The Hustler begins with a poolhall showdown between hero Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) and final boss Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). Fats is considered the best pool player in the country, but during their marathon match Eddie goes up big—only to get drunk and lose it all. Later, Fats’ manager Bert (George C. Scott) tells Eddie how he saw it:
Sure, you got drunk. That's the best excuse in the world for losing. […] And winning! That can be heavy on your back too. Like a monkey. You drop that load too when you got an excuse. All you gotta do is learn to feel sorry for yourself. It’s one of the best indoor sports: feeling sorry for yourself. A sport enjoyed by all, especially the born losers.
Bert agrees to manage Eddie and the movie hustles you into believing the plot is “Eddie overcomes his loserhood.” Meanwhile, Eddie meets Sarah (Piper Laurie), a broken woman in whom Eddie might find a different kind of redemption. Eddie delivers this incredible monologue1 to Sarah, showing her he isn’t a hustler but an artist—which, to Sarah at least, reveals that Eddie isn’t, and never was, a loser.
Bert and Sarah tell Eddie different things. Sarah says Eddie should leave the life of pool behind, that that world is “perverted, twisted, crippled.” Bert says that, to be great, Eddie’ll have to break it off with Sarah. Eddie chooses Bert, and when Bert tells Sarah to hit the bricks, she becomes despondent. Bert takes that opportunity to sleep with her; afterwards, she kills herself.
Eddie reaches the pool mountaintop, obliterating Fats in their rematch, but this isn’t a sports movie: what Eddie achieves isn’t worth what he’s lost.2 After the match, Bert says he’s owed half Eddie’s winnings, but Eddie shames Bert into renouncing the claim. In return, Bert tells Eddie—the best there’s ever been—to never set foot in a big-money pool room again.
Rating: 8/10, does the hustle.
Cast and Crew
This film marks the second appearance of Paul Newman in this column, and he’s once again electric, pulling off both the manic highs of winning and the crushing emptiness at the heart of it all. Between Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Hustler, Newman cranked out numerous films with his wife Joanne Woodward, including The Long, Hot Summer (1958), Rally ‘Round the Flag, Boys! (1958)3, and From the Terrace (1960). He also starred with Eva Marie Saint in Exodus (1960).
Paul Newman’ll show up many, many more times in this column. Interestingly, so will Newman’s Fast Eddie Felson.
Minnesota Fats looms over this whole film, but Jackie Gleason’s most famous role was a comic one on the small screen: he starred as bus driver Ralph Kramden on “The Honeymooners” (1955-1956). One of that show’s bits was Ralph threatening his wife Alice (Audrey Meadows) with physical violence.4 Ralph and Alice’s neighbors were municipal sewer worker Ed Norton (Art Carney) and his wife Trixie (Joyce Randolph). “The Honeymooners” provided the inspiration for “The Flintstones.”
The Trivia
Some of the hustlin’ in The Hustler takes place in Louisville during Derby season, so today’s Trivia section is about horsey racing. The three races for the Triple Crown are the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. These races are only for three-year-old Thoroughbreds5; this means each horsey only gets one shot at each of the races. Some information on these races is below:
Thirteen horsies have won all three events; you can find them listed here.6 In my unscientific opinion, here are the Triple Crown winners you should have an awareness of for trivia:
War Admiral (1937)
Secretariat (1973) (He set the fastest times in all three Triple Crown races and won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths.)
