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the hustler
Susan is a movie geek, like me, but in a different way. Her intake over the years has been pretty high, but it’s also been — well, the word ‘uninspired’ comes to mind. That is, she’s been missing out on the movies I deem great. Nah, this is unfair. Her favorite movie is Double Indemnity, so she’s already starting off on the right foot. But then again, she thought Close Encounters of the Third Kind was slow and poorly paced. Let’s just say that her geekiness could use a little refinement. So when we have more than a couple of hours to spend together, we’ve gotten into the habit of having these minor film festivals in my apartment. This weekend’s schedule began with movies about Alaska, but it’s widened to include some childhood favorites — Superman II and The Neverending Story — and a couple of the classics she’s missed out on. Like The Hustler. Damn, I love this movie. It’s one of the most attractive black-and-white films I’ve ever seen, certainly of its era. But it’s the acting, without question, that makes it great. Each of the major players gives what seems like a powerhouse performance. George C. Scott is manipulative and fiercely unfeeling as the bankroll of a stable of pool sharks. Jackie Gleason, as Minnesota Fats, is surprisingly graceful. Piper Laurie is simply tragic, lost even when she isn’t. Of course, it’s Paul Newman who steals the show. He’s brash and cocky and arrogant and proud. His best work comes in scenes that dismantle that pride piece by piece, setting up the later scenes that rebuild it. In particular, it’s the bookend scenes in which Newman’s “Fast” Eddie Felson challenges Minnesota Fats that I mean. The first, in my opinion, is one of the truly great scenes in movie history. Fast Eddie and his partner walk into a pool hall. Eddie says it’s like a church. His partner says it’s more like a morgue, that the tables are the slabs they lay the stiffs on. But Eddie’s right, and Minnesota Fats is the local god.
That first match lasts for almost two straight days, and it’s an excellent study in character disintegration. Fast Eddie is good, there’s no doubt about it, and the match could be his with a little perseverance. Then the bet is raised, and Fats sends a boy to the store for a bottle of whiskey, a glass and some ice. Eddie sends his own boy out for a bottle of bourbon, no ice, no glass. Eddie’s own poor judgment is bad enough, but with a few slugs of alcohol in him, he’s self-destructive as hell. The match goes on for another eighteen hours or so, but it was over long before that. The movie’s a hard story of alcoholism, self-defeat, crushed dreams, lost hope. Eddie runs a hard gauntlet after his loss to Fats, and by the time he returns to stare the fat man down again, he’s got nothing left to lose.
The movie never falters, and in its final scene, when Eddie goes deep to pull out the claws that his manager (Scott) has sunk into him, watch Minnesota Fats. He sits quietly in his chair between the two men; he’s beaten, but his dignity is unshakeable. At least it appears to be. But as Eddie leaves, you’re left wondering if Fats had a moment like this once; if he did, then he and Eddie have made very different choices. For a second, the regret Fats feels is almost palpable. If ever a movie deserved to stand on its own, it’s this one. But oddly enough, Martin Scorsese sequelized it twenty-five years later in the ill-conceived The Color of Money. And while the later film managed to score the Best Actor Oscar for Newman (The Hustler was nominated for nine Oscars but only won for art direction and cinematography) you can’t escape the idea that the Academy gave it to him because of the years they’d overlooked him, rather than for the merit of his performance — which was good, but not quite great. (Although looking at the nominees that year makes it clear that there wasn’t much of a field — other than William Hurt for Children of a Lesser God, there weren’t many notable performances there.) My recommendation: pretend that when Eddie Felson walks out of Ames’ Pool Hall at the end of The Hustler, he’s walked out of the movies for good.
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February 14th, 2007 at 7:27 am
Deeply, Great review. I haven’t seen the movie but you have motivated me.