Inside Straight

At the opening, the town bank is in trouble, and Ada Strich, the owner (Mercedes McCambridge) is playing poker. MacCool, the man across the table, (David Brian) makes her an offer she can't refuse to try to save the bank. She thinks she knows her opponent well enough to tell if he is bluffing or not. Then we start taking a trip down memory lane in flashbacks, so see how we got to where we are today. Apparently they had quite a past, and Ada has never forgotten a minute of it. MacCool himself had been way up high, and flat out broke, so he was the player of the day. As the various people in the room speak, we learn they all had a past with MacCool. Then about halfway through, we are treated to a snooze of a song What Can a Poor Maiden Do, performed by Arlene Dahl. While done well, yet in a very stiff manor, it sure brought the film to a screeching halt. Should have left it out. Same goes for Up in a Balloon, sung by Monica Lewis... As the story continues, we find that they had more dealings together over the years. McCambridge had JUST won her Oscar for All the Kings Men; She and Brian would both have long careers in Hollywood, but Brian ended up doing mostly television series work during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, Some fun faces appear in the story - Lon Chaney Jr and Barbara Billingsly as a drunk who talks too much. Even Percy Helton, who you will recognize by his voice! he appeared in millions of films, but about half the parts were uncredited. (in "Straight", he records a deed when someone sells property.) Fun film, for a period piece. Better than I expected. Directed by Gerald Mayer, nephew of Louis B.

It's 1870's San Francisco. Ada Stritch (Mercedes McCambridge) is in financial trouble. She owns a bank in danger of a run. The city is in the balance. Greedy Rip MacCool (David Brian) has the money to save it and he's ready to pounce. He offers to bet it all on a poker hand and he needs a four to finish an inside straight. Johnny Sanderson (Barry Sullivan) consults careful consideration and Ada recounts his arrival 15 years ago. While Rip's fortune rises, he falls for singer Lily Douvane (Arlene Dahl).

This was a box office bomb. Part of the problem may be the story's lead character. It's a story of capitalism and cold-hearted melodrama. Rip is not a hunky romantic lead. He's the quintessential money-grubbing hustler working the system. It's all about the money and not even what you could buy with it. It does turn into a complicated soapy melodrama and that loses me in the second half. It's listed here as a western although it's a western like Dallas (TV) is a western.

Several people tell backstories about a heartless man. The final story, told by Shocker, reveals big things. Worth hanging in there thru some brutal behavior. The cast is great- Mercedes McCambridge never disappoints & David Brian should have made more movies. (A good- looking guy who could play a real meany.) The final scenes rock in surprising & heartfelt ways.

"Inside Straight" is a film after the same tradition as the Clark Gable film "Honkey Tonk" and Edward G. Robinson's "Barbary Coast". They are all stories about men who went out west and were determined to strike it rich. But, along the way, they lost track of what's important...their humanity and connection with others.

When the film begins, Rip McCool (David Bryan) is playing a high stakes game of poker with his old rival, Ada (Merceded McCambridge). It's a winner take all affair. But before the outcome of the game is shown, there are a long series of flashbacks in which everyone there give their recollections of their dealings with Rip...and they are mostly terrible. Rip is determined to make a fortune...regardless of what he has to do and who he needs to walk on to get it. You see Rip's ups and downs and his many, many mistakes.

This film is an enjoyable saga but not one that screams MUST SEE. Instead, it's well done and worth seeing but also rather familiar. I enjoyed it...and much of it is because I've always thought that Bryan was a very good actor despite being far from a household name.

Excellent character study, well written and acted. Movie opens with Ada trying to save her savings bank by winning a hand of five-card straight from ruthless wheeler-dealer McCool. If he wins, she loses the bank and depositors lose their money; if she wins, she gets enough from him to save the bank. It's the 19th century before depositor protection from the FDIC. Meanwhile, she has two kings, while McCool has possible straight depending on his hole card. So what's his hole card. Should she bet her bank and its depositors' savings that he doesn't have the inside straight. Bystanders advise her to consider her opponent's character before making a decision. At that point the film turns to a series of flashbacks, each revealing a side to the money-mad McCool's relations with others. But we won't find out the hole card til the end. In a sense, the man's moral core is reflected in the outcome of a poker hand.

I detail this opening because it sets up the movie's remainder in compelling fashion. As the flashbacks show, McCool appears driven by only one thing- money. However, a softer side emerges in his relationship with his two buddies (Johnny and Shocker) and his second wife Zoe. So perhaps his inner life is not as cut-and-dried as his many big money operations make it seem. Thus, a greater moral ambiguity emerges as the flashbacks progress, each peeling back a layer in McCool's troubled life. Credit under-rated screenwriter Guy Trosper for both the incisive screenplay and the story concept. A gander at his credits over the years demonstrates an outstanding talent.

Actor Brian is excellent as the central character, especially convincing as a ruthless operator. Surprisingly, McCambridge gets a bit of romance and exhibits flashes of sympathy as the put-upon Ada. At the same time, Chaney gets a likable role as the loyal Serbian sidekick Shocker, while Sullivan has a secondary part that may have been a studio add-on.

Anyway, the movie strikes me as something of an oddity coming from big budget MGM. The film itself is in b&w, but well mounted, particularly the crowd scenes. At the same time, it's an exception that neither of the two headliners has a particularly likable role, which is not the usual way of promoting headliner careers. But then 1951 was also a time when the studio was branching into darker themes under new honcho Dore Schary, and away from L.B. Mayer's sunny wholesome fare. That may explain the movie's hybrid status, somewhere between an A and B production.

All in all, the film strikes me as something of a sleeper, particularly in it's construction, theme, and absolutely appropriate ending. Perhaps it's the rather dour subject matter, and morally ambivalent leads that have reduced the 75-minutes to real obscurity. In my little book, however, the movie definitely merits a measure of re-discovery.