L'Arnaque

The Sting.

The Sting (1973) is one of everybody's favorite films. Director George Roy Hill took a page from his successful western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and teamed Paul Newman and Robert Redford once again, this time for an Academy Award four star movie about con men.

The intricate saga of The Sting is set in 1936 Chicago. It tells the story of grifters, Henry Gondorff and Johnny Hooker, played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford, respectively. They con the bad guy, Doyle Lonnegan, played by Robert Shaw. And at every turn, they con the audience as well.

The poker game is five card draw ('straight poker' in the film) and is set on a train traveling from New York to Chicago. Newman and Redford are on the train along with Shaw. The game has been set up by Shaw with the cooperation of the conductor. We don't know how Newman and Redford know exactly what day and what train Shaw is taking from New York to Chicago, but that is beside the purpose of our discussion. Shaw is a known card cheater, but Newman will prove to be a better one. Once again the holy game of poker will be sullied by the movies. This time, we'll love every minute of it.

Newman arranges to get himself invited to the poker game, through the conductor. He arrives sober, but apparently inebriated. It is the perfect act, consummately played in a boozy, needling performance by Paul Newman.

Shaw's character is a known cold decker (a 'cold deck' is a deck introduced surreptitiously into the game with hands pre-arranged to break one of the players)' and Newman will have to play over the top of the cold deck when it is placed into the game.

One of the subtleties of the event is missed by most viewers. Newman must ready himself to overcome the cold deck. During the play of hands, we see Newman hold the cards close to his vest and, at least once, his cards disappear briefly below table level, out of sight, and back again. Newman knows Shaw cold decks middle cards against low cards, and so Newman is gathering and holding out jacks.

Newman immediately insults Shaw upon arrival and continues to heckle him throughout the play of the game, thus making sure Shaw will cold deck the game to teach the upstart drunk a lesson. When Shaw goes to the men's room to arrange to fix the cold deck, Newman knows the time has come. (In real life, cold decks were nearly always arranged in men's rooms. They should have had a dedicated stall marked 'coolers made here'.)

The game is three handed at this point. Shaw will bring the cold deck in when he cuts the cards for the dealer to his left. In filming the cold decking, the camera shows a pair of hands over the deck, then there's a cut in the continuity. Then the camera goes immediately back to the deck and we see the hands with the warm deck going to a handkerchief in Shaw's lap, leaving the cold deck on the table. I guess it would have been hard to do in one long shot.

The detail is interesting during the dealing of the cold deck. Newman is fussing with his cigar and poking behind his vest, implying something is happening. But we never see Newman with hand positions that could be holding out cards.

Newman is dealt trip threes and Shaw is dealt a pair of nines. The third player is the dealer and he is out of the hand. Newman draws two cards and gets his four threes with the six of hearts. Shaw draws three cards and gets his four nines with the ten of spades.

The planning of the arranged cold deck is well done and probable. After the cards are dealt, the cards on top of the deck are, in order, a three, the six of hearts, two nines and the ten of spades. It doesn't matter whether Newman draws one or two cards, he'll make his four threes and, in either case, Shaw, in drawing three cards, will make his four nines.

Now, here's the unlikely trick. Newman must change the hand with four threes for a hand with four jacks. It would be easiest to hold out an entire hand of four jacks and a fifth card and switch five card hands. But Newman switches only the four threes for the four jacks he's held out and he keeps the six of hearts. That is much harder to do and less likely would be the method chosen. Newman also takes the chance that Shaw won't have one of the legitimate jacks in his hand with the four nines, but in having to play over the top of the cold deck, that gamble is unavoidable.

Shaw's problem is that he can't call Newman for card manipulation because Shaw has an audience, the other players and the conductor. After Newman leaves the cabin, Shaw says to his lackey, 'What was I supposed to do? Call him for cheating better than me, in front of the others?'

Shaw was able to get $10,000 more in chips during a hand in a table stakes game. But that was okay with Newman.

The film shows Shaw wiping his face with a handkerchief during the play of the hand, implying he has disposed of the warm deck. However, we never see Newman clean up. So, when he leaves the poker cabin, one deck is short four jacks, the other deck has four extra jacks, and Newman still has four threes behind his vest somewhere. Whoever the conductor gives the decks to next, will have a few surprises.

Despite its faults, the poker scene from The Sting is the most fun filled, greatest directed, best acted, and most involved offering in cheating poker film history. And it was made over thirty years ago.

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The fix is in, the odds are set, and the boys are ready to play for the big time, both on the screen and behind the camera in this breezy, endlessly entertaining movie classic.

Robert Redford is small-time hustler Johnny Hooker, happy to play the marks in Joliet until the murder of his mentor pushes him to go up against the nastiest mug in Chicago, Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw.) Hooker'd rather ice Lonnegan outright, but will settle for a big con with the help of a slightly wobbly but game scammer named Henry Gondorff, played as only Paul Newman can.

