Amazon.com Essentials:
Winner of seven Academy Awards including Best Picture,
Director, and Screenplay, this critical and box-office hit from 1973
provided a perfect reunion for director George Roy Hill and stars Paul
Newman and Robert Redford, who previously delighted audiences with
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Set in 1936, the movie's
about a pair of Chicago con artists (Newman and Redford) who find
themselves in a high-stakes game against the master of all cheating
mobsters (Robert Shaw) when they set out to avenge the murder of a
mutual friend and partner. Using a bogus bookie joint as a front for
their con of all cons, the two feel the heat from the Chicago Mob on
one side and encroaching police on the other. But in a plot that
contains more twists than a treacherous mountain road, the ultimate
scam is pulled off with consummate style and panache. It's an added
bonus that Newman and Redford were box-office kings at the top of
their game, and while Shaw broods intensely as the Runyonesque
villain, The Sting is further blessed by a host of great
supporting players including Dana Elcar, Eileen Brennan, Ray Walston,
Charles Durning, and Harold Gould. Thanks to the flavorful music score
by Marvin Hamlisch, this was also the movie that sparked a nationwide
revival of Scott Joplin's ragtime jazz, which is featured prominently
on the soundtrack. One of the most entertaining movies of the early
1970s, The Sting is a welcome throwback to Hollywood's golden
age of the '30s that hasn't lost any of its popular charm. --Jeff
Shannon