Seattle Slew (1977)
Affirmed (1978)
American Pharoah [sic] (2015)
Justify (2018)
And what about those other famous horsies? What about, like, Man O’ War? Well, Man O’ War is considered by some to be the greatest horsey of all time, only losing one race in his career.7 He won both the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes but didn’t compete in the Kentucky Derby. Here’s a big statue of him in Lexington, KY.8
What about that other famous horsey, Seabiscuit? Seabiscuit was the grandson of Triple Crown winner War Admiral, but he started his career as an undersized, lazy, loser horsey. Everyone loves an underdog underhorse story, though, and Seabiscuit eventually became a winner, rising to challenge—and defeat—War Admiral in a climactic 1938 race.9
Odds and Ends
Boxer Jake LaMotta appeared as a bartender; we’ll have a lot more to say about him when we get to Raging Bull (1980)…Felson drinks J. T. S. Brown, a bourbon from the makers of Evan Williams; here’s a review that discusses its “dusty brown sugar notes”… after The Hustler, Piper Laurie didn’t make another movie for 15 years10...a sign in the poolroom says “no masse shots”; masse shots curve the ball, but a novice might damage the baize of the table attempting it…the film’s based on a 1959 book by Walter Tevis…Willie Mosconi, known as “Mr. Pocket Billiards,” worked on the film; he’s tied for the most World Straight Pool championships…we’ll cover George C. Scott when he wins (and declines) a Best Actor Oscar…the film was directed by Robert Rossen, who in his youth was a real-life pool hustler.
If ya don’t click through, here’s the text:
Why’d I do it? I coulda beat that guy, I coulda beat him cold. He never woulda known. But I just had to show ‘em, I just had to show those creeps and those punks what the game is like when it’s great, when it’s really great. You know, like anything can be great—anything can be great...I don’t care, bricklaying can be great. If a guy knows. If he knows what he’s doing and why, and if he can make it come off. I mean, when I'm goin’—when I'm really goin’—I feel like...like a jockey must feel. He’s sittin’ on his horse, he's got all that speed and that power underneath him, he’s comin’ into the stretch, the pressure’s on him—and he knows—just feels—when to let it go, and how much. ‘Cause he’s got everything workin’ for him—timing, touch. It’s a great feeling, boy, it’s a real great feeling when you’re right, and you know you’re right. It’s like all of a sudden I got oil in my arm. Pool cue’s part of me. You know, it’s a—pool cue’s got nerves in it. It’s a piece of wood—it’s got nerves in it. You feel the roll of those balls. You don’t have to look. You just know. Ya make shots that nobody’s ever made before. And you play that game the way nobody’s ever played it before.
It’s worth noting that, no, pieces of wood do not have nerves in them.
How Eddie sums it up: “I loved her, Bert. I traded her in on a pool game. But that wouldn’t mean anything to you. Because who did you ever care about? Just win, win, you said, win, that’s the important thing. You don’t know what winnin’ is, Bert. You’re a loser.”
Rally ‘Round the Flag, Boys! is based on a work by Max Shulman. He also did “Anyone Got a Match?” and “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.”
With lines like “one of these days…pow! right in the kisser!” or “bang, zoom, to the Moon, Alice!” This is delightfully parodied in the live “30 Rock” episode from 2010.
Note the capitalization on “Thoroughbred”; it doesn’t mean that the horses are purebred, but instead that they are a particular breed of horse called Thoroughbred. 95% of all Thoroughbreds can trace their lineage to one “superstud.”
There’s also the Grand Slam of Thoroughbred racing, which includes the three Triple Crown races and the Travers Stakes. Only two horses have won all four races: Whirlaway (1941) and American Pharoah. Sometimes the Breeders’ Cup Classic is included as the Grand Slam race instead of the Travers Stakes; when including both races, it’s called the “Quintuple Crown” and no horsey has achieved it.
The only race Man O’ War lost was to a horsey fittingly named “Upset.” The meaning of “upset” as “an underdog beating a favorite” predated that 1919 race, though.
Why Lexington and not Louisville, where the Kentucky Derby is run? Well, Lexington is known as the “Horsey Capital of the World” and is the center of the Thoroughbred industry.
The story of Seabiscuit was told in a 1999 book by Laura Hillenbrand. The 2003 film Seabiscuit (starring Tobey Maguire) was adapted from that work.
When she returned to Hollywood, she played Carrie’s mother in Carrie (1976) and a less villainous mother in Children of a Lesser God (1986). She was later in “Twin Peaks.”