Newman and Redford, along with director George Roy Hill, had a lot riding on this pony, given it was a follow-up to their earlier "Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid." To measure up, they had to produce nothing short of another classic. And so they did. "The Sting" won the Best Picture Oscar in 1973, and remains the sentimental favorite among many in choosing between the two films.

Comparing "The Sting" to "Butch Cassidy" is kind of overdone sport, and tempers, as Lonnegan would say, run hot. But you can see why "The Sting" worked as well as it did by looking at how the director and the stars played it differently within the same basic framework as "Butch Cassidy." Newman and Redford are again outlaws and underdogs. Period detail abounds here as it did with "Butch Cassidy," and there's another memorable score amid the proceedings, Scott Joplin rags modernized by Marvin Hamlisch. The score even produced another hit, "The Entertainer," to compare with "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head."

What's different about "The Sting," and what makes it such a classic in its own right, is the way the stars service the plot. In "Butch Cassidy," Newman and Redford's comradeship was the story. Here, the chemistry between the two actors is minimized in favor of spinning a yarn with enough red herrings to feed the Swedish navy. The tale here is better than "Butch Cassidy," which is a more elegiac film with grander cinematography and funnier set pieces. "The Sting" is an edge-of-your-seat caper flick from beginning to end.

You can't really call "The Sting" a comedy. Though there are many laughs, especially when Newman hooks Shaw during a poker game, Hill won't let the audience relax enough for that. What this is is a con game, played on the audience, designed not to cheat but entertain by means of clever hoodwinking and constant misdirection plays.

You'll get no spoilers from me. This is one worth sitting through with no expectations. Five gets you ten you'll enjoy Newman and Redford, and a terrific supporting cast (one advantage over "Butch Cassidy") that includes Charles Durning, Eileen Brennan, Dana Elcar, Harold Gould, and Mr. Hand himself, Ray Walston. There's another familiar face from "Butch Cassidy," Charles Dierkop, Flat Nose Curry in "Butch Cassidy" and Lonnegan's right hand here. The best performance may be Robert Shaw's; he exudes menace aplenty but some humanity, too, when he takes Hooker under his wing after learning he came from the same hard streets of Five Points Lonnegan sprang from.

Terrific period detail, too. The dialogue is great and feels real in its Runyonesque way, while the cons are elaborate and logically played out. Watching this a second time is especially fun because once you know how the plot goes down, you find yourself catching clues you missed the first time, and enjoying the film even more for them.

Why didn't Newman and Redford team up again? Certainly there was another good movie for them to partner up in, but as Gondorff would have put it, only chumps don't quit when they're ahead.

A delicious wheeze from start to finish. Certainly a film that leaves you thinking that you'd like to have been in Henry's gang and played a part in separating Lonnegan from his dough. The editing is pin sharp and beautifully cast with a superb musical track to keep you company. The framing, the photography, the pace all dovetail exquisitely and if you feel left outside of the game plan in your first viewing, never fear, the second time of watching, you'll enjoy it just as much but it will mean more. Certainly it's a film you'll want to see a second time. At least. Oscars rightly by the handful and nominations are full deserved to combine for a winning performance by all concerned. Definitely in my top fifty of all time.

The Sting, evoking a bygone era of gangsters and con men, was the deserved Best Picture of 1973. The Sting won that Oscar plus a whole flock of technical awards. One award it didn't win was for Robert Redford as Best Actor.

That must have been tough for the Academy voters because to single out Redford as opposed to Paul Newman must have felt a bit unjust. For though Newman was nominated many times over his career and finally did win for The Color of Money, did not get a nomination for The Sting.

Robert Redford is a small time grifter who while working a bait and switch street con takes off a numbers runner carrying the weekly take. The orders come down from the head man himself, Irish-American gangster Robert Shaw to kill those who did this as an example.

Redford's mentor, Robert Earl Jones, is in fact killed, mainly because Redford starts spending a lot of that newly acquired loot that tips them off. Redford wants revenge so he looks up big time con man Paul Newman who himself is dodging law enforcement as is Redford also.

They work the big con on Shaw and it's a beauty. The scheme they have is something to behold. They also have to do a couple of improvisations on the fly that lend a few twists to the scheme.

The costumes and sets really do evoke Chicago of the Thirties and director George Roy Hill assembles a great cast to support Newman and Redford. My favorite in the whole group is Charles Durning, who plays the brutally corrupt, but essentially dumb cop from Joliet who nearly gums up the works and has to be dealt with.

Special mention should also go to Robert Shaw. He's got a difficult part, maybe the most difficult in the film. He's not stupid, he would not have gotten to the top of the rackets if he was. But he also has to show that hint of human weakness that Newman, Redford, and the whole mob they assemble that makes him vulnerable to the con.

