Rating: 
Summary: Absorbing! Realistic! Riveting! Fantastic!
Review: 1961's "The Hustler" is a picture that will truly "suck you in". It totally absorbed my attention throughout. Making this in black-and-white was a wise choice by the movie-makers too. It sets the mood of the drab surroundings we experience during the film.A perfect cast has been assembled here, with Paul Newman a knockout in the lead role of pool shark "Fast Eddie" Felson. Piper Laurie, George C. Scott, Murray Hamilton, and Myron McCormick give strong support to Newman. And there's a very controlled and somewhat subdued Jackie Gleason as "Minnesota Fats". Jackie doesn't have a huge part here, but he pulls off his role as "Fats" with style. There are a lot of quiet moments in this picture ... when just visuals propel the story. I like that in movies! Sometimes there's too much dialogue in a film, in places where nothing needs to be said at all. It just seemed to me that the producer/director (Robert Rossen) knew when to keep the actors quiet here. The Hustler will forever remain a Classic to me!! Some Hustler stats:
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Running Time: 135 minutes.
Debut in theatres: September 25, 1961.
Nominated for Best Picture of 1961. (Beaten out by "West Side Story".)
Paul Newman nominated for Best Actor of 1961. (Beaten out by Maximilian Schell--Judgment at Nuremburg.)
Both George C. Scott and Jackie Gleason were nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1961 for this film. (Both beaten out by George Chakiris--West Side Story.)
Piper Laurie nominated for Best Actress in '61. (Beaten out by Sophia Loren--Two Women.)
Film won two 1961 Oscars --- Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (B&W).
Billiard champ Willie Mosconi, 14-time world champion from 1941-1957, was a key technical adviser on the set of The Hustler, literally teaching Mr. Newman how to play the game of pocket billiards, right down to his grip on the cue stick. Newman became quite proficient by the end of the shooting of the picture.
Newman reprised his role as Fast Eddie in 1986's sequel, "The Color of Money", co-starring Tom Cruise. Newman DID win the Oscar for Best Actor that year.
Rating:
Summary: Landmark Newman Film
Review: "The Hustler" starts with probably the best opening sequence in film history. The showdown between cocky pool shark "Fast Eddie" Felsen(Paul Newman) and the more assured "Minnesota Fats"(Jackie Gleason). Newman is mesmerizing as he makes shot after shot berating his opponent in an attempt to psyche him out. It seems to me that the character of Fats and Gleason are somewhat intertwined because Gleason was a pool player of some renown. Nonetheless, Gleason is nothing short of charismatic as he dangles a cigarette from his mouth precisely going about the business at hand while ignoring the childish invective Felsen directs at him. Director Robert Rossen doesn't just concern himself with pool. "The Hustler" is also a character study as the film follows Eddie after this match on a journey of self-discovery. Along the way he developes a relationship with a fragile alcoholic woman, Sarah(Piper Laurie)that is treated tenderly but realistically by Rossen. Eddie takes on a no-nonsense manager Bert(George C. Scott) who may know the game but has the scruples of a snake. Everything comes full circle leading to a rematch with Fats with Eddie being a changed person. All the elements click in this film from the sets that contain the smoky poolhalls, the gorgeous black-and-white photography, and the jazzy score. At it's core "The Hustler" is a film about a man's personal maturation with pool being the milieu in which that occurs.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: This movie is one of the great movies to come out the the 1960's (and there was plenty of competition in that decade). It stars Paul Newman in arguably his best role of his career. In fact, he later won his lone Oscar for continuing that same role as a mature "Fast Eddie" Felsen in "The Color of Money".
It is a story of a small time pool hustler who feels it's time for the big leagues. He tries to take on the best; Minnesota Fats (played by The Great One, Jackie Gleason). That match up was awesomely put together on the screen. Fast Eddie learns a few things in that encounter and his confidence is shaken. He has to regroup and finds himself sinking into a self-defeating relationship with a an underworld type played by George C. Scott. His girl friend, played by Piper Laurie, ultimately causes him to confront his loss of self-respect and he begins to turn his life around. His rebound allows the movie to surge to an uplifting ending.
Anyone who ever won a local pool tournament will love this movie. The scenes in the pool hall bring out the skill, the stress, the finesse, the banter, and the betting in a supurb manner. This is a film about self-respect and personal values. Fast Eddie sold himself to the devil to become a winner. Once he realized what he was sacrificing to win, he turned his life around. With his renewed sense of purpose and self-respect, winning on his own terms became a reality.
