“Glad to meet you, kid. You’re a real horse’s ass.”
There’s nothing more exciting than watching a con go down—watching the con artist trick others out of their money through sheer charisma while teetering on the edge of getting found out. The Sting is one of the very best con movies, as it is finely tuned to let viewers vicariously experience the thrill of the con, until it turns the con on the viewers themselves in the end. It’s a great deal of fun, and it fully leans into its tangible genre pleasures and the charisma of its movie stars.
History
David Ward wrote the screenplay for The Sting and was originally attached to direct it. Robert Redford was the first major star to sign on, and brought along Paul Newman (whose role was expanded from the script) and director George Roy Hill. The three had worked together on another masterpiece four years earlier in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Since then, Redford had strung together several hits, including The Candidate, Jeremiah Johnson, and The Way We Were. Newman, though the more established star, was coming off a string of box office misses and was in bad need of a comeback vehicle.
George Roy Hill fully embraced the period piece nature of The Sting, looking to 1930s gangster films starring James Cagney for stylistic and tonal inspiration. He also commissioned Marvin Hamlisch to adapt several of Scott Joplin’s ragtime pieces for the film, including “The Entertainer”, which the film played a big part in popularizing. Lastly, he commissioned Jaroslav Gebr to create the iconic illustrations used to introduce the film’s chapters.
Importance
The Sting is essential for two key reasons – its movie stars and its absolute genre perfection.
Robert Redford gives an iconic leading man performance as a small-time con artist who goes big to avenge his mentor. We connect with the story and want the con to work because we care about Redford and hate what Shaw has done to him. Meanwhile, Paul Newman, unburdened by carrying the emotional journey of the film, is allowed to just be charming as hell and have a ton of fun. The scene where he cons Shaw out of fifteen grand in a poker game by pretending to be a drunk asshole is delightful—a movie star at the very height of his powers.
There are essentially two sides of the coin for caper films—heists and cons. The Sting really serves as a field guide for the latter. You’ve got it all here—card tricks, racetrack betting, secretly pocketed wallets in alleyway setups, and an intricate long con that pays off big. The last trick up its sleeve, though, is leading the audience to believe that Redford and Newman are pitted against each other, leading to a shootout that is revealed to be the olive on top of the con’s martini to convince Shaw to never again go looking for his lost money.
Legacy
The Sting was a massive success, with huge box office totals for the time and seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It has been beloved and revered since its release, inspiring a host of caper films like The Grifters, The Usual Suspects, and Ocean’s Eleven. It revitalized Newman’s career and further cemented Redford as an A-lister.
Now, though, The Sting isn’t treated with quite the same reverence reserved for its stars’ other hits like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, or Cool Hand Luke. This could be because it was so acclaimed upon its release that the enthusiasm cooled a bit with time. It could be because it won Best Picture over The Exorcist, which many feel is a better film. Or it could simply be because The Sting is lighter and more comedic than many of the classics of the 1970s, and we don’t honor achievement in comedy the same way we do achievement in drama. Regardless, The Sting is a tremendous film that deserves its place in the Canon and its currently held title of the oldest film in the Netflix library.
Today’s movies can’t hit the box office totals they used to based solely on the strength of their stars. Even the triumphs of movie stars leading original films to box office success from last year, Marty Supreme and One Battle After Another, didn’t crack the top 20 highest-grossing films of the year. The Sting shows us that this is a real shame—there is great fun to be had watching movie stars chew through great original ideas. Here’s to hoping for more.
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