Richard, James & Ben Favourite Paul Newman Films

1. The Hustler (1961): Small-time pool hustler "Fast Eddie" Felson (Paul Newman) travels cross-country with his partner Charlie (Myron McCormick) to challenge the legendary player "Minnesota Fats" (Jackie Gleason). Arriving at Ames, Fats's home pool hall, Eddie declares he will win $10,000 that night. Fats arrives and he and Eddie agree to play for $200 a game. After initially falling behind, Eddie surges back to being $1,000 ahead, and suggests raising the bet to $1,000 a game; Fats agrees. He sends out a runner, Preacher (Stefan Gierasch) to Johnny's Bar, ostensibly for a bottle of whiskey, but really to get professional gambler Bert Gordon (George C. Scott) to the hall. Eddie gets ahead $11,000 and Charlie tries to convince him to quit, but Eddie insists the game will end only when Fats says it is over. Fats agrees to continue after Bert labels Eddie a "loser." After 25 hours and an entire bottle of bourbon, Eddie is ahead over $18,000, but loses it all along with all but $200 of his original stake. At their hotel later, Eddie leaves half of the remaining stake with a sleeping Charlie and leaves. Eddie stashes his belongings at the local bus terminal, where he meets Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie), an alcoholic "college girl" who walks with a limp. He meets her again at a bar. They go back to her place but she refuses to let him in, saying he is "too hungry." Eddie moves into a rooming house and starts hustling for small stakes. He finds Sarah again and this time she takes him in, but with reservations. Charlie finds Eddie at Sarah's and tries to persuade him to go back out on the road. Eddie refuses and Charlie figures out he plans to challenge Fats again. Eddie realizes that Charlie held out his percentage and becomes enraged, believing that with that money he could have rebounded to beat Fats. Eddie dismisses Charlie as a scared old man and tells him to "go lie down and die" by himself. At Johnny's Bar, Eddie finds a poker game where Bert is sitting and Eddie loses $20. After the game, Bert tells Eddie that he has talent as a pool player but no character. He figures that Eddie will need at least $3,000 to challenge Fats again. Bert calls him a "born loser" but nevertheless offers to stake Eddie in return for 75% of his winnings. Eddie refuses. Eddie hustles a local pool shark, who breaks Eddie's thumbs. Sarah cares for him and tells him she loves him, but he cannot say the words. When his thumbs heal, Eddie agrees to Bert's terms, deciding that a "twenty-five percent slice of something big is better than a hundred percent slice of nothing." Bert, Eddie and Sarah travel to Louisville, Kentucky for the Kentucky Derby, where Bert arranges a match for Eddie against a wealthy local socialite named Findley (Murray Hamilton). The game turns out to be billiards, not pool. Eddie loses badly and Bert refuses to keep staking him. Sarah pleads with Eddie to leave with her, saying that the world he is living in and its inhabitants are "perverted, twisted and crippled;" he refuses. Seeing Eddie's anger, Bert agrees to let the match continue at $1,000 a game. Eddie comes back to win $12,000. He collects his $3,000 share and decides to walk back to the hotel. Bert arrives first and subjects Sarah to a humiliating sexual encounter. After, she scrawls PERVERTED, TWISTED and CRIPPLED in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. Eddie arrives back at the hotel to learn that she has killed herself. Eddie returns to challenge Fats again, putting up his entire $3,000 stake on a single game. He wins game after game, beating Fats so badly that Fats is forced to quit. Bert demands a share of Eddie's winnings and threatens Eddie over the issue, but Eddie, invoking the memory of Sarah, shames Bert into giving up his claim. However, Bert warns Eddie never walk into a big-time pool hall again.

