Let's Discuss THE STING (1973)

Consider the awards (courtesy Wikipedia):

Wins The film won seven Academy Awards and received three other nominations. At the 46th Academy Awards, Julia Phillips became the first female producer to be nominated for and to win Best Picture.

Academy Award for Best Picture

Academy Award for Best Director – (George Roy Hill)

Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay – (David S. Ward)

Academy Award for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration – (Henry Bumstead and James W. Payne)

Academy Award for Best Costume Design – (Edith Head)

Academy Award for Best Film Editing – (William H. Reynolds)

Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation – (Marvin Hamlisch)

Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures – (George Roy Hill)

Nominations

Academy Award for Best Actor – (Robert Redford)

Academy Award for Best Cinematography – (Robert Surtees)

Academy Award for Best Sound – (Ronald Pierce & Robert R. Bertrand)

Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay – Motion Picture – (David S. Ward)

WGA Award for Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen – (David S. Ward)

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies

AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs

AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains: Doyle Lonnegan – Villain (Robert Shaw)

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)

And in spite of all of that R2, I never liked this movie.

Can you say more, R2?

I enjoyed it, but thought it was talky and a little dull at points. It wins a lot of points on charm (and male eye candy).

My favorite movie.

Dimitra Arliss as The Creepy Woman Who Gets To Sleep With Redford Then Tries To Kill Him.

How did they wind up with.... her?

Unusually clever script, but Redford is the weak link of the movie. Much too old to play the kid learning the trade. Plus of course he isn't all that much an actor. He was just a face. It was the supporting character actors who made the film what it was.

The poor thing is sandwich in-between two much more iconic best pictures, The Godfather and The Godfather Part ll.

A better sting operation movie is House of Cards, screenplay by David Mamet.

Yes, Redford was 37 at the time (having just played a college student/enlisted officer in THE WAY WE WERE).

Apparently, Newman's role was written with an older actor in mind. Newman was 48 at the time (but didn't look it).

R3 - I saw it in a theater when I was in my teens, and I was bored out of my mind.

I found the movie very talky and having way too much plotting.

In the 1980s it was on cable and I gave it a second shot, and I still didn't care for it.

Never had a desire to revisit it.

FWIW, I was just looking on IMDB to see what else that director made, and many of those movies where underwhelming to me: Butch Cassidy, Waldo Pepper, Little Drummer Girl, Funny Farm, Hawaii, Thoroughly Modern Millie

This is the only Oscar nomination for acting Robert Redford has received.

I saw The Sting with my family when it came out. I was a teen and I couldn't follow the plot. So I didn't enjoy it. The music was fun, though, and was a hit in itself, maybe more popular than the film was.

Elizabeth Taylor presented the Best Picture Oscar. I was scared that The Exorcist was going to win, because it had all the hype at the time. But she opened the envelope and said "I'm so glad...The Sting!"

Even though I didn't enjoy The Sting, I was just relieved that The Exorcist didn't win, because the whole concept of it scared me at the time.

That was also the Oscars that had the streaker Robert Opel.

I love it. I was in my teens when it came out and have seen it many times since then, as far as comedies go, it’s definitely in my top 10. It was one of he most clever plot twists ever — I even remember how surprised the audience was (and me) at the end. No one saw it coming. It made the whole thing even more fun. The “sting” turns out to be the one on the audience.

One of my favorite movies, but I have not seen it in a long time. The plot is intricate and quite confusing the first time you watch it (the grifter characters have their own names as well as alter ego names), and even once you get it, it keeps you guessing up to the very end. The writing, direction, casting, performances, sets, and costumes are all top notch.

Unlike other period films, this one is so thorough at immersing you in its world, there are few if any details that take you out of it -- except maybe Robert Redford's feathered blond-highlighted hairstyle.

Even though I like the ragtime music and the energy it brings to the story, I also find it to be oddly anachronistic for a story set in the 1930s. .

Redford and Newman were so hot together

Redford had two big hits that year, so was probably going to be nominated for one of them. He and Streisand both looked way too old for college in the early part of "The Way We Were", but he doesn't overact as much as she does and has a more interesting role than in "The Sting". Arthur Laurents, who wrote "The Way We Were", said Redford wouldn't cut his hair for the war years scenes, and Streisand wouldn't cut her fingernails for any scenes. DIvas.

I was 13 when it came out - and Paul and Bob made me touch myself. SUCH DADDIES!

This was the second movie that Newman and Redford made together and they wanted to make another but it never came about.

Anyone see The Sting II? Came out 10 years after the original. No Newman. No Redford. But DL fave Teri Garr! BOX OFFICE BOMB.

Robert Redford, looking handsome as ever, nominated for a Best Actor Nomination by the Academy Award. The Sting DID win the Oscar for Best Picture.

Jack Lemmon won the Oscar that year, his second. Poor Robert...and, as always, poor G.

^ Did they really have ties like that in the 30s?

