DVD Review: The Hustler (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

By Adnan Tezer Jun 13, 2007, 22:17 GMT

Paul Newman heads a superb cast featuring Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott and Piper Laurie in the riveting film that received an Academy Award(r) nomination as Best Picture of 1961 and brought all four of its Oscar(r) nomination. Newman (Best Actor nominee) is electrifying as Fast Eddie Felson, an arrogant, amoral hustler who haunts backstreet pool rooms fleecing anyone who\'ll pick up a cue. Determined to be acclaimed as the ...more

Bert Gordon to Eddie Felson: “That’s one of the best indoor sports feeling sorry for yourself. A sport enjoyed by all. Especially the born losers.”
 
There are a few film characters that are so authentic and powerful that they become icons in and of themselves. James Dean did it. James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Clint Eastwood, Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro and Jack Nicholson to name a few have done it. Paul Newman did it numerous times. He portrayed generation defining anti-heroes such as Hud Bannon (Hud - 1963) and Lucas Jackson (Cool Hand Luke - 1967). But his signature iconic role will always be as the arrogant pool shark “Fast” Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961). 

In addition to being one of the best sports movies ever next to Raging Bull, The Hustler is at its essence a morality story about a brash loner who has an amazing talent but a lack of character which leads him to self-destruct. In the end, he wins the climatic game but only by accepting who he is and what he can never be.  You see a man who has accepted that his original dream cannot be achieved, because he finally finds his soul albeit at the expense of someone who he loved.  Ironically, the real-life Raging Bull himself Jake LaMotta has a brief cameo as a bartender who answers with “Check.” 

20’th Century Fox has released the definitive edition of this all-time classic in a glorious 2 Disc Collector’s Edition.  In addition to some of the greatest performances you will ever see in a motion picture, masterful direction by Robert Rossen and its razor sharp, guttural classic dialogue, The Hustler is one of the superior if not the superior cinematic male character study next to Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver or Bobby Dupea in Five Easy Pieces.

This is the film that forever immortalized the game of pool and made it not only chic and cool but exposed the seedy bars, immoral characters and the pathetic lifelessness that it can breed amongst the true hustlers of the game.  This is the journey of one Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman). You see his arrogance and his lack of control of it as well as his alcohol at the very beginning.

He is a true hustler and along with his stake horse/manager Charlie (Myron McCormick) has perfected the craft in small town after small town to where it seems like an art. Eddie has loftier goals. He wants a shot at the legendary Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) who is known as the country’s best pool player and hasn’t been beaten in over a decade.

The film is book ended by Eddie and Fats playing and from one point to the other you will see Eddie gain a soul. Eddie dominates Fats in the beginning of their initial match. After 25 straight hours he has won $18,000. Let that sink in for a moment. But Eddie cannot resist his self-destructiveness in the form of too much arrogant swagger and too much booze, particularly JTS Brown whiskey. 

He doesn’t know when to stop. He has to keep pushing until he loses. And indeed he loses. Eleven hours later, that would make 36 straight hours of playing, he has lost all of his money save for $200.  Fats is never threatened especially after the local gambler of the town Bert Gordon (George C. Scott) sums him up to Fats bluntly, “Stick with this kid, he’s a loser.”

After his debacle, Eddie runs out on Charlie and starts living out of a bus station locker room. It is at the bus station where he meets Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie). Sarah is too much like Eddie. She drinks too much, has a tendency towards self-pity, and is lonely. She warns him that they should leave each other alone but he still moves forward and initiates a tragic, heartbreaking relationship with her.

This is the key however, not the game of pool, that provides the impetus for Eddie to gain character. For it is the love that Eddie eventually feels for Sarah that will conflict with his self-destructive ways in a brutal fashion.  When faced with one or the other, he makes a choice that will forever mark him.

“I don’t rattle kid. But just for that I’m gonna beat you flat.” Eddie Felson

Eddie is obsessed with raising money so that he can confront Fats again and defeat him. It is not easy. Word of his marathon game with Fats is out and he’s a marked man. He walks into the wrong bar one night, brashly disposes of a cocky local in quick fashion and gets his thumbs broken.  He decides to sell his soul, literally, to Bert Gordon. Gordon freely and despicably tells Eddie to his face “You’re a born loser Eddie. You’ve got no character.” But, Gordon also tells him “You’ve got talent. And you’re good for action.” Accepting a 70/30 split of his winnings with Bert getting the higher end, Eddie agrees for Bert to stake him on a trip to Louisville, Kentucky. Eddie reluctantly takes Sarah along for the trip and finds his character but at a high, painful price.

The Hustler is one of those rare films where nearly every scene has almost a mythological feel to it particularly the bookend scenes of Eddie and Fats facing off in Ames Pool Hall, which leads to one of the greatest last lines of dialogue in all of cinematic history.

Eddie: “Fat Man, you shoot a great game of pool.”
Fats: “So do you Fast Eddie.”

The final face-off between the two men, which is considerably shorter than their battle at the beginning, isn’t so much about pool but about how Eddie has learned to control his demons and has found his true character. He doesn’t need booze as a crutch for losing. He can do it sober.

All of the actors are at a level you seldom see or will ever see in a motion picture. Newman, who rose to superstardom from this film, IS Fast Eddie.  His boyish good looks and cocky swagger, which he is all too aware of, is enough to help him maneuver through the terrain of hustlers and gamblers that he encounters in the beginning. But through his relationship with Sarah and the painful lessons he learns, he finally realizes that the outside is not nearly as important as the inside.

