Six Great Poker Scenes in Non-Poker Movies
As has been discovered over the last decade during the "boom" of televised coverage, as fun as poker is to play, it can also be quite entertaining to watch. Of course, filmmakers long before realized the potential for poker to provide a ready context in which to develop characters, advance plots, lighten or darken the mood, and/or create tension and suspense while telling their stories.
Anthony Holden once wrote that "a man's character is stripped bare at the poker table." Such a truth which makes the poker table a great place for directors and screenwriters to reveal something meaningful about their characters. Even in films that aren't really "poker movies" one often encounters scenes involving poker in which filmmakers are taking advantage of poker's ability to communicate a lot of information about their characters very quickly -- perhaps even in the space of a single hand.
Here are six examples of films that aren't specifically about poker but which include poker scenes to great effect.
1. Tillie and Gus (1933)
This comedy finds the great W.C. Fields portraying the scheming Augustus Q. Winterbottom who at one point finds himself aboard a train and invited to play poker. Despite earlier reference to his poker playing (and cheating), Gus responds to the invitation as though he's only barely acquainted with the game.
"Poker?" he says. "Is that the game where one receives five cards, and if there's two alike that's pretty good, but if there's three alike that's much better?"
Gus then proceeds to clean out his three competitors in rapid fashion, the climax involving a hand in which his four aces beat the four kings, four queens, and four jacks he's dealt to the others. It's a farcical scene amid a farcical film -- perfect for presenting another cheeky Fields hero.
2. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
This multiple Oscar-winning film based on Tennessee Williams's hit Broadway play has a lot more to do with poker than some might suspect. In fact Williams's original title for the play had been "The Poker Night," although he changed it and made that the title of a scene that appears relatively early in the film.
The scene features Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando) hosting a poker game which not only puts him in competition with other men, but establishes severe boundaries between men and women in the play. The transgression of those boundaries by both Stanley's wife, Stella (Kim Hunter) and her sister, Blanche (Vivien Leigh), result in conflict that turns violent, ultimately ending with Stanley begging forgiveness crying "Stella!" into the night sky.
Another poker scene late in the film helps underscore the way the game is associated with male behavior while also symbolically emphasizing an unpassable divide between men and women.
3. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
A scene that often appears on "best poker scenes" lists is a memorable three-minute hand of seven-card stud from this prison drama in which Lucas Jackson (Paul Newman) bluffs his way to winning a pot versus a fellow prisoner.
His "cool" play during the hand -- repeatedly raising (saying "kick a buck") until his opponent can't go on -- earns him the nickname used for the film's title, given to him by Dragline (George Kennedy).
Dragline recognizes Lucas's stubbornness in the hand as similar to what he displayed in his earlier fight with him. It also foreshadows later conflicts between Lucas and prison authorities in which he again will keep on fighting despite having a "handful of nothin.'"
4. The Odd Couple (1968)
Neil Simon adapted his Broadway play for the screen, with the story featuring poker games at the beginning, middle, and end. It's the lengthy game in the middle of the film that fully establishes the irreconcilable differences of the mismatched pair of divorced roommates Oscar (Walter Matthau) and Felix (Jack Lemmon).
Felix drives Oscar and everyone else nuts during the game by constantly cleaning during the game, replacing coasters and clearing away trash. He's even discovered to have washed the cards with disinfectant!
The scene makes it clear how slovenly Oscar and neat-freak Felix aren't going to be able to continue under the same roof, and indeed they eventually do not (although in the later TV series the characters endure with each other).
5. Silent Running (1972)
This low-budgeted sci-fi flick features Bruce Dern as Freeman Lowell, a botanist in exile aboard a space freighter. Alone with a couple of drones, Lowell is trying to preserve the forest housed in a large geodesic dome attached to his freighter, a rebellious act as the dome has been slated for destruction by his superiors.
To pass the time, Lowell programs the drones to play poker, and amid the rising tension of the film comes a compelling scene showing the drones successfully playing the game against him. It's a scene which connects the game with ideas of what it means to be human, and thus highlights in a subtle way the film's larger messages about the importance of all life.
6. Stripes (1981)
Clocking in at less than a minute, a quick hand of five-card draw in the barracks during basic training provides some grins as hustler Joey Oxberger (John Candy) convinces novice player Cruiser (John Diehl) to raise all in against him with the worst hand in this Bill Murray comedy.
"Dare me... bluff me... come on, go for it!" says Ox after seeing Cruiser's hand, and his gullible opponent complies. Ox then shows his full house while Cruiser shows (again) his pair of fours. "If you would have had four fours, you would have won," says Ox encouragingly. "Isn't this fun? You're pretty good for a first time, really!"
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