The Sting is a 1973 caper film set in September 1936 and revolving around a complicated plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss (Robert Shaw). The story, created by screenwriter David S. Ward, was inspired by some real-life con games perpetrated by the brothers Fred and Charley Gondorff and documented by David Maurer in his book The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man. However, in the 1951 Orson Welles radio show, The Third Man, in an episode airing in November titled “Horse Play”, the plot is very much the same, along with many similar details, so the actual genesis of the idea may be in question. The movie was directed by George Roy Hill, who also directed Newman and Redford in the classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The title phrase refers to the moment when a con artist finishes the “play” and takes the mark’s money. (Today the expression is mostly used in the context of law enforcement sting operations.) If the con game is successful, the mark does not realize he has been “taken” (cheated), at least not until the con men are long gone.
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- Plans were made for a prequel to The Sting. The film was to be based on the early days of Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman). His mentor was to be the infamous 19th century confidence man Soapy Smith, known as “the king of the frontier con men.” Plans were scrapped after the failure of the sequel, starring Jackie Gleason.
- Harold Gould’s character, “Kid Twist,” shared that nickname with (though apparently not the profession of) at least two different mob hit men, Max Zwerbach and Abe Reles.
- At the beginning of the film, the Universal Pictures logo from 1936 (the glass Art Deco globe with the words “A UNIVERSAL PICTURE”) is used instead of the contemporary version to establish the film’s time setting.
- In 1974 The Big Con author David Maurer filed a $10 million dollar lawsuit claiming at least part of the film’s story had been taken from his book. The matter was resolved out of court in 1976.
- The movie was filmed on the backlot of Universal Studios.
- Robert Weverka later wrote a novelization of The Sting.
Cast
- Paul Newman: Henry “Shaw” Gondorff
- Robert Redford: Johnny “Kelly” Hooker
- Robert Shaw: Doyle Lonnegan
- Charles Durning: Lt. William Snyder
- Ray Walston: J.J. Singleton
- Eileen Brennan: Billie
- Harold Gould: Kid Twist
- John Heffernan: Eddie Niles
- Dana Elcar: FBI Agent Polk, aka “Hickey”
- James Sloyan: Mottola
- Larry D. Mann: Mr. Clemens
- Sally Kirkland: Crystal (“Hooker’s hooker”)
- Jack Kehoe: Joe Erie