Very disappointing...

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Blistering performances.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I don't like to overpraise anything, but this one is one I cannot say enough about. The script is so tight that you feel as if you are watching a play. It all happens in real time. It grabs you from the first five minutes and doesn't let up. Personally I find a story about a person who is stuck in an addiction to be very painful. It is true here, too. I so pity Fonda's family being victims of his gambling addiction. It is a smart looking movie but it is not elaborate. I think if it had been it might have taken away from the power. The first half belongs to Fonda. What an actor. This is the Fonda of The Wrong Man and Twelve Angry Men territory. Half way Woodward most take over and how she does. This script is loaded with wit and meanness. No one will be disappointed in either. I remember seeing this movie on TV at about ten years old, and went crazy about it. Never saw it again until probably 40 years later and then I realized that at ten my understanding of the greatest of movies was already formed.

"A Big Hand for the Little Lady," begins with credits rolling as we see a horse-driven hearse speed across a variety of Western landscapes. The area is central Texas, well north of "San Antone." Charles Bickford (as Benson Tropp) stops at two places to summon Jason Robards (as Henry Drummond) and then Kevin McCarthy (as Otto Habershaw) to join him. In each stop, a woman calls out after the fleeing man, pleading that he not go now, "not now." That is the only hint of comedy until well into the picture. Yet, we viewers know that this is supposed to be a Western comedy, so we're on our toes waiting and watching for the humor. We get a dose of it in the characters around the room of the closed poker game. But, that belies a more clever comedy in this story. And, that may start to play out at different times for different viewers. For me and probably many others, that happens when Henry Fonda (as Meredith) shows his poker face as he picks up his cards one at a time with a huge pot on the table. It's so obvious that we realize something must be afoot. I think that's the biggest, most obvious poker face ever done in a movie.This film isn't of the big laughs variety. Rather, it is a movie of clever scripting, some surface funny lines, and a deeper, entertaining plot. As other reviewers have done, I'll also refrain from giving it away. Except to say that I guessed the outcome correctly; but then enjoyed watching to see how it played out.The cast for this film is outstanding. All give excellent performances. But, I think one stands out. Jason Robards is the classic cur in this film. He plays Henry so well that he's a delight to watch. His lines are among the funniest in the whole film. Toward the end of the film, Joanne Woodward (as Mary) says, "Gentlemen all. All such gallant gentlemen." Henry replies, "Well, we're gallant on Sunday. This is Friday and we're playing poker. Now you wanna play with us, you ante up $500."This is a most enjoyable movie – fit for the whole family.

BHFALL is not your typical Western: the Wild West is being tamed and here in Texas at the turn of the Century we have a new West; professional rich men who hold a once a year poker game for the highest stakes.When Henry Fonda rolls in all innocent and joins in the fun begins.This is great little movie, full of character, and surprises.My only gripe is the noise is a bit much with everyone delivering their lines at foghorn levels but this has a charm and an energy that it's hard not to enjoy.Recommended.

What a cast of characters in A Big Hand for the Little Lady: Henry Drummond, a rich and irascible rancher who put his daughter's wedding on hold just as the vows were starting; Otto Habershaw, a slick, handsome and morally questionable lawyer. Habershaw left a client probably to hang when he ran from the courthouse and jumped on his horse just as he was supposed to sum up for the defense; Benson Tropp, wealthiest undertaker in the region, who has no use for women unless he's burying them; Dennis Wilcox, another wealthy rancher, a big, loud man who enjoys joking at other's expense; and Jesse Buford, small, aging and just as wealthy. He, Wilcox and all the others are sticklers for the rules. High stakes poker rules, that is. And what a cast: Jason Robards (Drummond), Kevin McCarthy (Habershaw), Charles Bickford (Tropp), Robert Middleton (Wilcox) and John Qualen (Buford). Plus Burgess Meredith as Doc Joseph Scully, a man getting old who is tired of saving people and getting produce as payment, and Paul Ford as C. P. Ballinger, a banker who knows the value of collateral. The five are poker players, and for each of the last 17 years nothing, absolutely nothing, has stood in the way of their annual game. They hold it in the back room of a saloon and hotel in Laredo. It's become a legend in the territory for the money they've lost and won They're just starting the first hand when into town comes a hard-luck family on a wagon with a busted wheel, on their way to start again on 40 acres near San Antonio. Meredith (Henry Fonda) is a nice man trying to do his best. He's also a fool for cards, a man who has lost so much of his family's hard-earned money that his wife, Mary (Joanne Woodward) made him solemnly promise that he'd never touch cards again. Mary wants to believe him. Their 12-year-old son is about to get a lesson of a lifetime. It's not long, while Mary takes the wagon to the blacksmith, that Meredith has begged for a chance just to watch the game. He can't help licking his lips. His son can't help begging his pa not to. Soon Meredith has taken the family's $4,000 stake, all the money they have in the world, to get in the game. You know the rest...he wagers and he loses. Wait. He wagers, alright. He has the best hand he's ever been dealt in his life...but he's about to be out-raised. He begs for a loan so he can stay in the game...and has a heart attack. It's up to Mary, back from the blacksmith and who has never played a game of poker in her life, to convince the five hard-bitten players that it's only fair that she be allowed to play her husband's hand. The five bicker a bit but reluctantly agree, and are stunned when Mary takes the hand and marches to the bank, with them following, to convince C. P. Ballinger to use the hand as collateral for a loan on her bet. Does the movie have a more satisfactory ending than a dead Henry Fonda clutching his heart, a tearful Joanne Woodward seeing these committed poker players take every cent her family has? Oh, yes, indeed. No one dies, and there is one of the most satisfying endings, with a twist and a sting, you'll ever hope to see. What makes this movie so engaging - after all, it's basically 1 hour and 35 minutes of a poker game - is that twist at the end and the skill and charm of the actors. As good as Fonda and the others are, the movie really sits up when Woodward, Robards and McCarthy are doing their stuff. Woodward is so skilled an actress that I sometimes think we take her for granted. That would be an unwise action in this movie. Robards, who was probably America's greatest stage actor in the last 60 years and one of it's best screen actors, turns Henry Drummond into a fine mixture of frustration and selfishness. Robards can make us smile in sympathy over even an unlikeable character like Drummond. See just how good an actor Robards was with his performances in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten (Broadway Theatre Archive) and Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (Broadway Theatre Archive). Kevin McCarthy, a fine actor with great charm, could play weak, strong, sleaze or integrity with equal believability. Here, he's all charm and quite willing to make a move on Mary, but he holds back, surprising even himself. I don't want to short-change Fonda. As Meredith, he's stuck for most of the movie playing a weak man in the grip of poker fever, and henpecked as well. He captures our sympathy even while we pity the poor man. A Big Hand for the Little Lady is something of a one-joke movie, but it's a first-class, clever joke with a great cast.