The Gambler from Natchez

A movie that recently showed up in the FXM rotation is The Gambler from Natchez. It's going to be on again tomorrow morning at 10:05 AM and again Friday at 8:35 AM.

The first thing I noticed is that the print wasn't in Cinemascope, despite being released in 1954. That, and the "Panoramic Productions" title card. It turns out that the movie was not made in Cinemascope and only distributed by Fox, so the 4:3 aspect ratio and pillarboxing are correct here.

Dale Robertson plays Capt. Vance Colby, an Army captain returning to New Orleans after four years serving under Sam Houston, setting the movie sometime in the 1830s or 1840s. Vance's father is a riverboat gambler, and Vance learned quite a few things from Dad, as we see when he defeats another gambler on a riverboat. It's there that he also meets Melanie Barbee (Debra Paget), daughter of the captain of a decrepit riverboat (Thomas Gomez).

After getting off the boat and heading off to see Dad, his carriage trip is interrupted by a young woman caught in the rain, Ivette Rivage (Lisa Daniels). Ivette lives with her wealthy brother André (Kevin McCarthy), who it turns out has a relationship with Vance's father, although Vance doesn't know this yet.

When Vance finally goes to meet Dad, he's disappointed. Dad, you see, has recently been killed, by a gambler who clearly planted a false marked deck on the elder Colby. Dad had recently decided to get out of the actual gambling side of the gambling business, and instead go into business by running a riverboat that offered gambling and raking off the profits. Vance's father was to go into business with Rivage and two of Rivage's friends, and it seems clear that they set Colby up to be murdered.

So Vance wants revenge, and as you can probably guess from a movie like this, is eventually going to be able to get that revenge, with the climactic fight being against Rivage since Kevin McCarthy's name is much higher in the credits than the other guys.

The Gambler from Natchez is a pedestrian little movie, one that's not terrible but also not particularly great. Robertson doesn't have a notable screen presence, which probably explains why he never became a big star. Still, this is the sort of material that is a serviceable time-passer if you've got a rainy night and a bowl of popcorn.

The Gambler from Natchez has apparently received a DVD release courtesy of Fox's MOD scheme.