The widescreen LaserDisc Fox put out of The Hustler is certainly not going to win any awards, but all in all is not bad. The sound is as good as it is going to get, and even though the picture is filled with hairs and dirt on the neg, Eugene Shuftan's dramatic photography shines through. Cropped very wide, even for 'Scope. 

If one were to look for a good example of how much things have changed in America and the movies made there in the last 40 years, it would be hard to find a better example than The Hustler. Robert Rossen's stark, bleak, dramatically "cool" film has been given a rather interesting tribute, almost designed to showcase the differences in filmmaking styles: a Hollywood Sequel, Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money (1986).

But in The Hustler, there are no glittering casinos or pool halls — no hyper-jazzed up editing or POV shots of one billiard ball violently crashing into another. In Rossen's film, it all more-or-less takes place at a rather languid pace that somehow matches the sport of pocket pool. There is a truth and elegance to it that Scorsese's film, for all of its tricks and sleights of hand, cannot hope to match. I think that this is one reason why the film continues to fascinate audiences — even if the pool action is all they are watching it for (a goodly number).

© 1961 Rossen Enterprises, Inc. and 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation © Renewed 1989 Rossen Enterprises, Inc. and 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation.

For there was something Rossen was trying to capture in this film, and he brilliantly succeeded. The "ashcan" school of filmmaking, probably ushered in with the release of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951, had come a long way. Maybe for the audiences of the time, for whom travel was expensive, the act of "slumming" at the movies was one way to feel better about one's own situation. There certainly is more than a touch of "get me out of here" in the atmospheres permeating the grimy alcohol soaked apartment Paul Newman and Piper Laurie share in the central section of The Hustler.

But of course, like any good director with an eye, Rossen knew how pleasant it was to sit around an old fashioned pool hall for hours and hours and hours. He takes his audience there and in the process, ends up creating a new kind of movie, one where there is no victory for any of the participants.

It is because all the characters get the shaft in the end that the films' story has so much power. The outcomes look like life to many of us. The older guy, the great Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason), is reduced to realizing his day is over. Bert Gordon (George C. Scott) is forced to let the hero off the hook in a most embarrassing way, and is revealed to be an empty shell in the process. Fast Eddie Felsen (Newman) tells them all to go to hell, then walks out broke, but he did tell them off, by God! It is no wonder that men like this film so much. It all takes place in a manly world, there is a hero who is attempting to work through his demons and prove his worth to himself more than to anyone else, and everybody gets crushed in the end! And as far as the women go, the only one in this film, Piper Laurie's Sarah Packard, ends up committing suicide or is murdered because she is essentially misunderstood (oh, how the gals love being misunderstood!)

The Hustler is not without its flaws. It is not completely free of what one could call "Hollywood interference" — an inability to call things completely out in the open. There is a rather vague line of dialog in the very first scene between Eddie and Sarah in the bus station restaurant where she hints that she is a whore. But this is something that I am reading into it I think. It is later revealed that she has a guilt-ridden father who supports her shabby lifestyle. Come ON!

Then there is the "do you have to be soooo obvious?" air about the scene where Eddie is playing at a rich guy's house. Sarah, almost on cue, awakens from a perfectly solid drunken stupor in order to find Eddie and tearfully argues against the friends he has chosen and his lifestyle — as though she had anything to counter offer. She is not the shiniest apple in the barrel, but they want us to go along with the notion that a woman's role is to improve her mate. What other role was there in 1961?

Then there is the confusing way in which this love interest character of Sarah is dispatched at the end of the second act. It is more than somewhat disheartening - why couldn't they let her live? Because she was in the way, which pretty much sums up Bert's attitude towards her: "She was in the way, so I fucked her so bad she offed herself." Uhh, how's that again?

© 1961 Rossen Enterprises, Inc. and 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation © Renewed 1989 Rossen Enterprises, Inc. and 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation.

But despite this, the film has many things about it that I delight in. I think it's pretty hard for any guy to resist some of it. The Hustler isn't a big number with gay men, any more than it is a hit with butch lesbians. No, this is a film for Guys. There is something about the pool hall that almost half the film takes place in that you can just smell. Very Arthur Miller — only instead of the pleasant backyard of All My Sons, you have the pool hall in Ames, Iowa (even though the film was supposedly all filmed in New York City). Creeky chairs, bourbon, phallic pool cues carelessly slung between legs.

We have all seen the photos of Walker Evans. The Hustler is like a whole bunch of Walker Evans photos that are actually alive. It's a hard thing to do. In a still photograph, you can take a picture of a rapidly fading beauty crossing the street to her apartment on a Sunday morning with groceries, and the viewer can sort of side with the photographer — yes, this is poignant, whatever. But in a film, you have that character going across the street and as she does so, you know where she's been, who she's sleeping with, and what she's got in the bag. I love the little touch that they have given the scene. It begins with Sarah leaving the little grocer with a brown paper bag. Then the proprietress calls to her — she has forgotten her purse in her alcoholic state.

