Poker In The Media: Thursday's Game
by Bodog Poker | Feb 1 2011
This week's installment of Poker in the Media takes a look at an obscure gem from the 1970s: Thursday's Game.
In the 1970s, the medium known as the TV movie dominated American homes like very little else, and it covered a broad variety of genres, from noir crime dramas to out-and-out science fiction. James L. Brooks (later best known as one of the masterminds behind The Simpsons) penned a screenplay called Thursday's Game. The conceit behind the teleplay was fairly simple: Gene Wilder and Bob Newhart play two men who meet each Thursday to play poker with some mutual friends and spend time away from their wives and families. When the game splits up over a silly disagreement, however, the two men realize that they have a bond and continue to meet for other activities.
The problem is, of course, that both men are married and once their wives find out that the
poker game is no more, they immediately assume that the men are up to shenanigans with other ladies. What's interesting about the movie is that while it could go for broad laughs with wacky situations and wacky characters, it remains relatable throughout with a premise that's actually believable and with two actors who were at the peak of their powers.
Gene Wilder plays Harry Evers, a TV producers dealing with a show on the break of cancellation and looking at the abyss of unemployment. He's too cowardly to bring up what's happening with his wife (played by Ellen Burstyn) while Marvin (Bob Newhart) is a designer desperate to it the next wave of fashion and come up with a line that will keep his business afloat, even as he feels like he's confined by his marriage to Cloris Leachman's character, who's oblivious to the situation. Only their weekly game gives them time away from their woes, so when it's broken apart, they end up telling their wives that they're still playing and doing, well, whatever.
Honestly, the idea that they'd hide their hanging-out time from their wives is still a bit mystified, but it helps add to the tension and gives them a chance to engage in regular escapades with one another, except they're actually kind of boring and relatable. They have dinner and talk about their problems. They walk in the park and go to the movies and generally hang out and what's remarkable is that in a pre-Seinfeld era, they actually comment on how weird it is to be hanging out. Their different takes on things may clash but they become friends slowly but surely. When Harry gets fired from his show, Marvin reaches out to him and says “Hey, I'll hire you” but Harry refuses and says that it's tacky for two men to do that sort of thing. Later, when Marvin talks about how odd it is that his wife is eight years older than him and he's thinking about leaving her, it's genuine and human and you don't even register that he's kind of a schmuck for wanting to leave her.
What's great about Thursday's Game is that it's about the human factor, be it in poker or anything else and while it's unlikely that a movie about guys who
play poker and become friends would actually be broadcast today, it's a fantastic time capsule that reminds us all that no matter how much we may enjoy online poker and the like today, the game was once confined to people knew each other and could become friends instead of how many of us view one another across the digital divide.
