Steve McQueen Was Iconic in ‘Bullitt’ — but He Was Even Cooler in the Underrated Classic He Released Three Years Before It

From The Great Escape to The Getaway and all the pieces in-between, Steve McQueen earned his status because the King of Cool. He gave one in every of his coolest performances in one in every of his most underrated motion pictures, The Cincinnati Kid, which got here a mere three years earlier than his career-defining position in Bullitt. Planted inside this 1965 poker drama are the seeds that will blossom into McQueen’s star persona. What’s fascinating about The Cincinnati Child is the way it twists that picture to have him play a personality who has to show himself to these round him, when each different time he would not should.

‘The Cincinnati Child’ Was ‘The Hustler’ for Card Gamers

McQueen performs Eric Stoner, nicknamed “The Child,” a Despair-era poker participant determined to show he is the world’s greatest. He sees his alternative when Lancey Howard (Edward G. Robinson), aka “The Man,” involves city. To prepare, he arranges a recreation with William Jefferson Slade (Rip Torn), and when The Child wipes the desk with him, Slade blackmails the seller, Shooter (Karl Malden), into dishonest through the recreation with Lancey. In the meantime, Shooter’s spouse, Melba (Ann-Margret), retains approaching to The Child, however he rejects her, not simply because he is mates along with her husband, but in addition as a result of he is obtained a woman of his personal, Christian Rudd (Tuesday Weld). In the course of the massive recreation, The Child realizes Shooter is dealing the playing cards in such a manner that he’ll win — and thereby, enable Slade to gather a giant wager. Determined to show he can beat The Man on his personal, he has Shooter changed by a reduction seller, Woman Fingers (Joan Blondell), who, unbeknownst to him, has a previous relationship together with his opponent.

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Steve McQueen, cowpokes and gunsmoke.

Should you suppose the plot of The Cincinnati Child sounds so much like The Hustler, you are not incorrect. Although not precisely a rip-off, it does play like an try and money in on the success of that movie, which starred Paul Newman as a cocky younger pool participant making an attempt to beat a extra seasoned participant (Jackie Gleason). Critics on the time identified their similarities, together with Howard Thompson of The New York Times, who known as it “a respectably packaged drama” that nonetheless “pales beside The Hustler, to which it bears a placing similarity of theme and characterization.” Though it is maybe unfair to name it a pale imitation, there are interesting parallels to draw between the two films, not only for their plots, however for his or her placement within the careers of their respective main males. In the beginning of his profession, McQueen performed a bit half in Somebody Up There Like Me, which made Newman a star. By 1974, he was receiving equal billing to Newman in The Towering Inferno. So it is sensible that in-between, he ought to have his personal model of The Hustler.

‘The Cincinnati Child’ Proved McQueen Was the King of Cool

The Cincinnati Child was initially going to be directed by Sam Peckinpah, who would later work with McQueen on Junior Bonner and The Getaway. Peckinpah was fired during filming and changed with Norman Jewison, who at that time had solely directed mild comedies just like the Doris Day/Rock Hudson automobile Send Me No Flowers. Like The Child, Jewison had one thing to show, which was that he was capable of making a more serious, important movie. He succeeded, and simply two years later, he was directing the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night. It is acceptable that this may play out in a movie that is a few brash younger man determined to show his price via the one factor he is good at, and in some ways, that was true of McQueen’s efficiency.

By the point he made The Cincinnati Child, McQueen was already a film star, having starred in The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape. But he wasn’t fairly the field workplace draw he would develop into after Bullitt, which might assist him develop into the highest paid actor in Hollywood by the point of The Towering Inferno. As such, you’ll be able to really feel McQueen taking the chance The Cincinnati Child introduced him and operating with it. Constructing upon the stoicism of his earlier roles, he imbues The Child with a brand new degree of cool, retaining calm because the pressures mount, not simply from the sport however from his varied romantic entanglements. On the identical time, he is desperately making an attempt to show he is one of the best round, to silence those that do not see his price. It is a essential stepping stone to taking part in the good cat of all, Lieutenant Frank Bullitt, after which there was no query as to who the king was.