The Cincinnati Kid (Norman Jewison, 1965)

It's easy to figure out what went wrong here. Despite the wattage in front of the camera (Steve McQueen as the titular kid, Edward G. Robinson as a well-manicured poker genius, Karl Malden as a put-upon card dealer, Joan Blondell as the brassy Lady Fingers, Ann-Margret and Tuesday Weld as arm candy, Cab Calloway surprisingly effective as a fellow player, and Rip Torn on board for sleaze) and behind it (Sam Peckinpah fired early in production, screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr. and Terry Southern, music by Lalo Schifrin, edited by Hal Ashby), no one knew what to do with a story in which a mammoth poker game is its sole raison d'être. The poker scenes are fantastic. Even if you don't understand every filigree of the game, Jewison revs up the tension so that the stakes are never in doubt. But it takes about an hour to get there. Before then, it's deathly dull despite a gnarly chicken fight scene. Most of the screen time dwells on romantic foibles that Jewison et al. should have breezed through if not ignored altogether. And the prodcution design offers no compensations. The only way to tell the story takes place in the 1930s is by the cars and a National Recovery Administration poster in the background. Does the film end when the poker game ends? Of course not because you need the Formation of the Heterosexual Couple stamp to bring the thing to its quick, clockwork conclusion. 

Grade: B-minus