Note the Rockwell-esque poster and the sweet tag line.
Chicago was a right town then. The fix was in. The dicks took their end without a beef. All the Wall Street boys wanted to make an investment for us. Even had marks looking us up, thinking they could beat the game…Yeah, kid, it really stunk. No sense in being a grifter if it’s the same as being a citizen. – Henry Gondorf (Paul Newman), The Sting.
The early 70s Best Pictures were obsessed with crime. From 1971 to 1975, movies about crime – and more often than not with criminals as the lead characters – won the Best Picture trophy. While most of these movies were dark, in 1973, smack dab in the middle of this crime spree, a different sort of crime movie won – The Sting. Far more lighthearted than its neighboring Best Pictures, The Sting is a caper film, where the bad guys are quite likable, just desserts are served, the stakes feel low key and a general jolly mood permeates the film.
Henry Gondorf (Paul Newman) and Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) just looking dapper as all get-out
In 1930s Chicago, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) is a low level grafter, conning people out of small amounts of cash and blowing it as fast as he can steal it. Hooker and his partner, Luther, swindle the wrong man, an errand boy for the banker/numbers runner, Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw, who was also a villain – Henry VIII – in 1966 Best Picture A Man For All Seasons). Despite the relatively low sum of money Hooker and Luther stole, Lonnegan refuses to take any petty insult sitting down. He has Luthor killed and puts a contract out on Hooker. Hooker teams up with Henry Gondorf, a wisened con man who has been out of the game because one of his grifts went wrong. Together the pair organize a crew to take Lonnegan down.
Paul Newman in the hilarious poker scene of The Sting
The Sting falls into one of my favorite types of movies – cool people doing cool things. Robert Redford and Paul Newman, along with director George Roy Hill, had first teamed together in the wildly successful buddy western Butch Cassidy and the Sunset Kid, and The Sting is partly an excuse to let the two men play off each other. Newman is one of my all-time favorite actors and he shines through the role. There’s an extended scene on a train where Newman first meets Lonegan, playing a rich bookie who is purposefully irritating in order to get under Lonnegan’s skin and draw him into the con. Newman shines in the comedic role, bringing funny chops to the character.
The story in The Sting is secondary to the atmosphere and coolness of the characters. The movie has several twists – like any good grift should – and the first time through they come off as exciting and shocking. Watching the movie again, some of the holes start to appear. The subplot about Hooker being marked by Lonnegan’s assassin and its ultimate resolution doesn’t really make a lot of sense once the assassin is revealed and the flimsy explanation as to why the assassin didn’t take out Hooker sooner is put forth. Similarly, part of Gondorf’s plan to unseat Lonnegan involves Hooker, under an alias, getting close to Lonnegan to lure the rich man in. How could the assassins Lonnegan has paid to follow Hooker not realize Hooker is consorting with their boss?
Robert Redford (center) and Lonnegan (Robert Shaw, right) show off the 30s sensibilities of this 70s film.
I really like the sets and the ambiance of the films. All the grifters talk in carny code and never spell out what they are talking about (once you know the intricacies of the con, you can probably figure most of it out). I like the style of the characters, from Newman’s suspenders to Redford’s dazzling suits. As noted, it’s cool people, being cool. Director Hill also employed a lot of 1930’s ambiance, from cinema techniques popular in 30s films to bookending scenes with title cards reminiscent of Normal Rockwell paintings from the Saturday Evening Post. The air of nostalgia is undercut by the overall crookedness of the characters – both good and bad – and the fact the whole movie is about the corruption of the times (and the present day).
I like the Sting for its look and feel and the fun story it tells. It feels like a strange pick for Best Picture, both in its time and even now, when most Best Pictures are serious and have more of a morality message attached. Perhaps the movie succeeded because it was a breath of fresh air, a palate cleanser, in an otherwise dark time, both culturally and at the movies.
Other Oscars: Best Director (George Roy Hill); Best Original Screenplay; Best Art Direction – Set Direction; Best Costume Design; Best Film Editing; Best Score
Note: Total Oscar count is really indicative of nothing – each award is voted separately and either you win Best Picture or you don’t – but it is striking to me that The Godfather, maybe the greatest movie ever, won 3 Oscars and The Sting, a fine movie but not the greatest of all time, won 7.
Trivia: The 46th Academy Awards are notorious for a streaker running across stage, right before the presentation of Best Picture. It has long been rumored that the stunt was planned.
David Niven is the guy with clothes, Robert Opel is the one without
Box Office: $156 Million (#1 for the year)
Other Notable Movies of 1973: American Graffiti*; Cries and Whispers*; The Exorcist*; A Touch of Class*; Robin Hood (Disney); Papilon; The Way We Were; Magnum Force; Last Tango In Paris: Live and Let Die (first Roger Moore as James Bond); Paper Moon; Day For Night; The Paper Chase; Save the Tiger
*Best Picture Nominee
Operation: Oscar 