Am I Still In The West? Guess So

Two nights ago, I watched Five Card Stud, with Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum. For better or worse, I came in about the time the townspeople and miners are starting to freak out over a spate of recent shadowy murders.

My dad fell asleep, and Hooch was sitting near him, so I couldn't get the remote control to look up info on the film*. Anyway, Robert Mitchum's character is a preacher that has recently arrived in town, and he visits a cemetery to lay flowers at an unnamed grave. There's a fellow waiting nearby we've seen earlier, who seems content to sit and watch as things spiral out of control. This fellow Nick (played by Roddy McDowall) tells Mitchum who he needs to go after next, for the murder of the man in that grave.

Watching the scene, where Mitchum seemed familiar with Nick, but Nick seemed somewhat cruel and uncaring, somewhat snide, I formed two ridiculous theories. One, Nick was the ghost of the deceased, using Mitchum to achieve vengeance, perhaps by haunting him. What's more, Nick was in a different form than he had been while alive, so he could observe his revenge up close, even interact with people without them getting wise to what was happening. Which is an idea that says I've watched High Plains Drifter too many times.

The second idea was that Mitchum was actually God (more likely an angel), and Nick was the Devil, encouraging Mitchum to punish the killers (as might be an angel's duty). The trade off - and Nick's ulterior motive - would be the state of fear and chaos the town descended into**. Road to hell paved with good intentions and all that.

The truth of the matter was completely unsupernatural, which I'm sure would have been obvious if I'd watched from the beginning. It's for the best. I'm not sure I want to know how a Western of the '60s would handle that second idea especially. It'd likely be disastrous, though it might be interesting to see Dean Martin try to bring the killing to a close in that situation. Actually, a Western of today probably wouldn't do much better.

Even having watched Rio Bravo several times, it's a little strange to see Martin in a Western. Doesn't fit with the picture in my head of a guy in a suit singing, a martini glass in hand. Which is probably a largely inaccurate image itself, and I don't even know where it comes from. I don't believe I've seen him in any films but Westerns, I can't recall any old footage or pictures I've seen of him, but that's how I picture him. He didn't have a singing scene in the parts of Five Card Stud I saw, though he did perform the opening and closing theme.

* Well, I could have taken the remote, it wasn't physically impossible, just unwise. Hooch is very protective/bossy at night, so if I stood up and moved in that direction, he'd pitch a fit, his barking would wake up Dad, set Charlie to barking, and spooked Maggie, which would make her snap at Hooch, at which point we've got two stupid old dogs fighting with each other. I stayed in my seat.

** Looking at it now, sounds like Needful Things, which I only watched once (and read once as well), but that was more than enough, even as someone who likes movies Ed Harris is in. The ones I watch, anyway.