The acting in this movie is outstanding. All four of the main actors, Newman, Gleason, Scott, and Laurie, received Oscar nominations. Paul Newman starts out impetuous and eventually shows the deep inner strength he has discovered. Jackie Gleason is Mr. Cool with a pool stick. Many would argue that his is the premier preformance in the movie. George C. Scott is devious and calculating. Piper Laurie plays a character who seems to have trouble finding what she wants but eventually discovers what she doesn't want. The directing and writing are supurb. This is a great movie!
Rating:
Summary: The Great One!
Review: It bothers me that Paul Newman has his name on the DVD cover, but Jackie Gleason doesn't.
After all, Gleason plays Minnesota Fats! Who ever heard of "Fast Eddie"?
The cover of the DVD shows shots from the movie, but are in color. When you pop the movie in your DVD player however, you discover the movie is in black and white. Why the deception? But old movies seem like they should be in black and white anyway.
This is a great movie for those that love pool, but also a good movie for those that know nothing about it, because there is a love story mixed into it as well. In fact, it starts out about pool, then goes into another story alltogether, but at the end goes back to the movie it started out as, about pool.
The documentary about the movie is excelent.
There is also a section in which someone shows you how all the trick shots in the movie are done. Well he doesn't really show you how to do them explaining what you need to do, but he just does the shots and hopes you are impressed that HE can do them.
He should have gone into where you need to hit the cue ball in order to get the shot to work.
I still can't figure out why the woman in the movie had to have a walking problem, as the story would have worked just fine without that, seems weird that they made her walk funny for no reason at all, it would have been more enjoyable if she would have just walked normal.
DVD does have scene guide inside, some DVDs don't have this, so it is a plus when it is there.
Rating: 
Summary: Money Ball
Review: The definition of a hustler, according to Webster's Dictionary, is a professional gamester, gambler, bookmaker or plunger, who also wears the coat of a prostitute or call girl (although in this case it would warrant the moniker of call boy). All this and more makes up the seamy, underbelly of the world of billiards, or in more common terminology, pool.
Our cast of characters lives and breathes pool. They wallow in the mire of the losing end of a hustle and bask in the reflected glory to be had when feeling full of grace and cash when the balls fall their way. Allow me to entreat your entrance into such a world, to let you feel the skin of the score, feel the heat, feel the agony and feel the cue stick as it is thrust for the kill.
Eddie Felson, or 'Fast Eddie' as he is known (Paul Newman), always looking for action, crisscrosses the country with his partner, Charlie Burns (Myron McCormick). Their goal is to locate the requisite game that consists of bangers or fish, those who lack the skill to really play the game and will eventually wind up as requisite losers to the hustling pool shark. Their bait and switch techniques lead them to a session with legendary pool player, Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). Felson proceeds to bark and freeze out Fats into a 24 hour non-stop marathon of fast breaking, free wheeling and dogged shots that culminate in Felson losing all that he had won, $18,000, due to a bad lack of judgment, tiredness, choking and basically being drunk. Felson proceeds, against better judgment, to lose Burns and go it alone. Because he is naive enough to believe that he is 'the best', he begins walking a path down a dark and winding road that will end with him discovering who he really is and what is and isn't important in his life.
The second act provides the romantic relief given by Piper Laurie as the doomed Sarah Packard, filled with her own demons and willing to latch onto what she considers a reality in the guise of Felson. Not content to leave well enough alone, Felson feeling the heat of a projected rematch with Minnesota Fats, sells his soul to the devil, Bert Gordon (George C. Scott), a professional gambler or 'patron' who pimps his way and jelly rolls by absconding with a gargantuan cut won by any member of his stable, silly or crazy enough to agree to his terms. Bert will finance Felson, and parlay his skills to games of his choosing, so that the latter can get the money he feels is necessary to get the desired rematch with Fats.
The performance of Paul Newman is hot, electric, hissing and sizzle. His emotions are worn on his sleeve, and the raw venue of the outpouring of his addiction to the game, his shy handling of romance with Laurie and the vitality and cockiness portrayed in his moments with Gleason at the pool table, are priceless vignettes encapsulated within the confines of a beginning and end to this story. Felson has the stone cold nuts buried within himself, and his rematch at the end of the film is brutal and coarse; in keeping with the black and white magic that projects itself as a web that weaves itself around us, drawing us ever closer to the crux of the matter.
