My Romance with Movies: From the 1960s: The Cincinnati Kid

1965 Drama

From MGM

Directed by Norman Jewison

Starring

Steve McQueen

Edward G. Robinson

Ann-Margret

Karl Malden

Tuesday Weld

Joan Blondell

Rip Torn

Jack Weston

Cab Calloway

Jeff Corey

Milton Selzer

The premise is simple enough. Don't go too deep. In New Orleans, where seediness seems to be commonplace (oh, let me count the films), a stud poker game is scheduled. While several will be at the table, it is just two that capture everyone's attention... the older Big Kahuna of the game and The Kid, the cocky up-and-comer out to carve his own niche in poker history. Yes, who will win is a big deal and most viewers could hardly wait for the finale but getting there is part of the fun.

Compared somewhat unfavorably to 1961's The Hustler, the two movies do have a number of things in common, especially in theme and characterization. Though one concerns pool and the other poker, both have the older specialist (Jackie Gleason in The Hustler and Edward G. Robinson here) and lifetime rivals Paul Newman and Steve McQueen as the young stud leads. (McQueen would have punched a hole in the wall knowing I mentioned Newman first.) I would consider both roles in The Hustler to be better written than their counterparts here.

Robinson was a better actor than Gleason and Newman was a better actor than McQueen. Adding George C. Scott and Piper Laurie to the cast of The Hustler was most impressive but it's hard to dismiss the mega wattage of the cast of Kid. The cast is, in fact, the main reason I saw this film in the first place. McQueen wasn't a great actor but he was a sensational movie star... riveting, smoldering, mysterious, dangerous. He was also a giant pain in the ass. With costars like Robinson, Karl Malden, Tuesday Weld, Ann-Margret, Joan Blondell, Rip Torn and all the others, I was always so drawn to this film, far more than to (the better) The Hustler.

One might say that McQueen's character is fairly one dimensional. I don't like characters drawn so sparsely but I don't think we should know much about Eric Stoner (McQueen surely loved that name... he was stoned throughout the shoot, according to Cab Calloway) because being familiar with him would mess with the allure he must exude at the poker table. He's just a simple Depression-Era street kid who probably quit school in the 8th grade and has no discernable talent except playing poker and at that he is a whiz. To some he'd be a bum. To him he's a prince who's about to become a king.

McQueen hadn't worked in a year and he was itching to get back in the acting harness but he was nervous about working with Robinson. Both men came through and it is their performances that generate most of the excitement for the movie. The poker playing scenes crackled with tension and how the cameras hugged the eye regions of both actors was gripping. The gimmick was used several times and I was just as drawn to it at the end as I was at the beginning. McQueen looks so menacingly cool and Robinson looks like he's sizing him up for a kill.

The kid and his leading ladies

But Robinson wasn't the first choice. Spencer Tracy was offered the role and a number of the cast members were thrilled. Karl Malden said all his professional life he'd wanted to work with Tracy and was thrilled when he found out they'd both be in the film. But ultimately Tracy had to withdraw due to ill health.

As his contracts always dictated, McQueen was to have at least one action scene in all his films. While he loved the action (and disliked a lot of dialogue) and often did stunts himself, he liked to say my fans expect it of me. No argument there.

The older actor was thrilled to be working with the younger one. Once back at the start of my career, Robinson volunteered, I had been a McQueen. I played the same kinds of parts... cocky and tough, ready to take on the old-timers and beat them at their own game. I identified strongly with McQueen and I had a lot of respect for his talent.

The respect was mutual but there was McQueen's nervousness. He knew he would have to stand tough against Robinson as characters and as actors. He knew each of them would be asked what it was like to work with the other. He was used to costars saying they didn't like working with him but he courted the older man.

Robinson said in his autobiography that this character was more like him than any character he ever played and claimed it was one of his best performances ever. He liked how the character was cold, discerning ad unflappable on the outside and full of doubt on the inside.

It's a good role for McQueen. He had more famous roles in more famous movies but there's nothing wrong with his work here. He never made a movie I didn't see. He knew his shortcomings as an actor and he knew his strengths. He was savvy enough to make sure his films were tailored toward those strengths. Few captivated me on that big screen as much as Steve McQueen.

