When Paul Newman passed away last year on September 26th several film festivals and other film exhibitors wanted to pay their respects and Criterion Pictures did their part by issuing new 35mm prints of both The Hustler (1961) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). I programmed both of these for my film series and we just screened The Hustler last Thursday. The print was in mint condition, thus allowing me to really sit back and enjoy the beautiful black-and-white, CinemaScope, Academy Award-winning cinematography by Eugen Schüfftan, not to mention everything else going on in this classic powerhouse of a film.

New York City, seedy bars and pool halls, boozers and brawlers, broken souls and broken hearts, card-sharks and pool sharks… I practically broke out like Julie Andrews to sing “These arrre a fewww of myyyy fayy-vo-rite things.” And I wasn’t alone. Here’s a brief email exchange between me and one of our regulars:

Gregory: OH man, The Hustler was SO beautiful. I’m glad I can appreciate it now. I was just transfixed. Funny to see Pa as a young, cocky punk-rebel. He out Brando-ed Brando! Great performances throughout and the cinematography was masterful. B&W, such a lost art. Each shot was like a 4 page paragraph from a Jack Kerouac Novel. All the Subterranean layers of paint and dank brown… Nice indictment of the American Dream and McCarthy’s neo-neo realist legacy riding on the wave of Camelot… even a pic of Jackie in one bar.

Me: I couldn’t help but also think of Marlon Brandon! It just oozed method acting. Loved it. So do you think Paul was given the Deliverance treatment? Or was it just broken thumbs?

Gregory: Well, he was walking kinda funny…..Funny how 1/2 the movie was in NY which isn’t such a good place to hustle. Funny how the pool table was  next to the bathroom… I could smell the urine.

Another theme about salvation haunts me: pride comes before the fall and the church/morgue/pool hall. Early on there was one shot resembling DaVinci’s last supper… many Edward Hopper’s too.

Wikepedia provides fun information regarding the lengths that director Robert Rossen went to for capturing authenticity:

Rossen filmed The Hustler over six weeks, entirely in New York City. Much of the action was filmed at two now-defunct pool halls, McGirr’s and Ames Billiard Academy. Other shooting locations included a townhouse on East 82nd Street, which served as the Louisville home of Murray Hamilton’s character Findley, and the Manhattan Greyhound bus terminal. The film crew built a dining area that was so realistic that confused passengers sat there and waited to place their orders. Willie Mosconi served as technical advisor on the film and shot a number of the trick shots in place of the actors. Rossen, in pursuit of the style he termed “neo-neo-realistic”, hired actual street thugs, enrolled them in the Screen Actors Guild and used them as extras.

Speaking of acting, I know I’m not alone in confessing to a bit of a man-crush on Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats. If Newman couldn’t help but make me think of Brando, Gleason takes charge of his scenes with the brio of a young Orson Welles. And George C. Scott is one of those actors who I could enjoy even if he was just reading me some warning label on a pharmaceutical product. Later there’s scenes with Murray Hamilton as Findlay, and it gave me a secret pleasure to imagine that Findlay was really the first incarnation of Charlie Evans from Seconds. Medusa gave some great coverage of Hamilton in a previous blog you can link to here:

http://moviemorlocks.com/2008/03/25/talk-about-your-veteran-character-actors/

Putting Valentine’s Day in the rear-view mirror; I’ll end with a snippet of heart-crushing dialogue between Fast Eddie and Sarah Packard (played by Piper Laurie):

Sarah Packard: I love you, Eddie.

Fast Eddie: You know, someday, Sarah, you’re gonna settle down… you’re gonna marry a college professor and you’re gonna write a great book. Maybe about me. Huh? Fast Eddie Felson… hustler.

Sarah Packard: I love you.

Fast Eddie: You need the words?

Sarah Packard: Yes, I need them very much. If you ever say them I’ll never let you take them back.