2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969): Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford), the leaders of the Hole in the Wall Gang, are planning another bank robbery. As they return to their hideout in Hole-in-the-Wall, they find out that the gang has selected a new leader, Harvey Logan (Ted Cassidy). He challenges Butch to a knife fight, which Butch wins, using a ruse. Although Logan is defeated, Butch quickly embraces Logan's idea to rob the Union Pacific Flyer twice, agreeing with Logan that the second robbery would be unexpected and likely to involve even more money than the first. The first robbery goes very well and the marshal of the next town (Kenneth Mars) cannot manage to raise a posse. Butch and Sundance listen to his attempts from mere yards away, enjoying themselves on the balcony of a nearby brothel. Sundance's lover, Etta Place (Katharine Ross), is introduced; both men vie for her attention as she also goes bike-riding with Butch during a dialogue-free musical interlude, accompanied by the Oscar-winning song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." The second robbery goes wrong. Not only does Butch use too much dynamite to blow the safe, but a second train arrives, which is carrying a posse that has been specially outfitted by E. H. Harriman to hunt Butch and Sundance. The gang flees in multiple directions, with the posse following Butch and Sundance. They try hiding in a brothel but are betrayed. They try riding double on a single horse in the hope that the posse will split up, but that fails. They then try to arrange an amnesty with the help of the friendly Sheriff Bledsoe (Jeff Corey). But he tells them they have no chance of getting one, and that they will be hunted down until they are killed by the posse. Still on the run the next day, they muse about the identities of their pursuers. They fixate on Lord Baltimore, a famous Indian tracker, and Joe Lefors, a tough, renowned lawman, recognized at a distance by his white skimmer, or straw hat. After reaching the summit of a mountain, they find themselves trapped on the edge of a canyon. They decide to jump into the river far below, even though Sundance cannot swim and would prefer to fight. Later they arrive at Etta's house and learn that the posse has been paid to stay together until they kill the two of them. They decide it is time to leave the country and head to Bolivia, a destination Cassidy had spoken about earlier. They head to New York, then board a passenger ship, eventually arriving by train in a small Bolivian village. Sundance already resents the choice. Their first attempted bank robbery stops before it gets off the ground, as they are unable to speak Spanish. Etta teaches them the words they need. Their next robbery is clumsily executed, as Butch still needs his cribsheet. After more robberies, the duo, now known as the Bandidos Yanquis, are sought by the authorities all over Bolivia. In spite of their success, their confidence drops one evening when they see a man wearing a white straw hat on the other side of the street, and fear that Lefors is once again after them. Butch suggests going straight, so as to not attract Lefors's attention. They get their first honest job as payroll guards in a mine, directed by an American named Garris (Strother Martin). However, on their first working day, they are attacked. Garris is killed, and Butch and Sundance are forced to kill the Bolivian robbers, the first time Butch kills anyone. They decide to return to robbery. That evening, Etta decides to leave them, sensing that their days may be numbered. A few days later, Butch and Sundance attack a payroll mule train in the jungle, taking the money and the mule. When they arrive in the nearest town San Vicente, a stable boy recognizes the brand on the mule's backside and alerts the local police. While Butch and Sundance are eating at a local eatery, the police arrive and a climactic gun battle begins scaring away the nearby people. The two of them find shelter in a nearby empty house, but they're soon low on ammunition. Butch makes a run to the mule to fetch the rest of the ammunition while Sundance provides cover fire, but during his return they are both wounded. While tending to their wounds in the house, about 100 soldiers of the Bolivian cavalry arrive and surround the place. The pair, unaware of the cavalry's arrival, discuss their next destination, with Butch pushing the English-speaking and wide-open continent of Australia. Butch tells Sundance that when they get outside and get to their horses to remember one thing. Before he can say it, Butch asks Sundance if he saw Lefors "out there". Sundance says that he did not and Butch replies "For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble." The film ends with a freeze frame sepia tone shot of the pair exiting the house firing their guns, while a voice is heard ordering: "¡Fuego!" (Spanish for "Fire!") accompanied by the sound of dozens of rifles being fired in three consecutive volleys.


3. The Sting (1973): (See Below)

The Players (0 min)

At the opening, after a 1930s-era Universal logo complete with bejeweled circling globe adorned with the text, "A Universal Picture," the movie credits the actors with extracts from the movie, in a style reminiscent of films from the 1930s.Johnny Hooker (Redford) is a small-time con man (a "grifter") from Depression-era Joliet, Illinois. Hooker and his accomplices Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones) and Joe Erie (Jack Kehoe) manage to swipe $11,000 in cash from an unsuspecting victim (a "mark"). In the wake of this apparent success, Luther tells Johnny that he's retiring from his life of crime and moving to Kansas City, Missouri to work in a "mostly legal" business with his brother-in-law. He advises Hooker to seek out an old friend, Henry Gondorff, in Chicago, who can teach him the art of the 'big con'.Unfortunately for the three con artists, the mark they robbed was a numbers racket courier named Mottola (James Sloyan), transporting the money to Chicago for crime boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw). Corrupt Joliet police Lieutenant William Snyder (Charles Durning) confronts Hooker, demanding a $2,000 cut of the $11,000 and revealing Lonnegan's involvement. Realizing that he and his partners are in danger, Hooker pays Snyder in counterfeit bills, having already spent and gambled away all of his share of the money. Hooker goes to warn Coleman, but he arrives too late to save him from Lonnegan's hit men. With nowhere else to turn, Hooker flees to Chicago to ask Gondorff for help in avenging Coleman's murder. Note: The film is divided into seven sections, each introduced with a title card accompanied by music. The titles are used to structure this synopsis.