One of Newman’s greatest scenes ever evolves during one of the few tranquil scenes of the film where he and Sarah go out for a picnic. He then is able to put his guard and hustle down and truly express how much he admires greatness in a human being no matter the profession. He loves playing the game of pool at its highest and purest level the way no one has or ever will. 

It isn’t cockiness or forced male bravado; it is the sheer love of doing what one is great at.   I defy anyone not to be inspired by this magnificent monologue that Newman delivers.  It’s no surprise that Eddie Felson was reprised by Newman 25 years later in his only Oscar winning role in Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money.

Piper Laurie’s Sarah is a haunting yet fully drawn character. She has her demons like Eddie but is so willing to love and take care of this loser that it breaks your heart.  She is lame in one leg (as a result of childhood polio) and is a true alcoholic for reasons that are eventually explained. She is the only real person in Eddie’s life that truly cares for him and wishes to shield him from the “perverted, twisted, crippled” people that engulf him for financial reasons.  Yet, Eddie cannot “say the words” and truly express how much he loves her until it is too late.

George C. Scott, in only his third film role, is the personification of pure evil. With the exception of Orson Welles’s Harry Lime in The Third Man, you will never see smug cruelty more vividly then you will in Scott’s Bert Gordon. He knows how to play Eddie and how to say just the right thing at the right time in order for Eddie to succumb to his inherent flaws so that he can profit from it.  The scenes he has with Laurie on the Louisville trip, where he goads and insults her with cruel and despicable insinuations, will drive you to madness.

As in all of Scott’s later roles, he does it all with his eyes. This man knows human instinct and preys upon weakness. The fact that the key moment in Eddie’s transformation is brought about by Scott and Laurie’s characters speaks volumes about the magnificent screenplay by Robert Rossen and Sydney Carrol, based upon an original novel by Walter Tevis. Each character is given his or her own weight and importance.

That brings us to Jackie Gleason’s iconic Minnesota Fats. Despite the fact that he is only seen at the beginning and end of the film; his presence dominates Eddie and thus dominates us for it is he that drives Eddie. Gleason has very minimal dialogue but makes Fats so amazing due to his physicality with the character. 

It is all presence and movement with Fats. He knows the game, finds solace in it and has evolved past the viciousness and greed that it inspires amongst others around him.  He is the best at what he does but he is not boastful or arrogant. He simply wins and wins gracefully.

What truly makes Fats such a great, unique character is the sadness and resignment that Gleason gives him at the conclusion. He briefly makes a comment to Eddie as he and Bert have their own face-off but knows to keep his mouth shut as he knows and has likely seen this transpire too many times before. Keep an eye out for Vincent Gardenia as the bartender in the film’s opening scene and Murray Hamilton a.k.a. Mr. Robinson (The Graduate) and Mayor Larry Vaughn (Jaws) as the wealthy, homosexual gambler that Eddie and Bert seek to fleece in Louisville.

All four principle actors were nominated for Oscars in 1961 along with Rossen for Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay along with Sidney Carroll.  The only Oscars the film walked away with were for Best Art Direction-Set Direction, Black and White and Eugene Schufftan’s stark, vivid, black and white cinematography.

The other credit, along with the editing of Dede Allen and assistant director Ulu Grossbard (who directed the 70s classic Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman) goes to the director and co-screenwriter Robert Rossen. For those unfamiliar with his story, Rossen was an Oscar winning director (The original All the King’s Men -1949) that was caught up in the House Un-American Committee blacklisting during the McCarthy witch-hunts of the 50s. 

A onetime communist, Rossen was blacklisted in 1951 after refusing to name names before the committee.  In 1953 and desperate to work, Rossen relented and gave up 57 other alleged communists.  This would haunt him the rest of his life and was only able to make six more films before his death in 1966.

With the exception of All the King’s Men, The Hustler would be his masterpiece. If you look closely enough after several viewing one can detect subtle hints of Rossen’s own struggles with that of Fast Eddie as far as youthful ideals shattered by a cold reality of the world. Rossen captures the smoke, the stench of stale beer and whiskey, and the depravity inherent in the people and the places they inhabit in this film.

There are several holdover extras from the previous DVD version of the film included here. On the first disc, there is the recycled but still entertaining if not crowded commentary by Newman, Rossen’s daughter Carol, Dede Allen, Ulu Grosbard, film critic Richard Schickel, Stefan Gierasch (who plays Preacher in the Ames pool hall scenes) and film expert/producer Jeff Young.

Also included is a trick shot analysis, which is recycled from a holdover extra present on the second disc, in which you can activate a picture in picture window with pool expert Mike Massey where he breaks down the five key pool scenes in the film.

Disc two contains the majority of the extras. The holdovers include the 24-minute Hustler: The Inside Story and How to Make A Shot, which is basically a rehash of the activated feature on disc one.  There is a theatrical trailer, including one in Spanish, as well as a still gallery and The Films of Paul Newman which features trailers for some of his other well known films produced by Fox. 

New featurettes include the complete A+E biography of Paul Newman which runs 43 minutes as well as the informative behind the scenes Life in the Fast Lane: Fast Eddie and the Search For Greatness (11:50), Milestones in Cinema History: The Hustler (28 min.) both of which feature new interviews with Newman, Laurie and other surviving cast/crew members and Swimming with Sharks: The Art of the Hustle (9 min 40 sec.) which details the aura of pool and hustling from pool experts and current players.

After 46 years, The Hustler remains one of great American films of all time. Its story of morality and character is just as fresh and potent as it was then. You can’t pass this up. Go buy this classic immediately.

The Hustler (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for this version of the DVD in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.