I love the lame black man, (Gordon B. Clark), who is hanging around the edges of all the pool hall scenes. Rossen doesn't make a big deal of him — he's just another of the assortment of characters hanging about. But he does know that the lone black attendant who keeps to himself in a pool hall full of white guys is bound to give you a look now and again that is hard to pin down. If you are an observant viewer, you see all of these things, because the director put them there.

And were did they get a hold of Gossidge (Alexander Rose)?? He is the strange-looking guy who is always racking up the balls and saying "That's game!" as he keeps score. I love Murray Hamilton's southern gentleman character of James Findlay. There is this wonderful scene where Hamilton's character has been thoroughly beaten by Eddie with the help of Bert's money. Bert stretches himself out on the right side of the CinemaScope frame, his legs extending along the bottom, as Findlay drunkenly gropes for his desk in the background. Hamilton asks a perfectly ridiculous question, "Will you take a check, Bert?" Then he hopefully waits for Bert's answer. Hamilton does the same thing when the tables are turned on his southern bad guy character in another film Newman was in, The Drowning Pool (1975). He has been a perfect beast to his wife, but after she has triumphed over him, he asks in the same manner, "Are you still mad at me Sugar?" I love it.

I also love the bit they have in the previous scene, where Sarah is wandering around uncertainly at Findlay's Kentucky Derby Party. Bert whispers something suggestive in her ear, a scuffle ensues and Sarah is put to bed upstairs. There is this great bit done in a low angle as Sarah is on the bed — she's out like a light. There is a Black Woman seated there, and you think, "That's extravagant — a maid to look after her." A beautifully coiffed Woman Guest enters from a door in the background, leans forward over the bed, and you think, "Oh, there is someone who cares about what happened to her." Then they spring the trap: The Guest is only looking for her fur coat, and Sarah is lying on it!

The Hustler is just full of great stuff. From the incredible presence of Jackie Gleason ("Fast Eddie, let's play some pool."), George C. Scott and the wonderful Myron McCormick as Eddie's running partner, Charlie. But I think that the first 36 minutes of the film - the whole first act of,

1. Reveal Eddie and Charlie as pool hustlers
2. Reveal that Eddie wants to find, play and beat Minnesota Fats
3. That Eddie, as good as he is, can't beat Fats,

I think that this section of the film is just staggeringly brilliant. The way the whole thing is set up and done is just as slow as it could possibly be. But interest is maintained nonetheless. Rossen doesn't forget about two rules: Keep it moving and be sure to get their eyes. I love the sequence of Fats' first round of turns while Eddie sits there watching, "He's like a dancer or a violinist." Gleason has a look of skill and determination that contrasts wonderfully with Fats' smiling, well-dressed persona.

© 1961 Rossen Enterprises, Inc. and 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation © Renewed 1989 Rossen Enterprises, Inc. and 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation.

Newman is also a marvel. He has always been a favorite of mine for the very simple reason that he always seems so natural. Directors love to linger over the fact that you can see him thinking. Whether he's leaning over a counter trying to decide if he should talk to the girl at the table, or whether he's kneeling down and letting out a puff of cigarette smoke while putting balls on the pool table. I sort of forget a lot of the specifics of The Hustler from time to time, but it's always the performers, and especially Newman, who bring it all to life.

I was just watching the scene where Sarah succumbs to Bert's prerogatives, and I was thinking about how it is staged in 1961, as opposed to the way it would be done now. Scott's character Bert, is standing in his deluxe hotel room smoking a cigarette. You know that he's in a strange mood, because even though he and Eddie have had a successful evening pool hustling, they have had a difference of opinion over Sarah.

Anyway, Bert is standing there. After a bit, he goes over to the bar and puts some ice in a glass. He picks up the water pitcher, then thinks better of it and puts it down. He throws the ice out of the glass, then pours himself a straight drink. He downs it like a man and then goes into the adjoining hotel room to essentially rape Sarah. He talks and then she talks; he impulsively kisses her then walks off, but Sarah, for some completely inexplicable reason, walks into his room asking for a drink — she is agreeing to his advances. Then there is a dissolve leading into a shot of the mirror in the bathroom. Through this mirror, you see Sarah sauntering in, wearing a slip. She pulls out a lipstick and writes on the mirror, "Perverted, TWISTED Cripple." Then dissolve out to Eddie arriving in the hotel lobby.

All of this is done without any music, no fancy cuts, only one slightly weird angle. And this is what is so strange about The Hustler, when contrasted with more recent films. We expect something more, from our more modern directors, and I suppose that we get it. But none of them can reach the textures and atmospheres of this unique film.

9.15.02