Gleason is cool and calm. The rarified dandy that allows his reputation as the best to bulge ahead of him, to shark the short stop, fool enough to think he can take him on. The detachment, the demeanor, the noblesse oblige all gravitate to him, making him a legend in his own time and tournament tough. Gleason proves that besides being the comedic actor so many of us are familiar with, that there was a dramatic actor biting at the bit to prove his mettle.
George C. Scott, the Stake Horse, is miry, looking for that shark who will eat the food chain of fish, minnows, guppies and algae that embroider themselves as alleged experts of the game. He's a lockout artist and wears the outfit like a custom tailored suit. His performance as road agent, like that of McCormick, is a study in contrasts and shadows. Scott burrows under the skin and elicits not an iota of sympathy for his character, for he is a survivor, with a heart that is pure granite and will always find a means to an end, come hell or high water.
Piper Laurie as the alcoholic cripple, Sarah Packard, is acting fulfillment. Her Sarah is quiet and sad; a harbinger of a life lived amid endless rejections and mind numbing relationships that have always faltered; being cast aside until another, eligible suitor or solution makes its acquaintance with her and the cycle begins anew. Hers is a trilogy of a downward spiral. The relationship with Felson, clinging to the life preserver that she thinks him to be; the all too knowing summation of her opinion of Gordon and her eventual, ill fated ending are almost Shakespearean in their scope and pacing.
The direction by Robert Rossen, based on the novel by Walter Tevis (Tevis also wrote the screenplay for this and The Color of Money, another of his novels), is taut and tense in the workings of the pool world and the inhabitants that make it a place of 'the best' or 'yesterday's news'. He elicits performances from his cast that are signatures of the talents that all would keep as constant companions throughout their illustrious careers. He has a complete understanding of the tense, time clock precision required to bring the sport of pool to the everyday Joe who watches this film.
The black and white cinematography by Eugene Shufften is marvelously complex, plying the viewer to look into the cracks and crevices that cement another facet in this moment of time. Black and white films are today, looked upon as a dinosaur, an anachronism that has become as outdated as the turbulent 60's, disco or the last favourites column that ends with each year before the new one comes upon us. If given half a chance, the inner workings of the mysterious power it uses to draw us closer into a story would become all so apparent to us. Those of us who truly love movies already know the secret.
The Set Direction by Harry Horner and Gene Callahan permits no substitute to the throne of pretense or false deceptions. Grime, sweat, smoke, drink, grease, moments in time living in the past, swirling into a maelstrom and regurgitated out for our perusal -- this was and is the low life of a pool hall. It's the world of pool as seen away from the niceties of the manicured world of competition as it is presented today.
Kenyon Hopkins music has a cool, jazz feel to it; laid back and gleaned as smooth and neat as a bourbon on the rocks. There is no garnishment, no sweetness, no syrup to congeal; just a calculated, simple drawing upon minimalist themes, as jazz is wont to be.
The Hustler is one of the best 'sport' movies ever. The dialogue, the performances, the even handling of all concerned, have presented us with a film that had that feel of lives lived within the confines of an aquarium of restrictions that has burst from the netherworld of backstreet pool. The Color of Money pales in comparison to this film. The Oscar was awarded to Newman (playing the same character for the latter), but I consider it as a compensation for his real work in The Hustler, a much better conceived film. He stayed in the stall for The Color of Money. Do yourself a favour and become a voyeur, sweating the action of The Hustler. It's an 'A' Game
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest American films ever made. MUST SEE!!!
Review: With or without the Oscar, this is one of the greatest American films ever made in any genre. George C. Scott refused to take part in the Oscar ceremonies when "The Hustler" was nominated, calling them "a self-serving orgy" if my memory serves me right. Perhaps that stand contributed to the movie not being recognized in its own time. Whatever the reason, this film shows you that recognition is unnecessary for true art. The cream always rises to the top. People may not realize that Paul Newman was an unknown when this movie was made. His youthful brashness and emotion laden performance show him as an actor beyond his years. One can never say too much about George C. Scott. He's old reliable, in this movie as in his others. He does an excellent job. He's just so good that we are numb to his mastery. Piper Laurie also turns in an amazing performance. Her acting is subtle but her method is steady. The real standout in this film is Jackie Gleason. He shows why he was called "The Great One." I personally feel that this movie shows him as the greatest method actor of his generation, and perhaps one of the greatest ever. But unbelievable acting is only one part of this gem. The cinematography is clear and artistic. The script is expertly written and the scenery couldn't be more authentic. This is the only pool movie I know of that you can enjoy as a pool player. The pool scenes are unbelievable. They used the greatest pool players of the day in shooting and it shows. The Color of Money is a nicely shot movie but there is not really a lot of pool in it. This is a pool movie that transcends pool. Please do yourself a favor and add this to your collection.
