The Hustler (film)

• Release Date: 1961
• Director(s): Robert Rossen
• Writer(s): Sydney Carroll; Robert Rossen
• Principal Actors and Roles: Jackie Gleason (Minnesota Fats); Piper Laurie (Sarah Packard); Paul Newman (Eddie Felson); George Scott (Bert Gordon); Myron McCormick (Charlie)
• Book / Story Film Based On: The Hustler by Walter Tevis

Paul Newman created an icon in the 1961 black-and-white drama, The Hustler. As a result of his portrayal of Fast Eddie Felson, the term "Fast Eddie" entered the national lexicon. It was also a breakout role for the actor. With this performance Newman shifted his own critical reputation from movie star to a top-tier American actor. Fast Eddie is arguably the best performance of his career.

The movie’s gritty realism provided a powerful showcase for all four of its main players. Jackie Gleason proved he was more than a TV comedian and capable of a great dramatic performance. In just his third movie George C. Scott received his second Oscar nomination and showed that whatever his role, he would take complete command of the screen. After ten years of simplistic roles as an ingénue, Piper Laurie leaped at the opportunity to play the emotionally and physically harmed alcoholic Sarah, and she received an Oscar nomination as best actress for her efforts.

Director Robert Rossen, who also wrote and produced the film, was known for two things. First, he had previously written very good screenplays, including an Oscar for All the King’s Men in 1949. Second, he was blacklisted during the "red scare" days of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) but recanted two years later, giving up the names of fifty-seven colleagues as members of the Communist Party, thereby harming their careers. Consequently, reviewers at the time and since have seen Fast Eddie’s shabby, self-destructive, cowardly behavior as evidence of Rossen’s own sense of guilt and self-loathing.

The Hustler helped introduce audiences to a new type of realistic movie, one that insisted the audience confront moral ambiguity and human weaknesses. Film historian Ethan Morrden asserts the movie helped redefine the relationship between films and audiences, to "one of challenge rather than flattery, of doubt rather than certainty."

Plot

A young pool player named "Fast" Eddie Felton travels with his partner and manager, Charlie, through small pool halls across the country. They make money by hustling strangers on pool tables. Eddie pretends to be a friendly, marginally competent pool player in order to get the strangers to bet, with Charlie playing a role in setting up the situation and making the bets. The con works fairly well.

But Eddie dreams of reaching the big time. He’s an expert pool player who wants a shot at the best player in the world, Minnesota Fats. He finally gets a chance to play against the legendary "Fat Man" at Ames Pool Hall in New York City. He beats Minnesota Fats in one game after another. But Fast Eddie is too cocky to see that he is being manipulated by Minnesota Fats. The older, more experienced player carefully paces himself, and by the time their epic match has ended, Eddie has lost every penny of the money he seemed to have won—and then some.

Charlie wants to get back on the road, but Eddie parts from him. Eddie moves in with Sarah, a good-looking alcoholic who walks with a slight limp. They begin to have something resembling a life together, but Eddie is stuck on his dream of beating Minnesota Fats and becoming the best pool player in the world, as he sees it. To that end he eventually joins with Bert Gordon, a hard-edged, smart, dangerous promoter and gambler.

Bert takes Eddie and Sarah to the Kentucky Derby. He arranges a game against a rich socialite. Eddie eventually wins $12,000, of which Bert takes $9,000. Eddie walks back to their hotel. In his absence Bert abuses Sarah. Eddie arrives to learn Sarah has killed herself.

Eddie makes his way to New York where he bets his entire $3,000 that he can beat Minnesota Fats. Eddie wins so many games that Minnesota Fats finally concedes. Bert demands his share of Eddie’s winnings, but Eddie refuses because of what happened to Sarah. Finally Bert lets him leave but warns him to never enter a big-time pool hall again.

The movie closes with a famous exchange: Eddie says, "Fat Man, you shoot a great game of pool." Minnesota Fats replies, "So do you, Fast Eddie."

Significance

Although many reviewers were quick to warn audiences about the sordid aspects of the story and characters in The Hustler, the movie was very well received. The cast was widely praised, and all four principals received Oscar nominations. Newman and Laurie were nominated as best actor and best actress. Both Gleason and Scott were nominated for best supporting actor. Scott then became the first actor ever to decline the nomination. He did so on the grounds that it was undignified for actors to compete against one another in a "meat market." (Nine years later, when he won the best actor Oscar for Patton, Scott became the first actor to refuse the prize.)

The movie received five more nominations and won Oscars for best black-and-white art direction and best black-and-white cinematography. The other categories were best picture, best director, and best screenplay from another medium (it was based on the 1959 Walter Tevis novel of the same name).

The American Film Institute lists it in sixth place among the "Top Ten Sports Movies" ever made. The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures named Gleason the year’s best supporting actor and included the movie on its ten best list for 1961. The New York Film Critics Circle named Rossen the year’s best director, and the Writer’s Guild of America called the script the year’s best written drama. In 2006 the same organization listed the script as the ninety-sixth best screenplay of all time.

In 1997 the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry. Nine years earlier Paul Newman played an older Fast Eddie Felson in The Color of Money, for which he received his only Oscar, as best actor in a leading role of 1996. Many critics feel the Oscar was really for the exceptional performance he gave in The Hustler.

Awards and nominations

Won

• Academy Award (1961) Best Cinematography (Black-and-White): Eugen Schüfftan
• Academy Award (1961) Best Art Direction-Set Direction (Black-and-White)

Nominated

• Academy Award (1961) Best Picture
• Academy Award (1961) Best Director: Robert Rossen
• Academy Award (1961) Best Actor: Paul Newman
• Academy Award (1961) Best Actress: Piper Laurie
• Academy Award (1961) Best Supporting Actor: Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott
• Academy Award (1961) Best Screenplay (Adapted): Sydney Carroll, Robert Rossen
• Golden Globe (1961) Best Motion Picture Actor (Drama): Paul Newman
• Golden Globe (1961) Best Supporting Actor: Jackie Gleason, George Scott

Bibliography

Casty, Alan. Robert Rossen: The Films and Politics of a Blacklisted Idealist. Jefferson: McFarland, 2014. Print.

Dyer, R. A. Hustler Days: Minnesota Fats, Wimpey Lassiter, Jersey Red and America’s Great Age of Pool. New York: Lyons, 2003. Print.

Ebert, Roger. The Great Movies II. New York: Three Rivers, 2006. Print.

Mordden, Ethan. Medium Cool: The Movies of the 1960s. New York: Knopf, 1990. Print.

Sarris, Andrew. The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929– 1968. Boston: Da Capo, 1996. Print.