During the sixties and seventies Robert Shaw was really coming into his own as a player, getting more and more acclaim for his work. His early death was a real tragedy, there was so much more he could have been doing.

Can't also forget another co-star in this film, the ragtime music of Scott Joplin that was used to score The Sting. It probably is what most people remember about The Sting. Music from the Theodore Roosevelt era, scoring a film set in the Franklin Roosevelt era made while Nixon was president. Strange, but it actually works.

The Sting still works wonders today.

In Joliet, Illinois in 1936 the murder of a 'grifter' causes repercussions throughout the underworld. Grifters are the small-time con artists who work the streets. They know and respect one another, and the death of Luther brings all the con men from far and wide together in a plan of revenge. Doyle Lonnegan is the New York Irish gangster who ordered Luther's execution, so the grifters target him for the "big con".

"The Sting" was devised as a follow-up to "Butch Cassidy", reuniting Newman and Redford as lovable, wisecracking rogues. The motivation behind the project may have been cynical box-office manipulation, but the resulting film is a beauty. The two stars make a great team, and multi-faceted confidence tricks adorn the plot in Byzantine complexity.

Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) has two prominent personality traits - greed and cruelty. A con is put together which will use these characteristics against their owner. The best way to hurt Lonnegan is to dupe him out of his money, because the sharks of the criminal fraternity will turn on him once they see that he's been 'had'. It is essential that Lonnegan must never know that this was a scam, because if he did, he would pursue a vendetta against our heroes. He must believe that he lost his money through his own stupidity, and that the men who took it are now dead.

The opening scenes emphasise the harshness of a world in which powerful crooks fleece ordinary joes, but also stress the warmth of the social bond which unites the small-time thieves. Mottola is a runner for Lonnegan's operation, a heartless dandy who steals a desperate man's dough (or so he thinks). The gambling dens ruthlessly swindle Hooker out of his money, but Hooker makes no trouble for the croupier, a guy just like himself who is merely trying to survive.

Redford plays Hooker to perfection. He is the handsome, charming 'man of the people'. There is no malice in him, and yet he spends his life ducking, diving and dodging lead. Luther was his father figure, and we see Hooker transfer his filial allegiance to Gondorff.

The film is crammed with technical cleverness. Whoever went out and scouted for locations did a great job, because the gritty 1930's look is wonderful. If the streets around the bookie's shop were 'faked' on a back lot, then this alone would make "The Sting" outstanding. Watch the urban period detail as Lonnegan goes across to place his first bet, and again at the start of "The Wire". Hooker suddenly realises that Luther is dead, and we see 'the penny drop' by means of a very simple but very effective device - the camera zooms back. No redundant dialogue, no over-acting. The panoramic view from above the rail tracks is achieved by 'masking in' a photograph of old Joliet, to create a convincing skyline. During the poker game on the train, the focus is thrown from Lonnegan's cards to Gondorff's eyes. We know that Gondorff knows that Lonnegan is cheating.

The music cannot go unmentioned. Apart from being exquisite, it contributes a major part of the film's overall feel. "The Sting" introduced the piano rags of Scott Joplin to a mass audience, and their popularity has not diminished over the ensuing decades. Composed perhaps forty years before the events they illustrate, and therefore 'wrong' from a period point of view, the pieces are none the less perfect, and the film is unimaginable without them. As a fun accompaniment to the music, the film contains various silent-era 'wipes'. Watch for the changes of scene for the iris-ins and iris-outs, and vertical and horizontal wipes.

David Ward's script is intelligent and intricate. The 'big con' has safety features built into it, such as the well-worked 'shut-out'. In order for the audience to take the swindlers to their hearts, it is necessary to depict the cops as venal, immoral and downright sleazy. Local dick Snyder is all of this, and more, his character being a masterpiece of dimwitted malevolence.

Eileen Brennan (Captain Lewis in "Private Benjamin") plays Billie, Gondorff's partner. She turns in a performance of cool assurance, one of the film's subtler treats. Charles Dierkop is simply marvellous as Floyd. This veteran of "Butch Cassidy" has hardly any dialogue, but he makes Floyd central to the film's comic purpose - and does it all with nuances of gesture. The FBI agents are great. Wearing straw boaters more than a decade after straw boaters ceased to be cool, and persisting with them even in torrential rain, the G-men are the archetype of Hooverian 'squareness'.

It may be fanciful, but are there passing references to Hitchcock's "Strangers On A Train"? The carrousel may be stretching a point, but what of Mottola's feet at the start, wearing Robert Walker's shoes?

"The Sting" is a splendid film. The plot may perform bewildering gyrations, Robert Shaw's Irish accent may be somewhat shaky, and Solino may be an assassin too far - but the whole of this complicated contraption works, and works well. I can recall, back in 1974, an excited cinema audience actually cheering and shouting at the screen.

"Seems worthwhile, doesn't it?"