The Set-Up (24th min)

Gondorff (Paul Newman) is a seemingly broken-down con artist on the run from the FBI, living in the back of an amusement park that doubles as a tavern and brothel. He's initially reluctant to take on Lonnegan because "revenge is for suckers," and also because the New York gangster/banker has a reputation for ruthlessly killing his enemies. Gondorff nevertheless agrees to help Hooker run a sting on Lonnegan, since he's touched when Hooker says that he'll take Lonnegan on anyway "because I don't know enough about killin' to kill him." Since Lonnegan is a shrewd man of few vices ("Doesn't drink, doesn't smoke and doesn't chase dames") and won't be taken in by a simple confidence scheme (he is a banker and knows the market), Henry resurrects an elaborate ruse that involves casting Hooker as the inside man in an off-track betting scam known as "the wire." The con men believe that this is ideal, since "the wire" is considered an out-of-date scam, and therefore unlikely to be recognized. A large number of con artists are required to create the atmosphere of the betting parlor; they are recruited from the drinking den of Duke Boudreau (played by Jack Collins), where they congregate.

The Hook (40th min)

First, Gondorff's lover and partner in crime, Billie (Eileen Brennan), picks Lonnegan's wallet aboard the famous 20th Century Limited train en route from New York to Chicago. Gondorff poses as boorish Chicago bookie "Shaw" and buys his way into Lonnegan's private high-stakes poker game on the train with the latter's own money. He bursts into the game late, feigning drunkenness and insulting and taunting the other players. Gondorff, a cardsharp, and brilliant cheater, wins the first few hands and, through "Shaw"'s obnoxious behavior, goads Lonnegan into cheating with a cold deck to "bust that bastard bookie in one play." Anticipating this, Gondorf out-cheats a shocked Lonnegan, who loses $15,000 in a single hand and, without his wallet, cannot immediately pay the debt. Surrounded by a table full of upper-crust (and purportedly legitimate) business magnates, Lonnegan cannot call Gondorff on his cheating, since he only knew Gondorff cheated because he cheated as well.Gondorff tells Lonnegan that he will "send a boy" to his room to collect the money, who turns out to be Hooker, posing as a disgruntled employee of Shaw's, and calling himself "Kelly."

The Tale (67th min)

"Kelly" plays on Lonnegan's desire for revenge by asking for his help to break Shaw and take over his business. Johnny convinces Lonnegan that he has a partner in the Chicago Western Union office (portrayed at a meeting by "Kid Twist," played by Harold Gould), and that he can use this connection to win large sums of money in Shaw's off-track betting (OTB) establishment by past-posting. All of this, including the OTB parlor itself, is really an immense hoax crafted solely for hoodwinking Lonnegan: the supposed play-by-play comes from a surplus tickertape wire, which an accomplice in the back ("J.J.," played by Ray Walston) reads into a microphone to make it sound as if it were live on the radio; meanwhile, Erie manages to prove his own worth as a con man, posing as a regular gambler to help convince Lonnegan of the reality of the place. Lonnegan's "tip" horse wins, of course, and Hooker and Gondorff hope that it convinces Lonnegan to bet a large amount on his next attempt, but Lonnegan is cautious, and "wants to see it again", resulting in "The Shut Out", below, on his second attempt.

The Wire (83rd min)

In addition to luring Lonnegan into this con (as Kelly), and eluding the assassins Lonnegan has sent to kill him (as Hooker), Johnny must continually avoid Snyder, who has followed him to Chicago, looking for either his cut of the original $11,000 or revenge on Hooker for cheating him. Snyder's efforts are derailed when FBI agents make their presence known to him and Hooker. Snyder is brought into a warehouse serving as a front for FBI operations. Special agent Polk is discussing strategy with another agent in the foreground, heard plainly by the film audience though not necessarily by Snyder at first. Snyder observes while special agent Polk coerces Hooker into helping them capture Gondorff (by threatening to arrest and prosecute Luther's widow), but agrees to let the con be completed first. Snyder is to be part of that operation also.

The Shut-Out (93rd min)

Meanwhile, Hooker begins a romance with a local waitress named Loretta. Unbeknownst to Hooker, Lonnegan has grown frustrated with his men's inability to find and kill Hooker, so he arranges for a professional killer, "Salino," to finish the job. (Not having previously met Hooker, Lonnegan is unaware that Hooker and "Kelly" are the same person). A mysterious figure with black leather gloves is soon seen following and observing Hooker. The title of this act comes from "shutting out" Lonnegan from the betting window when he intends to place a bet much bigger than the phony wire set-up can cover, so the window is closed as the race begins, just as Lonnegan is stepping up to bet. His intended horse does "win", however, further convincing him of the effectiveness of the method.

