The Sting

Just a few short years after George Roy Hill directed Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the Best Picture-nominated Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, he brought them back for another attempt at winning it all. This time he set his eyes on a 1940 book titled The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man. While the story he ultimately settled on was not based on any one specific true event, it was inspired by many. David S. Ward took his inspiration from the book and ran with it in his own unique direction. The result was one of the most original caper films ever made, and it ultimately took the Best Picture Oscar. While it can be argued that this wasn’t a strong year for films in that category, there is no denying that The Sting is one of those films that has stood the test of time and deserves to be ranked among the best of the Oscar winners.

The film takes place in 1936 and it is stylized much like the early talkie films from that era, complete with old-fashioned title cards, drawn by artist Jaroslav “Jerry” Gebr, much like the artwork from that era in The Saturday Evening Post. Juxtaposed with this imagery is the heavy use of ragtime music, particularly the melody The Entertainer by Scott Joplin. Marvin Hamlisch adapted that melody along with other Joplin pieces to give The Sting a soundtrack unlike any other film. That, coupled with some heavily stylized production design, makes The Sting an audio and visual treat, especially when viewed the right way, on the biggest screen with a good sound system. It may be over fifty years old, but it is still an endlessly watchable film that new audiences are still discovering and falling in love with. 

The movie opens with Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) and Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones), two Depression-era conmen, successfully conning $11,000 in cash from a man in Joliet, Illinois. With this newfound windfall, Luther decides to retire from the business while Johnny loses his half of the money in one spin of a rigged roulette wheel. What neither realizes is that the man they took the money off of works for American crime boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw). Johnny escapes, but Luther ends up thrown to his death out of his high-rise apartment. Acting on Luther’s earlier advice, Hooker seeks out Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) in Chicago, with the intent on learning The Long Con and with his sights on taking down Lonnegan. 

He finds Gondorff drunk and hiding out from the FBI, running a carousel that is a front for a brothel. While Gondorff is reluctant at first, he relents and recruits a large team of experienced con men, all of whom are willing to go after the man who had Luther killed. Meanwhile, hooker is being pursued by corrupt Joliet police lieutenant Snyder (Charles Durning) as well as a paid assassin hired by Lonnegan to find the other man involved in taking his money. As the film goes on, we see layer after layer of cons, half-truths, and intentional misleads both against Lonnegan and us, the audience. There is just enough obfuscation throughout that it leaves you second-guessing everything right up until the final shot. 

The best part about The Sting is that if you are watching it again, you know where it is headed, yet it is fun to see the scenes play out with that foreknowledge. It is just as much fun being in on the con, maybe even more so, as it is on the outside trying to figure it out. This is not a movie that loses its luster once the secrets are revealed. It is just a whole heck of a lot of fun seeing these actors having the time of their lives playing all the ins and outs of the long con. 

Hooker is refreshingly portrayed as a bit of a screw-up, an imperfect man who exemplifies the old saying “A fool and his money are soon parted”. He scores the biggest payday of his entire life and has to know that this must mean they ripped off the wrong sort of man, yet he is throwing around his newfound wealth without any concern of looking suspicious. On top of that, he loses it all before the night is out, gambling everything he has left on a single spin of the roulette wheel. He may be a good conman, but he’s lousy with money. 

Gondorff has his own problems. He drinks too much, and his hands shake, but he has a lot of connections and an uncanny ability to pull together a plan and the right people to see it through to the end. Together, Gondorff and Hooker work well, but often Hooker keeps things to himself that throws monkey wrenches into the game, requiring Gondorff and his guys to have to alter the plan on the fly. One gets the feeling that a single strand could come unwound at any moment, and the whole thing would just fall apart. But then a lot of the fun is watching George Roy Hill and screenwriter David S. Ward juggle all these balls and keep them up in the air until the end, not dropping a single one prematurely. 

Gondorff and Hooker’s plan is a complicated one, far more complicated than I can get to in the space allotted for this review. What it boils down to is convincing Lonnegan that there is a sure-win scenario involving horse racing and to get him to lay down a lot of money, a half million dollars, on a single bet, then take his money without ever letting him in on the fact that he has just been conned. How they go about doing that is where it really gets complicated and is not worth detailing here even if I could. Needless to say, it’s ingenious, it’s a bit convoluted, and it’s a sheer delight to watch it all play out. It’s a bit like the Ocean’s Eleven series but a bit more well-written. Those films played up more on the chemistry of all the stars and the overly obfuscated plot, whereas The Sting allows you to follow along while mostly keeping you in the loop. I say mostly because there is a twist involving the Feds that it doesn’t spoon-feed you what’s really going on until the end.

Even though there are some real stakes involved, the film never feels like it is taking itself too seriously. Hill is presenting the Depression era in a slightly exaggerated way with the colors and the fashions. He also breaks it up into chapters, each with its own title card. Hill presents his scenes like we are peeking in on something we aren’t supposed to be privy to. It gives certain scenes an enigmatic air, aiding in the overall tone of the film. While there are times when our characters are in peril, especially Hooker, we never believe he may fail, though there are times when we are unsure how he will get out of the scrapes he gets into. It’s a fascinating performance by Redford and one he should have gotten a competitive Oscar for. He did secure the sole actor nomination here but ultimately was beat by Jack Lemmon in Save the Tiger.

Too often, crime movies or caper films get too bogged down in murder and mayhem and forget that we need to have some fun with the story, too. The Sting nails this tone perfectly, and even when things start closing in on our characters, we are always having fun. The film never gets overly violent, either, though there is one moment, so quick that we barely have time to register what has happened, when someone is shot in the forehead. There is also a scene where a character, a burlesque dancer, is scantily clad, but by and large, this is a family-friendly film. 

This is the kind of film that requires you to pay attention to what is going on. If you try to watch it while scrolling through social media, you will ultimately get lost trying to follow the plot. That being said, it’s not a fast-paced film, either, but it is never dull. Redford and Newman have enough charisma to carry a movie on their own, and the two combined are just magnetic. They make this film. George Roy Hill tried to recapture this magic years later with the ill-advised The Sting II which featured neither Redford nor Newman, and the less said about that film, the better. You can’t recapture the magic that is this movie, and it was foolish to try. The Sting is a near-perfect movie and one of the best films to come out of Hollywood.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Tony Bill, Julia Phillips, and Michael Phillips (won)

Best Director: George Roy Hill (won)

Best Actor: Robert Redford 

Best Original Screenplay: David S. Ward (won)

Best Art Direction: Henry Bumstead and James W. Payne (won)

Best Cinematography: Robert Surtees

Best Costume Design: Edith Head (won)

Best Film Editing: William Reynolds (won)

Best Scoring: Original Song Score and Adaptation or Scoring: Adaptation: Marvin Hamlisch (won)

Best Sound: Ronald Pierce and Robert R. Bertrand

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Release Date: December 25, 1973

Running Time: 129 minutes

Rated PG

Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Robert Shaw

Directed by: George Roy Hill