Le Kid de Cincinnati

Like the rest of the English-speaking world, I've recently succumbed to poker-mania, and started wasting some of my spare cash in amateur Texas Hold 'Em games.

Due to my newfound interest in card-playing, and my appreciation for old movies, I picked up "The Cincinatti Kid" on DVD. And I sure wasn't disappointed. The movie's awesome, on so many levels. As you might expect, the poker scenes are incredibly tense and, from what little I know of the game, they're pretty realistic. But other aspects of the film are great, too.

The New Orleans location shooting is gorgeous. You get to see a lot of the city, so I imagine the crew must've spent a fair amount of time there. There's plenty of cool jazz numbers and some nice French Quarter atmosphere. Director Norman Jewison manages to imbue New Orleans, and the movie as a whole, with an atmosphere that's both sleazy and glamorous at the same time.

The strong cast is another highlight. Steve McQueen is understated yet compelling, while Joan Blondell hams it up in a highly entertaining fashion (I love how she keeps teasing Lancey Howard about his age). Edward G. Robinson, one of my favorite character actors, radiates class and even a little menace as Howard. And - this is the best part - the movie also features the sweetly beautiful Tuesday Weld and the painfully sexy Ann-Margret. You just can't lose with a multi-generational cast of stars (and babes) like that.

Some commentators have complained that "The Cincinatti Kid" is slow, particularly during the scenes that don't feature poker. I can't say that I agree. The McQueen-Weld romance is sweet, and it doesn't really take up that much screen time. Sure, the movie may seem a little plodding if compared to contemporary films, but then again even "Aliens" is plodding compared to contemporary films.

The theme song's catchy, too. What more do you need? This movie's a mini-classic.

A movie that shows the world of gamblers and card players should be elegant, claustrophobic, decadent, sexy an full of suspense. In 'The Cincinnati Kid' these are mixed in the most delicious way. Set in New Orleans, during the Depression the film tells the story of 'Cincinnati Kid', who wants to be the best card player in the world. He has the opportunity when the best ones get together in New Orleans for a marathon-lenght poker party. It's obvious that the final party would be between The Kid and Lancey Howard (very cool: Edward G. Robinson). It's a fine classic like almost all Steve McQueen-movies. McQueen is the king of cools and the supporting cast is good too. Tuesday Weld is pretty but Ann-Margret is the most seductive chick in town. The cock-fight scene and the final poker party is fantastically photographed and wonderfully edited (by Hal Ashby, who later directed the 'Coming Home'). And the music! Lalo Schifrin is a master and Ray Charles' song is simply fantastic and fits to the set and mood of the movie. The ending is unusual and unpredictable, but in my opinion it's very fair. Norman Jewison must have been liked his actors very much. The only flaw is the women hair-style. But it's an usual thing mostly in the films from the 60s (like 'Doctor Zhivago'). Although it's regarded as a classic, the wide audience don't recognize and respect it - 'You just not ready for me, yet.'

Well, I've always enjoyed poker; Steve McQueen and Edward G. Robinson are two of my all- time favorite actors and I thought Tuesday Weld and Ann-Margaret were two of the most beautiful women in their day.....so why don't I love this movie?

Don't get me wrong: I like it, but I should have liked it a whole lot more. It's a bit too slow, for one thing, becoming more like a soap opera in parts and the movie drags for much too long. The story doesn't have much spark until the poker showdown at the end of the movie. That ending is an excellent one, too, but one has to wait too long to get there.

Robinson is good to watch, as he almost always was in his great acting career. He plays the only classy person in the film.

Watching this late in December of 2009 on some high-def equipment, I discovered how beautifully-filmed this movie appears.

What has stuck with me all these years, since I saw it in the theater in 1965, wasn't the story but the title song by Ray Charles. I have never been able to get "The Cincinnati Kid" song out of my head.

Blah blah blah is the feelings I get when I see comments about this being McQueen's answer to The Hustler, the Newman film is firmly ensconced in the hall of classics and rightly so, but this is a different animal that stands up on its own two feet as a great film regardless of comparisons of leading men or films they respectively delivered.

"It's a pleasure to meet someone who understands that to the true gambler, money is never an end in itself, it's simply a tool, as a language is to thought"

Steve McQueen is The Cincinnati Kid of the title, a young man who has an enviable reputation as the pretender to the throne of the king stud poker player. Standing in his way of claiming the crown is the holder of said crown, Lancey "The Man" Howard (a wonderfully sedate yet dominant Edward G. Robinson), both men are in New Orleans for the big showdown across the card table.

The film does suffer slightly from a meandering script, though, because you can't help feeling that there is so much more to these characters that needed fleshing out before the big tense showdown arises. However, the cast and director manage to stere the film home with a glorious final third. Suspense and drama start to boil to the surface, the tight knit editing bringing claustrophobic clarity to the enormity of the game.

McQueen is perfect here, cocky and cool in equal measure, yet still infusing the role with stoic heart and honest endearment. Tuesday Weld & Ann-Margret are playing second fiddle in the acting stakes to a delightful turn from Joan Blondell (a little under used though), but both Weld and Margret bring their respective girls' traits to life, with Margret positively smouldering with femme fatale sex appeal.

Karl Malden is solid and safe, whilst Rip Torn gives an acting lesson in dialogue driven menace. Yet in all honesty it's director Norman Jewison who has the trump card here. Once the game commences, even those who know nothing about a good game of poker are firmly watching every frame, such is the intense way that Jewison has brought the finale together.

No cop outs here, a film about egos, ambitions and personal satisfaction is gloriously laid out for a very enjoyable viewing experience. 8/10

Thoroughly entertaining gambler's flick has Steve McQueen well-cast as stud-poker player involved in sweat-inducing winner-take-all poker tournament in New Orleans; Edward G. Robinson is the card-playing master who is Steve's main competition, Tuesday Weld is Steve's innocent squeeze, Ann-Margret is a sultry flooze. Great acting fuses a screenplay that seems cobbled together from different styles. It's hard-boiled at times, cartoony pulp at others. Ann-Margret is mostly used for visual flair (or as a punchline: while doing a jigsaw puzzle, she files down the pieces to make them fit at whim), though she's still quite a presence on the screen. Weld is very lovely, and the sequence where Steve shows up at her parents' house and does card-tricks is a little miracle of film-making: perfect writing, directing and acting all coming together wonderfully. Flaws and all, a slick genre piece and well-worth the viewing. *** from ****