I just saw The Sting again, for the 8th or 9th time – my son’s girlfriend had never seen it, so we popped it into the DVD player.
I love this film. Here’s why.
I like how we get sucked into a completely alien environment, the world of the con man, with its own vocabulary. Most of it goes over our head, but it doesn’t matter. (I wonder how the writers did their research).
I like how just enough details of the operation are kept from us, so we can be surprised – like the “FBI” agents, or just how Gondorf plans to beat Lonagan at poker.
Paul Newman is just so, so, completely cool.
I’m intrigued by the existence (pure fantasy, probably) of the underground economy. We get grifter bars, and crooked commercial real estate agents, and grifter equipment rental firms.
The sting itself is a thing of beauty. Lonagan doesn’t even realize he’d been cheated; Snider (the cop) thinks Hooker’s dead. Everybody gets off scot free.
The soundtrack. An anachronistic choice – Scott Joplin’s music was written 20-30 years before the events of the movie. But it works.
One quibble that makes me :rolleyes:, but I give it a pass: J.J.'s (Ray Walston) intelligence on Lonagan’s poker game is so good, it verges on magic: he not only knows he cheats, he knows he does it by feeding his opponent 4 3’s while giving himself 4 9’s. If this is so well known, it’s amazing that Lonagan can get anyone to play with him.
I’m right there with you on the movie. I kept waiting for Redford and Newman to do one more buddy flick after Butch & Sundance. Sad it never happened.
Your thread title made me think we would be praising Sting, and I could have done some of that, too. Just saw him in a Chris Botti show on PBS. Also in a Herbie Hancock thing on On Demand.
I can probably add more to the movie thread than to the music one, but you have said most of what I would.
If a mod wants to insert “(movie)” in the thread title, I have no objections.
More underground economy examples: illegal casinos in Chicago (grungy) and New York, where Lonagan plays (de luxe). And it looks like Lonagan may have been one of the biggest employers in Chicago, with all those layers of management, and secretaries and bookkeepers and delivery boys running around.
Trivia I just noticed this time: when Hooker blows his money on the fixed roulette wheel, the ball lands on the same number (22) as it does on the fixed roulette wheel in Casablanca.
My wife is a major Redford fan and his preference for 22 has made that her number of choice. We went to a gambling boat in Natchez and she bet the number at roulette and it didn’t hit. She got up from her chair to leave the table and the next guy won on it! For some reason, that makes her feel lucky.
My son also bets on 22, but its been his favorite number since Will Clark wore it for the Giants.
I think every role in the movie is shady in some way: they’re all con men, gangsters, prostitutes, crooked cops. Even the conductor on the train is running a poker game.
Interesting thread name-change there. I guess I don’t have to apologize for hijacking the thread, then?
Sting is one of the most charismatic rock front men I’ve ever seen. He owned the place when The Police played the Cow Palace in '82. The same thing happened when I saw him on the "Nothing Like The Sun" tour five years later–the crowd loved him.
As an actor, though…meh. I think his best role was in Stormy Monday, and my favorite line is from Dune: “I will kill him!!!”
I revised the thread title again after misunderstanding what change the OP wanted. I thought comparing “The Sting” to Sting was odd but creative. I think we’re good now.
Title was originally The Sting appreciation thread, then I changed it to something like “The Sting” movie vs. Sting/Gordon Sumner.
Here’s why.