Cue Heavy Mitting

Rating: 9/10 (1 October 2008)

I've just seen this movie days after Paul Newman died; it is, perhaps, inevitable and certainly fitting that the television channels will be screening tributes in the near future and if they are all of this quality then I for one will be content. Like all actors of the first rank Newman made his share of turkeys and we needn't be reminded of them at this time. The Hustler works on every level to which it aspires including furnishing an idea of the life of a professional pool player which was way down its list of priorities for first and foremost it is our old friend the Morality Tale in drag. Newman takes his character, 'Fast' Eddie Felson all the way from callow, arrogant punk to mature, sadder-but-wiser man in the space of a few months in real time and Piper Laurie must have been a revelation to those who knew her only as cheesecake in Universal programmers of the early fifties. It is difficult, in fact, to nominate even a mediocre performance and if George C. Scott draws the flashier and lengthier of the supporting roles Myron McCormick, Vincent Gardenia and Murray Hamilton can certainly not be overlooked and, like the credits, I save Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats for last. A gem of a performance in a gem of a film.