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THE HUSTLER is one of the essential American films of the 1960’s, right up there with BONNIE & CLYDE, THE GRADUATE, and THE WILD BUNCH, a cultural touchstone for years after its release with scenes that defined a generation. If its luster has faded in the past few decades, maybe it is because B/W films were not favorites of the MTV generation and the millennials that followed, but I think it is The Great American Movie the way The Great Gatsby is The Great American Novel, in that it is a film that challenges the viewer to consider just what makes a person a success, a failure, and how does one gain the character to become the former and avoid the latter. It is also a damn good piece of film making, filled with subtle touches that vividly bring to life a time and place, and the marginalized culture of the big city pool halls.
Most know the plot, of how cocky young pool hustler, Fast Eddie Felson, comes to New York City to challenge the legendary champ, Minnesota Fats, to a game of straight pool in Fats’ regular haunt. It’s youth challenging experience, and though Fast Eddie may well have the raw talent to beat Fats, he does not have the sense to know when to quit while he is ahead, and Fats utterly humiliates Eddie after a 25 hour marathon series of games, stripping the challenger of $18,000 in winnings and leaving him exhausted and drunk on the floor. It is a hard fall, and as brutal as any suffered by any gladiator in the arena, and the middle part of the film concerns Eddie’s quest to get back on his feet, earn enough money, and take on Fats again. Along the way, he meets, Sarah Packard, a damaged young woman and begins a relationship with her, and ultimately makes an arrangement with Bert Gordon, a sharpie with a fat wallet who is willing to stake Eddie because he knows he has talent, if not character. But while Eddie has a chance at love with Sarah, his real passion is the game, and Bert is determined to protect his investment by getting rid of the competition. It does not end well for Sarah, and the sadly wiser Fast Eddie gets what he wants, a rematch with Fats, and a settling of accounts with Bert. In the end, Eddie Felson is a success, but was the price worth it, that is the question the movie asks and it has been challenging audiences ever since.
More than its weighty themes, THE HUSTLER is a masterpiece of subtle film making, and its centerpiece is Eddie and Fats’ initial clash around the pool table, a sequence that takes up nearly a quarter of the film’s more than two hour running time. The genius of it is that you don’t have to know much about the game to follow what is happening, but it is the interaction between the characters that is what bears watching, as money changes hands, signals are sent, liquor is drunk, and how simply the washing of hands, the putting on of a coat, and the picking up of a pool cue is tantamount to putting on a sword and a shield and going into battle. It is in the way Bert Gordon sits like an Emperor in the Ames pool hall, and how he gets up and moves his chair two inches and then sits back down when a drunken Eddie tells him to move somewhere else. More than that, it is in the scene where Eddie has his thumbs broken after he hustles the wrong crew, thus making him a “cripple” like Sarah, and for the first time, he is dependent on someone else, and they both become better people for it. The picnic scene where Eddie talks to her about his love of the game and the satisfaction he gets just playing it better than anyone is a paean to true success, the kind that comes from within. There is the party in Louisville sequence, where the vapid and empty character of the well to do is made plain by the way they ignore a drunken Sarah as she lies on a bed, rolling her out of the way to retrieve a coat, or the how the homosexuality of the aristocratic Findley is suggested in the statues of satyrs and Greek Gods in his basement.
