A poker movie worth watching

"A Big Hand for the Little Lady" (1966; see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060165/) has been on my list of movies to see someday for a long time. From a recent post over at Hard-Boiled Poker (http://hardboiledpoker.blogspot.com/2008/01/poker-review-big-hand-for-little-lady.html) I learned that it was recently released on DVD. I moved it to the top of my Netflix queue. It arrived a few days ago, and I just finished watching it.

I knew the key plot twists going in (it's kind of hard to keep spoilers out of circulation for 42 years, though I'll do my part here), but still enjoyed it. It's short and light and keeps moving well. There's nothing profound about it, but it's a delightful little piece of poker fluff.

One small thing still has me baffled. I can't figure out why there is a character named Henry Drummond. There was a real Henry Drummond (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Drummond), then there was a character of the same name in "Inherit the Wind" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inherit_the_Wind), played by Spencer Tracy. (The latter is how I recognized the name when it came up in "Big Hand.") It can't be a pure coincidence that, six years after that classic film was made, a character of the same name shows up in this one. Yet there is nothing I could see in this movie that made any sort of connection; it does not appear that we are supposed to infer that this Henry Drummond is the same as the real one or the earlier fictional one. The makers of the movie could not have been ignorant of the name's dual significance, but why use a character name that viewers might recognize from either of two different contexts, if neither one is intended? I get hung up on this sort of minutia.

I learned a new phrase from this film, unrelated to poker: "Pelion on Ossa." As explained in the Columbia Encyclopedia (http://www.bartleby.com/65/al/Aloadae.html), Otus and Ephialtes were "sons of Aloeus' wife by Poseidon. They tried to reach heaven to overthrow the gods by piling Mt. Ossa on Mt. Olympus and Mt. Pelion on Mt. Ossa. Some said they were killed by Apollo, others said they killed each other while shooting at a hind sent by Apollo. For their wickedness they were condemned to eternal torture in Tartarus. Thus the phrase 'to pile Pelion on Ossa' means to attempt an enormous but fruitless task." I'm not exactly sure where that bit of obscure knowledge may come in handy in my life, but you never know.

There are two reasons any reader should make a point of seeing this movie. First, it's a decent, fun poker movie--and isn't that reason enough? Second, any film with such a marvelous cast of classic Hollywood stars in their prime--Henry Fonda, Joanne Woodward, Jason Robards, Paul Ford, Burgess Meredith, and Kevin McCarthy--needs to be viewed, just for general cultural literacy.