Rating:
Summary: The Hustler is simply amazing.
Review: A small-time pool hustler, Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) also called Fast-Eddie, is feeling that he is on his way up as he wants to take on the reputable Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). However, Eddie is young and boastful with poor self-control and after several drinks he loses a very large amount of money to Minnesota Fats in a lengthy pool game. Penniless and embarrassed Eddie runs off like a dog with his tail between his legs from his manager and friend. As Eddie leaves he meets Sarah (Piper Laurie) with whom he begins to form a relationship with. As Eddie then attempts to rebound from his financial set back he meets Bert Gordon, a ruthless and wealthy gambler. Gordon offers Eddie a tough deal, but it might be a new beginning for Eddie depending on what price he might have to pay in order to get back on his feet. Hustler is a remarkable film about self-discovery, greed, love, and billiards that captivates the audience through an intriguing story. The story's genuine feeling of how people struggle through difficulties is brought out by a terrific cast as well as cinematography that lends support to the emotions that the characters feel. In the end, Rossen creates a breath-taking cinematic experience.
Rating:
Summary: The Real Lesson of THE HUSTLER: Adapt or Die
Review: By the time Paul Newman played Fast Eddie Felson in THE HUSTLER, he had already established himself as Hollywood's most enduring icon of the anti-establishment rebel. It was almost a given that director Robert Rossen would tap him for the lead role based on the novel by Walter Tevis. For any male who has spent much of a misspent life in a pool hall, the look and feel of the felt table ambiance rings true. In addition to a crackling good story of a young man wishing to unseat the local champ, there is a running subtext of how some people recognize their limitations and can pay a heavy price to overcome them. Newman invests his Felson persona with alternating crescendos of charm, punk-alley rage, and grittiness. Felson and his partner Charley (Myron McCormick) hustle pool players for chump change. A few hundred here, a few bucks there, and Charley is satisfied. But not Eddie. Although no one on screen has told him, "You're good, real good, but not so good as The Fat Man," Felson makes it clear that his ego requires that he himself must be the best. It is this drive for a supremacy that Steve McQueen would later follow in THE CINCINATTI KID that introduces the theme that to be the best requires more than raw talent at pool. Fast Eddie has the talent, but in his drive to be the top, he sends out mixed signals that he has the discipline too. Minnesota Fats, the long-reigning champion, has plenty of both. Jackie Gleason as Fats is exactly right as the champion who knows that even for such a winner as himself, he still understands the power politics of who pushes the buttons to stage manage each bout for felt table supremacy. The power behind Fats' throne is Bert Gordon, a gambling entrepeneur who rigs each contest so that for him it is not gambling at all. George Scott as Gordon knows every player who can help or hurt him. Regardless of the outcome of any match, he will always take his cut. Many of the finest scenes of THE HUSTLER have nothing to do with pool, although nearly all of them occur in the dimly lit grunge of seedy pool halls. These scenes examine an inverted father-son clash of egos with Gordon as the vicious sadist father who seeks to browbeat his wayward son and Fats as the sympathetic yet lethal opponent who both understands the demons that drives Felson and exudes emotional support at crucial moments. And then there is Sarah Packard, an alcoholic student/writer who sees in Felson the deeply buried winner that she is sure is there. Piper Laurie as Sarah is perhaps the most complex of the trio who impact on Felson. She nurtures him through his and her own crises, all the while knowing that for him to be the winner he can be, she must pay the price that will validate in his own ideas the belief that he is not the loser that Bert Gordon often accuses him of being. THE HUSTLER is probably one of the best two or three films of the sixties in that it explores what it is like to reach for that which may be beyond one's grasp. The interplay between those who seek to erode Felson's confidence and those who seek to enhance it suggest that the ability to adapt to changing psychological environments is the key for success. The price as he learns, is that others may have to pay that price for him. THE HUSTLER emphasizes this point better than any other film of that decade--or any for that matter.
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