The Hustler

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The Hustler

original movie poster
Directed by Robert Rossen
Produced by Robert Rossen
Written by Walter Tevis (novel)
Sidney Carroll (screenplay)
Robert Rossen
Starring Paul Newman
Jackie Gleason
Piper Laurie
George C. Scott
Music by Kenyon Hopkins
Cinematography Eugen Schüfftan
Editing by Dede Allen
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date(s) September 25, 1961
Running time 134 min
Language English
IMDb profile

The Hustler was a 1959 novel by American writer Walter Tevis, later made into a 1961 film of the same title.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Contents

[edit] The Novel

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The novel The Hustler tells the story of a young pool player ("Fast" Eddie Felson) who challenges the legendary Minnesota Fats but loses.

Eddie could spiral down to the scrapheap, but he meets Bert. Bert teaches him about winning, or more particularly about losing. Tautly written, it is a treatise on how someone, with all of the skills, can lose if he "wants" to lose; how a loser is beaten by himself, not by his opponent; and how he can learn to win, if he can look deeply enough into himself.

The book was followed by the sequel The Color of Money.

[edit] The Film

The film version of The Hustler starred Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson, Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats, Piper Laurie and George C. Scott as Bert Gordon.

The movie was adapted by Sidney Carroll and Robert Rossen from the novel by Walter Tevis. It was directed by Rossen and, like his earlier movie, Body and Soul, (1947) it can be seen as an attack on the soul-destroying power of greed.

At another level, it is about winning or losing, or what makes a winner and what makes a loser. In his first match with Minnesota Fats, Fast Eddie Felson is convinced he is the better player and that he will win. Bert (played by George C. Scott in one of his finest roles) however spots the personality flaw and quietly tells Fats that Felson is "a loser". Bert proves to be a master coach of character, and subsequently moulds Felson into a winner, even if not into a better person.

The novel The Color of Money was also adapted into a film.

[edit] Trivia

  • Pool expert Willie Mosconi and boxing champion Jake LaMotta have cameos. Mosconi plays "Willie," who holds the stakes for Eddie and Fats's games, and LaMotta plays a bartender.
  • Real-life professional pool player Rudolph Wanderone Jr. adopted the nickname "Minnesota Fats", for life, after the release of the movie. It is often thought that Gleason's character is intended to represent Wanderone (who was previously known as New York Fatty), but Tevis has emphatically denied this.

[edit] Awards and honors

The original film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

In 2006, the screenplay by Sidney Carroll and Robert Rossen was selected by the Writers Guild of America as the 96th best motion picture screenplay of all-time.

[edit] External link

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