Weld and McQueen

The best thing in the Kid's life is the woman (Tuesday Weld) who lives with him. She is attracted to the fact that he is largely unmanageable and unattainable but finally saddened and defeated by the fact that he doesn't communicate well and that he's never told her that he loves her. It's a lovely role for Weld who usually played pouty sexpots and here is downright wholesome. She and McQueen had a hot sexual relationship two years earlier while making Soldier in the Rain but did it continue on this project?

There's not a lot for Ann-Margret to do and the role could easily have been excised from the final print. That's not to say that she's not impressive in the film's sexpot role. This type of movie simply has to feature this type of woman... easy, sassy, lazy, critical, a user. She treats husband Karl Malden like the trash that needs to be put out. She married him only for security as a cash cow and he has disappointed her. Apparently A-M wasn't as taken with McQ as Weld was.

Malden is Shooter, the designated dealer for the poker games. Shooter is an also-ran. He's around to secure the hotel for the game, handle the cards, make sure everyone's comfortable with food, drink and cigars and he turns out the lights or opens the curtains, whichever comes first. This is not one of those powerful, bellowing Malden roles but one of cautious servitude which he delivers with that splendid talent.

McQueen probably like roughing up Malden

In his autobiography he said working with McQueen was difficult. He says their fractured relationship could have been due to early New York City days when they may have been rough with one another while they shivered together in January waiting to be called inside for an audition. He couldn't be sure.

But one day on the set, in the middle of a scene, Malden put his hand on McQueen's shoulder and the latter stopped the scene cold. Don't ever touch me, he calmly said in his steely manner to the older actor. Malden didn't make things any better when he tried to get McQueen to explain himself. Things apparently went from bad to worse for the pair on the 1966 set of Nevada Smith which filmed immediately after Kid.

Malden said it was a joy to watch Robinson and Joan Blondell interact with one another. They were former costars and longtime contract stars at Warner Bros. They had a lot to say about the real good old days. Blondell was always fanciful and fun on a film set and full of gossip. She loved cracking up her coworkers and she often had Robinson in stitches.

She plays Lady Fingers, a friend of many of the players and a backup dealer for Malden when he needs to take a break. Usually she's one of many who occupy the large hotel suite and hang out among the half-eaten sandwiches, empty booze and stale smoke... jumping up for a look-see when the betting soars.

Mitzi Gaynor apparently heavily campaigned for the role of Lady Fingers. I think I'd have liked to have seen that. It was rumored that Gaynor and A-M were, um, not too friendly with one another and A-M was the leading lady.

Blondell and Robinson

Rip Torn excelled at playing sleazy characters in sometimes highly-regarded films. He is a rich guy who has a shooting range in his home and a bad attitude. He threatens Shooter with ruining him if he doesn't fix the game so that Robinson loses. He wants revenge for an earlier loss to Robinson.

The supporting cast is excellent. Calloway, Jack Weston, Jeff Corey, Milton Selzer and a host of others turned it on. If awards for ensemble acting had been given back then, this cast was a shoo-in.

Things didn't start off well with the production. In fact, something happened that is rare. The director was fired. He was Sam Peckinpah. He and producer Martin Ransohoff didn't see eye-to-eye on how things were progressing. When Peckinpah wanted to include two nude scenes, Ransohoff fired him saying he didn't like the director's vulgar approach and the two got into a fistfight. Enter Norman Jewison.

McQueen was likely unhappy about Peckinpah's firing. Mavericks gotta stick together. When told of Jewison's hiring, he asked if he wasn't the director of those horrible Doris Day movies. Jewison would come to regard The Cincinnati Kid as his ugly duckling film... the one that allowed him to make the transition from comedy films to taking on more serious films and subjects.

Staring down the competition

He would go on to a glorious directing career and would work with McQueen again in 1968s The Thomas Crown Affair. Jewison would claim that McQueen was the most difficult actor he ever worked with.

Then there's that winning hand at the end of the film. Actually both players' hands are thrilling, exemplary and laughable... the latter coming from the fact that the only two players come up with these hands in the final hand is just odds-on unimaginable. Nonetheless through Hollywood magic it comes about and is an exciting ending to an entertaining film. Did I mention this cast?

Here's a preview: