Best Picture: #46
Original Release Date: December 25, 1973
Rating: PG
Runtime: 2 hours, 9 minutes
Director: George Roy Hill
Quick Impressions:
Two things jumped out at me when watching The Sting. One is that the young Robert Redford is so incredibly handsome. I guess I didn’t realize that because the older, present day Redford is already much handsomer than most people. It didn’t occur to me that youth might make him look even better! (I realize that’s open to debate. Feel free to admire Redford’s good looks at your own discretion.)
You might now be asking, “Sarah, have you not seen any other movies starring the young Robert Redford?” No, I have not. I realize that seems improbable. I didn’t believe it myself at first. In fact, I didn’t even notice until I was watching this movie. I have seen Redford in Out of Africa several times because my dad loves that film, largely because Redford’s character shares his name, Dennis, and is not a total creep like most fictional Dennises. But that’s already 1984. (Surely I did see young Redford on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I’m pretty sure the kids and I watched all of those. But I don’t remember.)
If you’re wondering why I never saw all of Redford and Newman’s classic collaborations, remember that my mother disliked most films from this period (although she did like The Sting. I have no explanation for why I hadn’t seen this one before. For most of my childhood, we even had it on a homemade VHS. I think the other two movies on the tape were The Paper Chase and Gorky Park. (We always recorded in extended play. I never watched those other two either.) (Unless I’m misremembering and it was Soylent Green on that tape and not The Paper Chase. I have seen that one.) So while I’ve known the infectious theme from The Sting for as long as I can remember, I’ve never seen the movie before.
The other thing that jumped out at me came a bit later when I started trying to write this review and learned that this is the only performance for which Robert Redford earned an Oscar nomination for acting. That bit of trivia blew me away. How can that be possible? I guess I always associate Redford with his much lauded career as a director. He won the Oscar for directing Ordinary People (one my mother’s favorite movies when I was a child), was nominated for directing Quiz Show, and circled a nomination for A River Runs Through It and The Horse Whisperer. I somehow just assumed he had a lot of nominations under his belt for acting as well. I feel extra bad now for rooting against him when he starred in All Is Lost. (It was nothing personal. I just thought other performances that year were better and deserved the nomination more.) I tried to make up for that by rooting for him when he starred in The Old Man and the Gun. (I thought he did deserve a nomination for acting that time. As you can see, my opinion makes no difference to the outcome of such things whatsoever.)
Redford is immensely compelling (and handsome) in his turn as Johnny Hooker. I can see why he earned a nomination for Best Actor for The Sting.
The Plot:
Con-artist Johnny Hooker can’t catch a break. As soon as he gets money from a mark, he blows it. He always blows it. After one big score, his mentor Luther decides to quit the grifting game and advises Hooker to make smarter decisions going forward. Hooker isn’t concerned. But then something awful happens, and Hooker vows revenge on the orchestrator of this evil, wealthy gangster Doyle Lonnegan. For the rest of the movie, Hooker schemes up the best way to con and humiliate Lonnegan. To get this elaborate revenge, he enlists the help of one-time expert con-man Henry Gondorff who currently spends most of his time drunk behind a merry-go-round. Gondorff has experience, and Hooker has drive. But can they trust each other long enough to pull off the ultimate con and give Lonnegan the humiliating punishment he deserves?
The Good:
For a Best Picture winner from the 1970s, this film is extraordinarily fun. It’s a comedy, a real comedy, not one of those pretentious Oscar-baity affairs that tries to disguise itself as a comedy. This is a funny comedy. It also has the brisk pace of a comedy. In its emphasis on elaborate cons, it reminds me a bit of the Oceans Eleven movies (though this one is a bit more predictable. Well, I mean, some major twists are easier to see coming, probably because we’re primed to expect elaborate tricks from these slick grifter protagonists).
Watching this and the two Godfather movies has given me the impression that in the early 1970s there was a major feeling of nostalgia for the 1930s and 40s. (I always knew my Grandma and my Mom felt intense nostalgia for a better past during this period, but they’re of a nostalgic bent in general, and my mother would have preferred to be born in the 1920s, so they’re not always the best barometer for determining general societal mood.)
But The Sting does an excellent job of creating an atmosphere of the cherished past. Note, it’s not the actual past. It’s the past the way people imagine it after watching movies. The movie goes almost overboard on fun 30s slang. It’s like watching Stranger Things, That 70s Show, or Happy Days. They try to cram as many nostalgic, mnemonic cues in there are they possibly can. I also enjoyed all the scene wipes, the curtain call opening credits, and the generally brisk pace of the whole thing. All of this gives you the idea that you’re watching a gangster movie from the 1930s. The movie’s extremely famous theme is great and does a lot to set the rather unique mood the film is going for. So many plot elements could make this film a tragedy, but when you hear that upbeat, jaunty theme, you understand immediately that it’s no such thing. I loved the score (or what I assumed was the score) as I watched. I kept wondering, “Is this a score? It sounds so much like a bunch of old Scott Joplin piano rags.” That’s what it is, a bunch of old Scott Joplin piano rags. As we learn in the end credits, the background music isn’t an original score, per se. Instead, it’s an arrangement of various pieces of Scott Joplin rags. Since the film is set in the 1930s, I’m not sure why Scott Joplin rags are used. I mean, Scott Joplin died well before the 1930s. Using these pieces would make more sense if the film were set in the 1900s or 1910s. After the movie, I tried to find out the motivation behind this unusual choice, but all I could find was people agreeing with me. It’s pretty weird to use Scott Joplin music since the film is set in the 1930s. It does give the movie the right kind of energy, though. It helps us understand right from the jump that what we’re about to see is a comedy. And it helps to get visual and musical cues like this because really early on the film shows us a tragic murder. If we had different music and fewer zippy scene wipes, we’d settle in for a much darker, grittier, more realistic story. (And now that I think of it, in It Happened One Night, Clark Gable and the whole bus sing “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze” which was first published in 1867, so maybe using popular music from an earlier era is yet another throwback to 1930s film conventions.)
I love the fashion of the film. I’m extremely inexpert on fashion, but the suits the men wear are so appealing to the eye. It makes me want to live in the 1930s. The scenery is also amazing. We get so much product placement (big billboards and ads on the city streets) that I immediately thought of Blade Runner. As my daughter and I kept noting, these 1930s-style advertisements serve the double role of emphasizing the era and making the audience aware of actual products (most of which still exist). It’s fun to see the whole world turned into a 1930s time capsule, especially because the characters are so often eating and drinking, hanging out in 1930s diners and saloons. (It’s like going to Disneyland and walking down Main Street USA or dropping into Frontierland. The elaborate theming and emphasis on food, drink, games, and song makes the audience feel like we’re virtually visiting one carefully crafted area of an amusement park.) And that merry-go-round! Don’t even get me started! I love the mere fact that it exists. (I have a thing for movies that incorporate merry-go-rounds into their plots. Winner for Best Use of a Merry-Go-Round is almost certainly Strangers on a Train, but there are some good merry-go-round scenes in The Crush and Something Wicked This Way Comes. You can’t go wrong by incorporating a merry-go-round into your film. That’s what I say. (It’s especially delicious that the cocktail waitresses–and whatever else they may do–ride around on the merry-go-round for fun when business is slow. ) I only wish the merry-go-round were featured more, especially because the plot involves taking someone for a ride by luring him to bet on horseraces.
The cast in the film is outstanding, and we get to take a peek at everybody in the opening credits. (I love movies that show us the players, introducing them at the beginning of a film. That’s a very 1930s device, too.) Around here, we’re huge fans of Clue. (This is one era in which I’m actually cool. I liked Clue way before it was popular. As a child, I rented it so often that my grandpa finally just bought me the VHS. I’m pleased to see that in the era of streaming, Clue has finally caught on and gotten the huge following it deserves.) (I don’t know if you would call that cool, but you know what I mean, right?) My point is, my daughter and I were thrilled to see Eileen Brennan show up as Paul Newman’s co-conspirator, assistant, and love interest in this film. I’m not sure that my daughter has seen her in much besides Clue. When I was a kid, we used to watch Murder By Death and The Cheap Detective all the time, but some of the humor in those is a bit racially insensitive. You don’t see them on often anymore. I haven’t seen Private Benjamin since I was a child. I didn’t even know Brennan was in this film, so seeing her show up was a delightful bonus. It’s even better that she seems to play a Lauren Bacall type character (even though Bacall obviously was not making movies in the 1930s).
Redford deserves his Best Actor nomination. His Johnny Hooker is always in motion. He spends an equal amount of time running around arranging elaborate cons and traps for people and trying to evade the police and criminals who are already after him. It’s impossible not to want to watch him because he’s the one doing everything. Without him, there would be no story. Hooker barely has ten seconds of downtime to think. I don’t know how he manages to contrive such elaborate schemes. It’s impossible not to root for a man who manages to succeed under such frantic conditions.
Paul Newman is great in the movie, too. His role is much smaller than Redford’s overall, but when I asked my daughter her favorite scene in the film, she picked the one I had already chosen myself (without telling her), Newman’s big moment at the card table. I wish we got a little more of Newman. His Henry Gondorff always remains such a mysterious figure. We always see him at a bit of a remove, as Hooker does. (He reminds me of Gandalf, probably because his name sounds like a cross between Gandalf and Gondor. And you know how Gandalf is older and wiser and only drops into the story when everyone faces the greatest peril? I’m positive this is just a coincidence since I believe Gondorff was the actual surname of a real life 1930s con-artist.)
As villain Doyle Lonnegan, Robert Shaw may give my favorite performance in the film. (It’s hard to believe that he’s the same actor who played the mud-jumping Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons. He seems so different here (though just as liable to break into a terrifying rage). The movie wouldn’t work without the right person playing Lonnegan. The character must be both evil and engaging, both clever and stupid. (He has to be fooled because of his cleverness. He’s the type of person who overestimates his own intellect, making him smart but not wise.) I love Shaw’s portrayal of Lonnegan. I read later that Oliver Reed was considered for the part but wouldn’t audition. I can’t imagine Reed playing this part. I feel the the comedic element would be lost. He would be too scary. (Maybe that’s because I always imagine him as Bill Sikes, though.)
The rest of the cast is good, too. I’m always glad to see Charles Durning and Harold Gould. And Robert Earl Jones gets a really emotionally resonant part early on, a role that is crucial to the success of the story. (He’s the father of James Earl Jones, by the way. I didn’t know that until after the movie, although I did think that maybe the two were brothers.) One of my daughter’s favorite supporting performances is given by Dimitra Arliss as Loretta. “I love the way she just looks like an ordinary person,” she said, pleased that Redford wasn’t given an overly glamorous love interest. Then the character became even more complex, a wrinkle in the story that both of us much appreciated.
The Sting also has a delightful screenplay, a genuinely clever plot with great lines that are highly quotable. David S. Ward deservedly won an Oscar.
Best Scene:
Newman’s poker game on the train versus the villain (and mark) Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) is by far the best part of the entire movie. Newman handles the trumped up buffoonery brilliantly, and Shaw’s rage delighted me to no end. (I love the moment afterwards, too, when he raves about how he can’t accuse him of cheating better.)
Best Scene Visually:
The opening con of the movie confused us so thoroughly that we had to keep rewinding and watching the scene over and over again. Now, part of the reason for this is that we had just gotten an new TV and hadn’t figured out how to correct for “the soap opera effect,” so I felt like my brain was melting, and I was having a panic attack. (Sensory stuff like this often causes me more than average anxiety. It takes me forever to adapt to changes in sensory input.) But what actually happens here is a bit complex even if you’re paying attention. And it’s crucial that you understand what’s going on because this con drives the entire rest of the plot.
Best Action Sequence:
I love the scene when Hooker gets Loretta to help him evade the guy chasing him–only it doesn’t quite work out so well. Not only is the whole scene brilliant, but the entire Loretta section of the film is genuinely surprising and unpredictable.
The Negatives:
I wish the merry-go-round were used more. I know it’s thrown in there as both fun atmosphere and a big, glaring metaphor, but I wish it were incorporated more into the plot at a literal level, too. The ragtime music would fit so well with a merry-go-round. I wish they had found a way to give it more of a showcase. But, if wishes were horses, I guess…
The merry-go-round is not the only underutilized star. There’s also Paul Newman. Robert Redford dominates the action of this movie. Newman is not exactly a co-star. He’s a supporting player. I’ve read that the role was beefed up so that he could play it. How small was it before? Lonnegan has a better part than Gondorff.
The only other small complaint I have is that I predicted the big, final twist well before it happened. Of course, I will admit that I wasn’t completely sure. But I felt disappointed the moment that I said it out loud because then when I heard myself say it, I thought, “Oh no! That’s right! That’s not a wild guess. That’s right. I just predicted the end of the movie.” I was disappointed for not keeping my thoughts to myself. There is, however, another huge twist late in the movie that I did not see coming at all. So I guess that makes up for it.
Overall:
The Sting feels very light compared to films like The Godfather I and II (which is comes sandwiched between). It’s a fun movie (provided that your TV is not scrambling your brain because you haven’t adjusted to “the soap opera effect.”). I love many of the elements and enjoyed seeing the young Robert Redford in action. Though it didn’t affect me in any profound way, I’d be happy to watch this again any time. It’s an entertaining and worthwhile film.