The Sting (1973) on Netflix
Grifter Johnny Hooker's crew swindles $11,000 that belongs to mob boss Doyle Lonnegan in 1936 Joliet. After Lonnegan's men kill his partner, Hooker turns to retired con man Henry Gondorff.
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- IMDb8.2/10305,876 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
The con that Johnny Hooker pulls with Luther Coleman and Joe Erie in Joliet brings in $11,000, though Hooker loses his cut at a rigged roulette table. Luther, ready to quit, points him toward Chicago and an old friend, Henry Gondorff, who can teach him the big con. A corrupt Joliet lieutenant, William Snyder, then tells Hooker that their mark was a courier for the racketeer Doyle Lonnegan, and Lonnegan's men kill Luther. Hooker reaches Chicago and finds Gondorff hiding from the FBI behind a carousel that fronts a brothel. Gondorff agrees to help and gathers veteran grifters for an elaborate scheme: a fake off-track betting parlor meant to draw Lonnegan in.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Sting (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Jack Nicholson was offered the lead role but declined it, later saying he had enough business acumen to know The Sting was going to be a huge hit, but that Chinatown and The Last Detail were more interesting films to him at the time.
- Rob Cohen found the script in the slush pile while working as a reader for Mike Medavoy, then an agent and a future studio head, and wrote in his coverage that it was "the great American screenplay". Medavoy promised to fire Cohen if he could not sell it; Universal bought it that afternoon.
- Shaw's limp in the film was authentic. He had injured his leg playing handball shortly before filming began, and director Hill encouraged him to incorporate the limp into his character rather than withdraw from the project.
- Academic David Maurer sued for plagiarism, claiming the screenplay was based too heavily on his 1940 book The Big Con, about the real-life tricksters Fred and Charley Gondorff. Universal settled out of court for $600,000, irking Ward, who resented the presumption of guilt the settlement implied.
- In her 1991 autobiography You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, producer Julia Phillips asserts that Robert Shaw was not nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar because he demanded that his name follow those of Newman and Redford before the film's opening title.
- Writer and producer Roy Huggins maintained in his Archive of American Television interview that the first half of The Sting plagiarised the 1958 Maverick episode "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres", which starred James Garner and Jack Kelly.