The Sting (112th min)

All the pieces of the elaborate puzzle come together on the morning of the sting that is planned to swindle Lonnegan. Various players are seen making preparations for the day. Then the action begins:‎
• After Hooker spends the night with Loretta, he wakes up alone and begins walking to work. He sees Loretta coming toward him, but not the black-gloved man behind him, aiming a gun in his direction. The bullet hits Loretta in the forehead and kills her instantly. It turns out that the hired killer was "Loretta Salino", who was carrying a concealed gun and preparing to kill Hooker at that moment. The gloved man, hired by Gondorff to protect Hooker, drives him to work. The reason Loretta had not killed him in her room is that the nosy old lady next door had seen Hooker go into her room.
• After getting word from Kid Twist to "place it" on a particular horse, Lonnegan brings a briefcase containing a half-million dollars to bet on the horse to win. Lonnegan/Gondorff argues that the bet is too large, for which Lonnegan calls him a "gutless cheat." Shaw/Gondorff, feigning stung pride, accepts the bet.
• Kid Twist (in his Western Union persona) arrives and quietly asks Lonnegan how it's going. Lonnegan smugly informs him that he has a half-million on the horse to win. Kid Twist feigns shock and tells him he was supposed to bet on the horse to "place", as it's going to finish second. The panicked Lonnegan rushes to the window and demands his money back from mild-mannered con man "Fast Eddie" Niles (played by John Heffernan), who argues that, as the race has (supposedly) begun, it is against the rules.
• Just then the FBI and Snyder burst in and order everyone to freeze. In the noise and the chaos, Polk steps up to Shaw/Gondorff and quietly (compared with the ambient noise in the room) says, "Hello, Henry — it's been a long time."
• Polk then gestures to Hooker and says, "You can go," revealing to all that Hooker had betrayed Gondorff to the FBI. Hooker starts walking toward the door, but Gondorff pulls a gun and shoots him in the back; Polk then shoots Gondorff in the gut and orders Snyder to get Lonnegan out of there. Lonnegan realizes that, for the sake of his reputation, he can't be involved in this incident, but he's conflicted, because he's left a half-million dollars inside, as he tries to explain to Snyder while the detective whisks him away.
• With Lonnegan and Snyder safely away, Polk leans over Hooker's body and says, "He's gone!" Hooker opens his eyes and gets up, as does Gondorff, to the cheers and laughter of the rest of the group. Not only have Lonnegan and Snyder been "stung", so has the film audience. Gondorff expresses as much as "Polk" helps him up: "Nice con, Hickey. I thought you were Feds myself, when you first came in." Hooker and Gondorff then proceed to nonchalantly walk out of the alley way, as the rest of the players and members of the Sting strip the room of its contents before Snyder and/or Lonnegan and his men can come back to retrieve the money.
• As Hooker leaves, Gondorff offers him his share of the take. Hooker refuses, saying "Na, I'd only blow it".

4. The Color of Money (1986): In the book version of the sequel, Felson is no longer a professional pool player, but now owns a pool hall. He takes up a cue again to go on tour versus Minnesota Fats -- the fictional character from The Hustler, not the real-life Rudolph "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone -- for a cable TV sports show. Eddie finds he must cope with becoming skilled at the now-prevalent game of nine-ball, as opposed to straight pool, which he had mastered decades earlier. While losing to Fats, he regains some of his lost competitiveness and pride. In the film version, Felson is a liquor salesman. He misses the action and goes back on the road as a stakehorse for a skilled but unfocused protégé, Vincent, travelling with the latter's manipulative girlfriend, Carmen. Eddie teaches them how to hustle significant amounts of money. But he also becomes increasingly frustrated with them and with himself, until an explosive falling-out results in a parting of the ways. Eddie resumes competitive play himself, first hustling on "the road" and later in the professional tournament circuit, eventually coming head-to-head across the table with the now-successful (and far more treacherous) Vincent. Eddie wins their match, only to find out that Vincent lost deliberately, having had money riding against himself. Vincent gives Eddie $8,000 as a cut from the bet. Eddie procedes to forfeit his next match and give the money back to Vincent. He requests a private rematch, but states that if he doesn't beat Vincent now, he will in the future because, after all, "I'm back." Subplots involve antagonism with a cocaine-abusing pool hustler named Julian; an up-and-down romance Eddie is having with a bar owner, Janelle, and sexual tension between Carmen and Eddie. Only minor references are made to the original movie (a returned character, Eddie's nickname, his formerly being shut out of the pool-hustling sphere, his preferred brand of whiskey, J.T.S. Brown, etc.), and Fats is not mentioned in the story.

By Richard Moody, James Conlon & Ben Lindley