The heart and soul of THE HUSTLER lies in the casting of the four principles and the career best performances they give. Simply put, this is the film that made Paul Newman a superstar, it happens the moment when he flashes that great Golden Boy smile in the cold open scene. Fast Eddie Felson was a different kind of movie protagonist, the first of the wary anti heroes that would grace America’s movie screen as the 50’s faded into the rear view mirror and the popular culture began to more reflect the tensions in American life. Newman makes being tough and being vulnerable look sexy, and does things with this role that Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin, who were considered for the part, could never have done. He was the front runner for the Best Actor Oscar that year, but lost to Maximilian Schell’s performance in JUDGMENT AT NUREMBURG, he would have to wait a quarter of a century before getting the award, which many consider a consolation Oscar, when he reprised Fast Eddie in Martin Scorsese THE COLOR OF MONEY. I think he should have gotten it the first time around. For those who only know Piper Laurie only as Carrie White’s mother, this movie will be a revelation, her Sarah Packard is Eddie’s true love, a lame woman who clings to her man even as she is losing him; her final scene in the hotel room with Bert, where a vile sexual act is committed, is not to be forgotten. Sarah was a role many big stars of the time would have passed on as inappropriate for their images. Laurie was rewarded with a well deserved Best Actress nomination for taking the risk. This was George C. Scott’s third movie, his Bert Gordon is shrewd and intelligent, but with no moral center whatsoever, he is the Satan of this particular hell, and Scott brings all his skills to the role, with that great voice getting to deliver some equally worthy dialogue; and nobody ever leaned in better than George C. Scott. Jackie Gleason was simply a force of nature, very familiar to audiences in 1961 from his time on TV, especially from THE HONEYMOONERS, but he had spent his many years honing a larger than life persona, and a reputation as a man who enjoyed the finer things in life. All of that is in his portrayal of Minnesota Fats, and it reminds us that this man who’s other great movie role is Buford T. Justice, was one hell of a dramatic actor, if there are any doubts, just watch him in REQUIM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT, made the next year. Murray Hamilton, who will forever be Mayor Larry Vaughn from JAWS, is the smarmy Findley; some might remember that he and Myron McCormick, who plays Eddie’s partner, Charlie, were in NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS only a few years before. And there is a direct Scorsese connection in that the Raging Bull himself, Jake LaMotta, has a cameo as a bartender.
There are some behind the scenes heroes of THE HUSTLER, starting with the director and screen writer, Robert Rossen, who spent some time in the 50’s away from Hollywood because of the McCarthy blacklisters. A onetime member of the Communist Party, he had appeared before Congressional investigators and named names. Some of this finds its way into the story in the way Fast Eddie must make a deal with the devil in form of Bert in order to do what he loves to do best. Rossen had been something of a pool hustler himself in his younger days, long before finding success as a script writer at Warner Brothers and directing such classics as BODY AND SOUL and ALL THE KING’S MEN. This project was his big comeback and he made the most of it, turning it into his greatest critical and financial success. Sadly, it would be his last one, as he made only one more movie before dying much too soon in 1966. And THE HUSTLER would be nothing without the contribution of pool champion Willie Mosconi, who taught the game to Newman before production started, did some of the trick shots himself with the help of editor Dede Allen, and has a cameo as “Willie,” the man who holds the money at Ames Pool Hall.
Scorsese’s sequel, which came out in 1986, picked up the story of Fast Eddie 25 years later, and though it took its title, THE COLOR OF MONEY, from Walter Tevis’s official follow up novel, the sequel did not use the plot of the book, but instead told the story of an older Fast Eddie, who is drawn back to the game he loves when he meets a talented kid, played by Tom Cruise, who is just as deficient in character as Eddie was at his age. My only complaint about Scorsese’s follow up, is that it had so few call backs to the original film, that many young viewers in the 80’s and later would watch MONEY over and over completely unaware that Fast Eddie had first made his appearance on the scene in 1961; their loss.
The DVD special edition is an excellent version, complete with many extras and a commentary track; the transfer is well done, preserving the effect of Cinemascope, which made the pool rooms seem enormous, something seldom done in a B/W movie. My only complaint that the commentaries by various parties – Carol Rossen, Dede Allen, critic Richard Schickel, actor Stefan Giersach, and briefly, Newman himself – do not do a scene by scene breakdown. No matter, it is the definitive version of this classic.
And after all these years, THE HUSTLER still speaks to us, especially to those who see it for the first time. Don’t be turned off by the B/W, watch it and meet Fast Eddie and Minnesota Fats, Bert Gordon and Sarah Packard. They still have a lot to tell us.
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Reviews with images
Newmann are such wonderful actors. They made it all seem so natural ...
I have watched this movie several times learning something new each time. Mr.Gleason and Mr.Newmann are such wonderful actors. They made it all seem so natural and seemingly so every day life happenings...Ms.Sara (Piper Laurie) was excellent as Mr.Newsmann lady friend...I loved this movie...It is or should be a genuine classic for every actor.The Hustler
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