Good In Cinematic Terms But Too Litery To Be Truly Successful And Unfortunately Life Imitates Art

Rating: 7/10 (23 January 2005)

The problem with THE HUSTLER is that the source material doesn't lend itself too well to cinema I imagine . I've never read the original novel by Walter Tevis by you do get the impression that it's a bit too low concept and character driven for it to be translated to screen 100% successfully , cinema is a visual art , things must happen in a visual manner , action must take place . But despite everything Robert Rossen has tried to make a memorable cinematic work , the monochrome cinematography of Eugen Schuffun brings mood and atmosphere to the scenes and Rossen and co adapter Sydney Carrol do make a very good effort to show the internal dilemmas going on inside the mind of Eddie Felson who is danger of hitting the self destruct button . It's a very good attempt on making a film from a novel that could be instinctively described as " Unfilmable " and things could have turned out far worse
Strangely when I was watching THE HUSTLER today I am struck between the parallels between Felson and Alex Higgins . For those of you who have never heard of him Alex Higgins was a snooker player from Belfast who went on to become world snooker champion aged 22 years in 1972 . Without Higgins snooker would have remained an obscure game played in billiards clubs unlike the multi million pound sport it is today . Unfortunately Higgins went on to ruin his life and career through alcohol and despite earning a fortune through tournament wins , exhibition matches and sponsorship deals ended up penniless and homeless , a sad tale of self destruction brought about by drinking and womanizing and hubris which unfortunately causes THE HUSTLER to pale in comparison as a story