5 Card Stud 1968

In 1880, Rincon is a rough, sun-scorched frontier town about 100 miles from Denver. A nameless drifter and gambler is caught cheating at a five-card stud game. The players, led by the volatile Nick Evers, Roddy McDowall drag him toward lynching. Van Morgan, Dean Martin, tries to intervene and halt frontier justice, but the crowd overpowers him and the man is hanged. He leaves town, but returns once he learns that several other poker players have fallen to grisly murders. Morgan forms a wary bond with Lily Langford, Inger Stevens, the barbershop owner, and a quiet romance grows as danger returns.

Across Rincon, Reverend Jonathan Rudd, Robert Mitchum, arrives with a stern, pistol-wielding presence and a hard moral code. He carries a Colt .45 and seizes the moment to police the town’s new dynamic. The murders escalate—each victim strangled—prodding the town’s fear and setting the stage for a showdown between the preacher and the man who knows the truth.

As the body count climbs, Nick Evers’s role becomes pivotal, and his actions threaten the fragile peace. He tells Rudd, falsely, that George was involved in the original game, triggering a deadly moment. When George dies with his hands clasped as if in prayer, Morgan realizes that George never prayed—a clue that the killer sits closer to home. This realization sharpens the hunt and clarifies the motive behind the killings.

In the crescendo, Morgan confronts Reverend Rudd and ends the feud in a tense shootout, bringing the preacher’s violent streak to a close. The town reels from the explosion of violence and the murkiness of truth, but a glimmer of hope remains.

In the final scene, Morgan rides toward Denver, while Lily plans to follow him in a week, suggesting a chance at a new life beyond Rincon.