Those accustomed to seeing Charlton Heston stride across a big screen flowing robes and saying things like, "Bring on the Hebrew dancing girls," are liable to be disappointed. Chuck Heston may be taller than Michael Jordan but he's a small-time gambler here, and not a very pleasant one.
Chuck is a member of a group that runs a small bookie joint in Los Angeles, the others being Ed Begley, Jack Webb, and Henry (Harry) Morgan Or maybe it's Harry (Henry) Morgan. It always mixes me up. There was another actor with a similar name from whom he wanted to distinguish himself and he did all too good a job of it. I can't grasp how he managed to untangle those two names himself. Maybe he was confused too. Why didn't he simply call himself H. H. Morgan? Or Humbert Humbert Morgan? Is that too much to ask? Has he no pity? Okay. I've been waiting twenty years to get that off my chest. Yes, doctor, thank you. the Xanax helped.
The five hoods soon sort themselves out. They all cheat when they can inveigle some stranger into playing poker with them, but their attitudes towards cheating differ. Hubert Horatio Morgan, known as "Soldier," is a bit of a dull bulb but generous and mostly helpful. Ed Begley is a professional who harbors no particular ill will towards anyone but just makes his living by illegal bookmaking and gambling. Jack Webb is not his Dragnet self. Not at all. A cynical, hard-headed character whose guiding vision is a dollar sign. He snarls a lot and natters the good-natured Soldier.
Heston has probably never had a nastier role. He was sometimes abrasive -- "The Big Country," "The Naked Jungle" -- but always proud and needful. In this film he has Lizabeth Scott (nee Emma Matzo) singing smoky ballads to him in her nightclub and mooning over him night and day. But due to some traumatic experiences with a woman while he was in the Army, he wants nothing to do with anybody. And he's not afraid to express himself. To Scott, who is trying to comfort him: "I want to be alone." To Webb: "Get out." The gang get the innocent Don DeFore hooked into a game in which DeFore unwisely loses five large that don't belong to him. He hangs himself. When DeFore's estranged, murderous brother gets wind of this, he begins stalking the gang members one by one. First to go is Ed Begley, found strangled in his flat. The police question Heston and Webb. "What was Barney like when you saw him last?" "He was -- just Barney," replies Heston indifferently, while Webb taps his foot impatiently, bored. Some friends, Begley had.
Webb gets the feeling he's being stalked too. He turns all sweaty and fidgety. He IS being stalked, too, and by a Mount Everest of muscle, Mike Mazurka, in real life a former pro wrestler. Webb is found hanging in his bathroom but nobody grieves.
Then it gets a little complicated, with Heston blowing town for a job in Las Vegas, trying to hide, knowing that if you're going to get lost, Las Vegas is the place to do it. He's gotten a little close to Don DeFore's widow, Viveca Lindfors, who is magnetic in appearance and demeanor but doesn't sparkle in the trashy way that Lizabeth Scott does.
I won't give away the ending. It's about what you'd expect. In his first film, Heston isn't very expressive but then the role calls for a somewhat arid character. Not counting the sympathy generated by the plight of the two women -- one loving from afar, the other a the widow of a nice guy -- the best performance may come from Horatio Hornblower Morgan in the role of the moral simpleton. He could have crawled out of the pages of a Russian novel.
Chuck is a member of a group that runs a small bookie joint in Los Angeles, the others being Ed Begley, Jack Webb, and Henry (Harry) Morgan Or maybe it's Harry (Henry) Morgan. It always mixes me up. There was another actor with a similar name from whom he wanted to distinguish himself and he did all too good a job of it. I can't grasp how he managed to untangle those two names himself. Maybe he was confused too. Why didn't he simply call himself H. H. Morgan? Or Humbert Humbert Morgan? Is that too much to ask? Has he no pity? Okay. I've been waiting twenty years to get that off my chest. Yes, doctor, thank you. the Xanax helped.
The five hoods soon sort themselves out. They all cheat when they can inveigle some stranger into playing poker with them, but their attitudes towards cheating differ. Hubert Horatio Morgan, known as "Soldier," is a bit of a dull bulb but generous and mostly helpful. Ed Begley is a professional who harbors no particular ill will towards anyone but just makes his living by illegal bookmaking and gambling. Jack Webb is not his Dragnet self. Not at all. A cynical, hard-headed character whose guiding vision is a dollar sign. He snarls a lot and natters the good-natured Soldier.
Heston has probably never had a nastier role. He was sometimes abrasive -- "The Big Country," "The Naked Jungle" -- but always proud and needful. In this film he has Lizabeth Scott (nee Emma Matzo) singing smoky ballads to him in her nightclub and mooning over him night and day. But due to some traumatic experiences with a woman while he was in the Army, he wants nothing to do with anybody. And he's not afraid to express himself. To Scott, who is trying to comfort him: "I want to be alone." To Webb: "Get out." The gang get the innocent Don DeFore hooked into a game in which DeFore unwisely loses five large that don't belong to him. He hangs himself. When DeFore's estranged, murderous brother gets wind of this, he begins stalking the gang members one by one. First to go is Ed Begley, found strangled in his flat. The police question Heston and Webb. "What was Barney like when you saw him last?" "He was -- just Barney," replies Heston indifferently, while Webb taps his foot impatiently, bored. Some friends, Begley had.
Webb gets the feeling he's being stalked too. He turns all sweaty and fidgety. He IS being stalked, too, and by a Mount Everest of muscle, Mike Mazurka, in real life a former pro wrestler. Webb is found hanging in his bathroom but nobody grieves.
Then it gets a little complicated, with Heston blowing town for a job in Las Vegas, trying to hide, knowing that if you're going to get lost, Las Vegas is the place to do it. He's gotten a little close to Don DeFore's widow, Viveca Lindfors, who is magnetic in appearance and demeanor but doesn't sparkle in the trashy way that Lizabeth Scott does.
I won't give away the ending. It's about what you'd expect. In his first film, Heston isn't very expressive but then the role calls for a somewhat arid character. Not counting the sympathy generated by the plight of the two women -- one loving from afar, the other a the widow of a nice guy -- the best performance may come from Horatio Hornblower Morgan in the role of the moral simpleton. He could have crawled out of the pages of a Russian novel.