Cinema: Aces Wild

A Big Hand for the Little Lady may sound like a cue for applause, but the title actually refers to a cardsharp coup. Rigged to resemble a movie, this indoor western is really a hilarious old television show by Sidney Carroll, who has adapted his original for the large screen without obvious padding. Regrettably, though, the sneaky trick ending remains the sort of hokum that good writers have blue-penciled since O. Henry's heyday. Probably no one will object to the bottom dealing because Little Lady is handsome entertainment, mounted with leathery high spirits by a crew who would gladly trade their horses for a full house.

Actors are the whole show, and shrewd Producer-Director Fielder Cook simply collects a boodle of famous and not-so-famous faces in a smoke-filled room, leaving the rest to hot hands and ham instincts. In a plot that tingles with incentives, "the five richest men in the territory" converge on a poky frontier town for their annual poker classic. An Indian massacre would probably cause less excitement, certainly less fanaticism. To get there on time, Mortician Charles Bickford all but burns the wheels off his best hearse. Landowner Jason Robards, biting into every line like a hungry barracuda, walks out on his daughter's wedding, and Lawyer Kevin McCarthy leaves a client's neck in the noose.

The mock-heroic tension of the game has been soundly established when Director Cook brings on his ace. Henry Fonda, in a lip-twitching portrait of a loser, appears as a homesteader en route to a 40-acre chunk of Texas with his plucky little wife (Joanne Woodward) and his young son. Though he has sworn off cards, Fonda breaks into a cold sweat as soon as he sniffs the deck, possibly because he shuffles so poorly. The imminent loss of his life savings brings on a heart attack and, with a final $20,500 pot at stake, Joanne primly takes over the hand and asks: "Gentlemen, how do you play this game?"

Though Little Lady ultimately cheats a little, the rustle of skirts in the midst of a down-and-dirty poker session provokes comic agony. Among the bystanders swept a'ong to the payoff, Paul Ford as the town banker and Burgess Meredith as a high-living frontier doctor help to point up the very evident pleasures of gambling, hard liquor and fast company.