Posted on 08/13/2015 8:04:01 PM PDT by DemforBush
A young, but talented con man named Johnny Hooker(Robert Redford) inadvertently crosses big-time mobster Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) with one of his grifts. Now, with his partner murdered and the heat on him from both the cops and the crooks, Johnny turns to the legendary master of the "Big Con" Gondorff (Paul Newman) to get some payback on Lonnegan, and just maybe save his own skin...
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
The thing that impresses me most about The Sting is the deep bench of acting talent the film has. Not just the stars, or even the supporting cast (Eileen Brennan, Ray Walston, Harold Gould, etc.) Even the bit parts are filled by actors who would go on to do a lot of great work - James Sloyan (best remembered by us Trek geeks as Admiral Jirok), Clint Eastwood favorite John Quade, etc. It's this depth of talent that takes a fairly lightweight script and turns it into a real gem of a film. Love this one from the first scene to the last. 8.25/10.
Weak spot being a rather wrinkly, pushing 40, Robert Redford as the kid...
Great movie...watch it every time it’s on TV. I still have the movie soundtrack album (vinyl).
One of the great movies of all time. If “The Sting” isn’t in your TOP 10 then you should quickly check your pulse - you may not have one.
Totally agree this is a great movie, with a fantastic soundtrack.
Hubby’s favorite movie of all time, and hubby has watched a bazillion movies in his time!
Ping!
Major credit due Scott Joplin.
It really is an informative book. reading it will enlighten souls as to how to spot the con.
Page 262 “Hustlers and con men”, covers Gondorf’s scam, on which the entire Sting movie was based
Just checked this book on Amazon.
It’s $24.99 for the KINDLE edition.
No way.
A truly great movie. I think my favorite scene, though, is when Paul Newman is warming up for the big card game. It’s just two hands (belonging to John Scarne, the great card manipulator) and a deck of cards in close-up, and the hands shuffle and cut the cards repeatedly while turning up the ace of spades every time.
click on all pages, go to page 262, and expand, free reading.
Wonderful movie, the best part of which to me was its provision for those who figured it out and then talked them out of it, before springing it on us in the end.
Agreed! We have to give Marvin Hamlisch credit too, for coming up with the idea of using that music. He made Scott Joplin justifiably famous, I wonder if too many people would have been that generous.
I wanted to double check the Hamlisch thing, so I looked it up on Wikipedia, there’s a couple of interesting stories there.
Here’s a link if anyone is interested.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sting
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