roberto rossen
Lo spaccone

Eddie the Fast is a young man full of hope, clever and as handsome as the sun. However, his hopes exclusively live on the green cloth of a pool table. Eddie plays pool—and how he plays... it’s a sight to behold...

He’s a real hotshot, he feels invincible, and he's tired of hanging around third-rate gambling joints to scrape together a few dozen dollars. Eddie doesn't want to continue paying his dues; he wants to play in the big leagues, at the highest levels. So, he goes to the city with his manager Charlie, who is also his financial partner (a sort of surrogate father since Eddie is an orphan, a wanderer). The goal is the famous Ames Hall, where every day at 8:00 PM, the greatest pool player of the past 20 years (specialty "125") Minnesota Fats arrives.

What a show, Minnesota! A big, burly man, always elegant and well-dressed, with his lovely carnation in the lapel. Smooth and shaved, baby-powdered like a newborn, he moves gracefully around the green table, almost like he's dancing...

But enough chit-chat, the film opens just like this. Eddie and Minnesota and a pool table... They'll play for 24 hours straight. Eddie is strong, very strong, stronger than Minnesota! Eddie has talent but lacks temperament... he’s just a braggart...

The initial match is an unprecedentedly thrilling spectacle, and really, it doesn't matter whether you like pool or not.

After the memorable match, Eddie will meet a girl in a bar at the train station. Sarah (Piper Laurie: extraordinary). A very pretty, intelligent, and charming girl. However, Sarah is lame and drinks. It doesn't matter, they get together.

So, there's love. Love and pool. It's in this uncomfortable combination that Eddie will have to reckon...

The Hustler - The Hustler (1961) is an immortal classic, considered one of the best American films of all time. It garnered 9 Oscar nominations, winning only 2 (cinematography and set design).

It's a deadly film, with a resolute approach, wrapped in jazz, whiskey, and cigarettes. And how those colored balls run, roll, and shoot everywhere on the pool table! It's a film of rustling dollars passing from one pocket to another, disdainfully tossed on the table and quickly scooped up by the winner.

However, The Hustler is also a dramatic, tragic film. A film where once again (just to simplify) good and evil clash in a ferocious battle, and once again, the price to pay is the highest anticipated...

Paul Newman delivers a superlative performance. Such a hustler... who’s ever seen one like that? He feels the world in his pocket, he feels invincible, he can achieve everything, even love, but... what is love? Eddie knows he doesn't know. All day we drink and make love, we never talk, we are two strangers, Sarah will tell him.

The other actors, but let it be clear that Eddie is the absolute star, are just as remarkable. The fragility and kindness of Sarah, her unhappy condition. His old partner who now feels tired and old and just wants to open a small gambling den with six tables and a notebook to keep score... Minnesota (Jackie Gleason) with a cue in hand is number one, he's a professional. And what can be said about Bert Gordon (George Scott, remember him in Dr. Strangelove?). He embodies the figure of a ruthless bookie/gambler. A being so despicable it's hard to define. The very personification of the concept of materialism. In him, the spiritual sphere doesn't exist. You’re dead inside... that's why to live you have to watch others perish...

25 years later, now old and weary, Eddie will return to the world of pool and gambling and will meet his successor, once again seeing The Color of Money... he will win an Oscar he won’t collect... I’ve already talked about it, right here.

The Hustler: What a film, folks!