the bank manager in a land deal years before. He organized the con on the men himself
- The Con: In the end, it turns out that Meredith, Mary, Jackie, the doctor and the bank owner were all in cahoots to con the poker players out of their money. The bank manager organized the con himself, as the other card players cheated him in a land deal many years ago.
- Decoy Protagonist: Meredith is played by the top billed Henry Fonda, but he collapses at the midway point of the film and the rest of the movie is carried by Joanne Woodward. Fonda reappears at the end, revealing he's a con artist and isn't even married to Woodward's character.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Meredith collapses from strain at the film's midway point and isn't seen again until the very end. This is incredibly shocking to the audience as he's being played by star Henry Fonda.
- Fake-Out Opening: The opening has a fast stagecoach rolls over beautiful landscapes and rolling hills. What appears to be a gorgeously shot sprawling epic with picturesque backgrounds changes completely when the viewer finds out that the movie is in fact about a secret high stakes backdoor poker game, and thus takes place almost entirely in a dreary claustrophobic room with nothing but the actors to look at. So much for the landscape.
- Jerkass: Drummond for the most part. He's more than willing to take every dime from Meredith and protests when Mary takes over. Habershaw also has a few elements, as well as the other players.
- The Magic Poker Equation: In the high=stakes poker game, everyone gets monster cards on the same hand and raise the stakes to a huge pot, threatening to push sad-sack gambling addict Meredith out of the game in spite of the fact that he thinks he's got an unbeatable hand. It turns out that he's a con-man, but his con requires all of his marks to get huge hands at the same time. He, for his part, was running a stone-cold bluff and only wins because everybody else folds seemingly very strong hands. This is subverted however, as Woodward's character goes to the tight-fisted anti-gambling bank manager for a loan to meet the bet of the pot. The reason everyone folds is because not only does the bank manager loan her the money to call, he loans her an additional amount to re-reraise. The other gamblers, knowing of the bank manager's tight-fisted image, end up bluffed because they can't believe he'd agree to lend money to anything except an unbeatable hand.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: The ending reveals that Meredith, Mary and Jackie were pretending to be a naive family all along so the poker players would underestimate them and let their guard down, allowing the three to con them.
- Tagline: "Rule of the game: you must sit in from the beginning! And it's the wildest poker game in the West!".
- Take Up My Sword: When Meredith collapses from strain and can't continue playing, he gives his cards to Mary and tells her she's the one who has to play out the hand.
- Wham Line: The banker, C.P. Ballinger, goes into a long diatribe about his lending practices. At the end of the speech, he tells the players that he's never been offered a finer bit of collateral than Mary's poker hand.
