Poker Goes To The Movies: Mister Cory
by Dougie Goguen | Dec 27 2011
Dougie looks back on an old Tony Curtis film directed by Blake Edwards centered around one poker player's travails.
You've probably never heard of Mister Cory, and that's a real shame. It's not on DVD currently, which means I had to wait for Turner Classic Movies in finally show it myself, and boy, was I glad they did. The flick stars Tony Curtis and is directed by Blake Edwards and if you know anything about film, you know that these two guys were mega-stars in the 1950s and 1960s.
Play free online poker at Bodog today!The movie is about a young con artist named Cory (played by Curtis) who makes his way from Chicago to Wisconsin in an attempt to expand his criminal horizons and soon finds himself a professional gambler, playing cash poker games for big money.
Pretty soon, Cory's working at the Green Pines Lodge for the incredible stick-up-the-butt Mr. Eamshaw (played by veteran character actor Henry Daniell) beating his coworkers at low-stakes poker games at night and winning odd gambling contests against the guests during the day. It's while he's living the life that he spies Abby Vollard (Martha Hyer) and is immediately smitten.
Despite the fact that she's at the lodge to celebrate her birthday with her boyfriend, Cory (in typical Tony Curtis fashion) decides that he very much wants to get up in that. He listens in on a conversation between the two and after hearing her refuse her beau's marriage proposal, he makes his move on her, pretending to be a vacationer just like her.
She says no, he says yes, she says maybe, he says yes and their romance goes through the usual trials and travails. His con man streak comes out pretty amusingly in the various ways he sets Abby up for private time with him, including an abortive attempt to wreck a boat engine with some help from Jen, her younger sister.
Finally, he meets her at the train station to say goodbye and pretty soon the pair are canoodling off-screen. After, she invites him to come to New York to see her.
That night, Cory joins a poker game with a guest named Jeremiah Caldwell. He initially goes on a winning streak, but hubris catches up with him and loses all of his money to the guest and Cory is forced to cancel his trip to New York.
Abby goes looking for Cory and is suitably shocked when one of his coworkers tells her that her sister's new boyfriend isn't a guest at the resort, but just a busboy. Abby, aghast, storms off, apparently furious at Cory's deception.
The movie jumps forward to a year later where Cory is playing poker at a casino in Reno. He's looking over his cards when he sees Jeremiah Caldwell again. A moment passes and then he realizes Caldwell is actually Biloxi, a professional poker player that is known for his ability to bilk even the best.
Cory approaches him and the duo agrees to travel around the country to play poker against rubes. While the pair of poker players is on the road, Cory sends a flower to Abby a month before taking a job running a casino in Chicago under Ruby Matrobe, a gangster. In a perverse moment, Cory hires his old show Earnshaw to manage the floor for the mob.
The casino's grand opening is a lavish affair and Cory reaches out to Abby's family. His plans to earn Abby back are short-circuited by Jen's reappearance with a sobering announcement: Abby and Alex had reconciled, leaving Cory out in the cold, or so we think.
Cory and Abby begin an affair behind Alex's back. Months pass before Alex finds out, but when he does, he surprisingly decides that he'd rather Cory be with Abby, and he encourages Alex to start a legitimate business. Cory proposes to Abby and is rejected. Suddenly, Alex rushes into the casino and shoots Cory, injuring his shoulder.
Cory and Biloxi decide cut their losses and leave town. When they're boarding their plane, Abby's sister Jen suddenly arrives and tells Cory that she'll follow him anywhere. The two fall in love, and Jen leaves with Cory.
Take advantage of Bodog's online poker deposit bonus and get more money in your bankroll!While Mister Cory is essentially a romance, the poker action in the movie is central to the story and it's nice to see some of the old-school play on hand, particularly when Biloxi goes through his warm-up-and-patter against new players.
Despite good reception from critics, the movie underperformed at the box office and has been disappeared down the collective cinematic memory hole.