I followed it as a kid just fine.

Everyone in that film was rock solid.

It was sad and sweet.

Loved Harold Gould, Robert Shaw and Eileen Brennan.

Ahem.

R7 House of Games (1987). Mamet directed it too.

My dad taped this movie off of cable (in the 80s you did that sort of thing), and I must have watched it 100 times. I could probably still recite most of the dialogue along with the actors.

The plot isn't THAT complicated, especially compared to something like Chinatown. I could follow it as a 10-year-old.

I agree that Redford was too old for the role of the kid, but he did well otherwise. I loved the plot twist of the female assassin--that was still the kind of thing that could fool audiences in the 70s and even fooled me the first time back in the 80s.

In my top ten,

Robert Shaw as Doyle Lonnegan really made the film. He was menacing yet somehow buffoonish at the same time. Shaw might have gone on to do more interesting work, but he died of a heart attack just a few years later, at age 51.

R5, R6 and R27, I agree with all of you.

That woman was really creepy. She did a great job and gave me the heebie-jeebies. Also, I agree that Robert Shaw was perfect in that role!

I also agree that Robert Redford was too old. Also, as always, he was wooden. He did look lovely, though, and the movie needs a pretty hunk more than it needs an accomplished actor. However, I find his jaw-acting not only one-note, but distracting.

Tense? Tighten jaw. Annoyed? Set jaw and allow the upper edges of the mandible to pulse angrily by alternately clenching and relaxing the jaw rhythmically. Thinking? Move jaw slowly from side to side. Use tongue motion to indicate great stress or indecision. Let the tongue occasionally peek out from the corners of the lips to indicate sexual desire or aw-shucks young-boy cuteness. Happy? Curl corners of lips up and allow jaw to open adorably.

If he had been capable of adding some other mode of expression - eyes, body language, voice, rhythm - that would have been adequate. But it's all jaw.

He was very handsome, gorgeous at that time, but a gifted actor? Well, not everybody can offer everything. He was virile and a huge star at the time, so he was a big factor in causing the movie to become a huge box-office success.

All that blather aside, I still found the movie fascinating and will almost certainly watch it again. I love the music and the "sting" operation itself. There are so many clever details and great cinematography that, nit-picking aside (after all, there are many imperfect performances in great movies), it's a really worthy classic.

My favorite part is when they are interviewing the various conmen who will be background players in the sting. Such a great parade of character actors.

Newman was certainly a better actor than Redford in the film, but he was far too pretty. He looked like anything but a hardened conman who is down on his luck. I liked Eileen Brennan as his girlfriend because she looked and sounded like a realistic madam of a popular but not high-end brothel: sexy but not beautiful, knowing but not sophisticated.

.[quote] Shaw might have gone on to do more interesting work,

Well he preceded this film with other pretty interesting work so yes. It was a crime against motion pictures that Shaw didn't take better care of himself.

Agreed, R28. Can you imagine how disastrous it would have been if the studio had had its way and cast Redford as Michael Corleone in The Godfather? The movie would never have survived it.

Shaw had ten children by his 3 wives. That has to age a man.

At the time he died, he was making a schlocky Cold War thriller called Avalanche Express. He was tired of film acting and only did it for the money--he planned to go into semi-retirement after that and concentrate on his writing.

R5, you HAVE seen that Office Christmas Party photo, right? The women were all pretty ugly from those days, so good casting.

Really good movie, well put together, class act.

Redford and Newman were gorgeous, yes Redford was too old but who cares?

Watch some moron come along and think it's time to remake it.

Thank GOD that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are officially too old (and not really "box office" enough) to consider a remake of either BUTCH CASSIDY or THE STING.

Shia LaBeouf and Zac Ephron in THE STING!

Timothee Chalamet and Tom Holland as Butch and Sundance!

If they come for Butch and Sundance, we'll have to kill them.

M, as a fellow actress in my 70s, I can understand and forgive a senior moment of forgetfulness. Might I remind you that your first big-screen film role was in 1977 and mine was in 1982 - for which I was awarded an Academy Award nomination. My first film.

Bump! Inspired by all the Redford bashing in the "Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa" thread.

T5 I came here to post about Dimitra Arlyss. She appeared on "General Hospital" briefly as Helena Cassadine (1996) 15 years after Elizabeth Taylor created that role. Her scenes were all in her supposed death bed. They brought Helena back a year later perfectly fine with the blonde Constance tyowers, quite a difference in looks.

It's all about that score! To my mind one of the weakest films to have won Best Picture and Redford didn't deserve an acting nomination. It's neither memorable nor particularly involving The outcome didn't matter to m I think nostalgia played a part in its enormous popularity as well. Have the same feeling about another Newman/Redford film also directed by George Roy Hill, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid overrated and flimsy and featuring crooks/gangsters as sweeties with great smiles. Between Butch and The Sting, George Roy Hill directed a very good film that is overlooked Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) Check it out.

