The Kid and The Man

Tonight I finally cured a glaring deficit in my poker education: I watched "The Cincinnati Kid" (1965).

Unfortuately, there is precious little I can say about it that hasn't already been said--and said better--by others. For commentary as good as you're likely to find on the interwebs, see the Hard-Boiled Poker posts here, here, here, and here.

To what Shamus said, I'll add that in terms of the basics of movie-making--lighting, editing, camera angles and movements--I think this beats "Rounders" easily. There's nothing particularly wrong with those elements in "Rounders," but they're pedestrian, ordinary, workaday, rather than intresting and creative and artistic. I especially liked the high overhead crane shot near the very end (seen in the last photo posted above), emphasizing the Kid's loneliness in the world, in a manner reminiscent of--and probably directly indebted to--the famous shot in "High Noon":

I wasn't watching the DVD, so didn't have access to the commentary tracks. Shamus says that the director objected to the studio's insistence on a final shot that seems to show The Kid's repair of his relationship with Christian, the girlfriend who had left him earlier. I can see why he would object. It makes no dramatic sense, especially after having given us that enormous visual cue that The Kid is destined to be on his own. We do get a final glimmer of hope for him, when he shoots nickels once again with the shoeshine boy, but the message there seems to be that the only way back for him will be what he has already known: grinding it out as a small-stakes gambler. The return of Christian, in almost a deus ex machina appearance, is jarringly out of step with that implication, as Eric has already let it be known that poker is more important to him than she is.

Another interesting aspect of the film I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere is the use of the cockfight as ominous foreshadowing of the poker showdown. Very deft filmmaking, that. I think it serves to highlight the differences between what the match means to its participants versus what it means to the onlookers. Most of them care about the outcome of the game only because of which way they have placed their bets; they care no more about the players personally than the bettors at the cockfight feel for the birds. But for the Kid and the Man, it's life or death--not quite as literally as for the roosters, obviously, but it is about existence, as only one of them can leave that room with the identity of The Man.

It must also be noted that there is a lot of poker in the film, which isn't true of many other so-called poker movies.

Finally, there are the great lines (for the transcription of which I am relying on the "memorable quotes" section of the imdb.com page:

Lancey Howard: Gets down to what it's all about, doesn't it? Making the wrong
move at the right time.

Lancey Howard: Like life, I guess. You're good, kid, but as long as I'm
around you're second best. You might as well learn to live with it.

Slade: How the hell did you know I didn't have the king or the ace?

Lancey Howard: I recollect a young man putting the same question to Eddie the
Dude. "Son," Eddie told him, "all you paid was the looking price. Lessons are
extra."

I cast my lot with those who have dubbed "The Cincinnati Kid" the best poker movie ever.