Saw The Sting as a kid when it came out. Must have been about 10 or 11.

I enjoyed it. A lot of the plot twists were confusing to me at that age, but the music really sort of carried me through to the next scene if I didn't understand something. Subsequent viewing have made all the plot twists clear.

This was part of a wave of nostalgia movies that came out about that time in 1973-74 -- Paper Moon, The Sting, The Way We Were, Chinatown, The Great Gatsby. Plus 1973 also saw the release of American Graffiti.

I own and LOVE this movie. I also love Eileen Brennan in everything she ever did. I don't like Newman with a mustache, even if it was period appropriate.

It was produced by DL fave Julia Phillips.

Redford basically is just playing himself in every film. But he thinks he’s an Artist. I felt bad for Meryl Streep having to act against the wooden Redford in Out of Africa.

Julia Phillips was an interesting character. I read her book You'll never work in this town again.

After the homoerotic subtext of BUTCH CASSIDY, I thought this ad for THE STING was pandering a bit, since it clearly mimics the style of a J.C. Leyendecker illustration. There's a lot of gay subtext in that image. Why?

R47: You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again

... all it takes is a little Lube

R47 I know I realized that after I posted it.

bound for Broadway, all singing, all dancing, all stinging!

Redford's character is black in the stage musical version.

R53 The SJW version. How predictable and boring...…...

Julia Phillips was a tough-talkin' broad.

[quote][R53] The SJW version. How predictable and boring...…...

And yet I'm sure you never called it "boring" when Hollywood did it over most of its history with historically-based or geographically-based films where every one is white, eh? Never had an issue with that, did you, douchebag who thinks you're so logical. You sat there grazing on your popcorn watching movies based on the bible with all white people - and never questioned it. You thought that was fine and "normal,' but something like this where it's not necessarily important that the character needs to be a certain race, is offensive to you.

R56 You poor cunt, always so angry and ready to argue. I imagine that you drive people away right and left. You need to be with sane people rather than holed up on this website everyday spewing out your tedious propaganda.

Bump because I just discovered this thread!

"(Redford) was virile and a huge star at the time, so he was a big factor in causing the movie to become a huge box-office success"

Actually, The Way We Were and The Sting MADE Redford into a superstar. Before those films, released two months apart, he was only a star. I didn't like The Sting when I saw it in 1974 because it was the morning after the Oscars, and Streisand had lost. Second viewing was much better a year later.

Yes, The Sting is mechanical and too long, but it is fun. It didn't deserve Best Picture. Redford can be an effective actor, but Oscar nomination for The Sting? His best "acting" in it was the physicality, his running and jumping in the move. I agree with the person who said it could use a Katherine Ross character. I always thought Streisand in a supporting role could be a very believable boss lady friend of Gondorff's. But of course, diva Barbra would never play such a small role if one were offered to her.

Like "Butch Cassidy": a plastic piece of crap.

OP I don't think of Redford as virile. Not with that fluffy dyed blonde hair. Robert Shaw, yes, and he had something like 10 children!

I worked part time in office of Hamlisch’ agent on Sunset. My friend who also worked there used to play Scott Joplin records and got me interested. Hamlisch heard the rags ALL the time.

When I saw The Sting I was flabbergasted the hear Joplin. Marvin never credited Joplin when accepting the Oscar. Never forgave him for the appropriation.

Bra, the rags were not correct for Chicago music during The Sting. Lazy of old Marvin.

I’ll never understand why Redford was nominated for Best Actor for his performance in this...

Because people weren't used to seeing such an accomplished gay bottom in a leading role

lol r63...

R61, I'm not surprised. Hamlisch always seemed like the type who took credit for other people's work.

How many people realized that the actor who played Luther was the father of James Earl Jones?

R62 or why it won Best Picture when films like Serpico, The Day of the Jackel and Paper Moon weren't nominated and Steve McQueen and/or Dustin Hoffman should have been nominated for Papillon.

I saw Hamlisch on the talk show circuit in the seventies...insufferable and smug.

Also, the cause of death was never made public...why not?

I saw it again, after several decades. Good movie and quite original, Redford and Newman were hot and charismatic enough for me to forgive Redford for being too old for his role, I enjoyed it overall. Not a great film by any means.

Of course, I also saw "The Three Musketeers" from the same year shortly thereafter and "The Four Musketeers" from the next, and that is a FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC MOVIE that hasn't aged a bit! The Musketeer movies were fucking robbed! Seriously, check out the Richard Lester Musketeer movies, they're hilarious, exciting, scary in places, touching, gorgeous, surprisingly historically accurate, and full to the gills with hot men and star power. The AMPAS doesn't know shit about what's good in any given year.

R66 None, apparently

I’ve never seen The Sting. As soon as I saw the mustache on Newman it was over. I love Butch Cassidy and The Sundance kid. It’s on my top ten favorite list.

I also agree about The Musketeers movies. They are wonderful.