There is simply no more entertaining poker scene ever filmed than the above match-up between Paul Newman and Robert Shaw in ‘The Sting’ (1973). Newman commands the scene from the moment before he enters the room–he takes a beat, exhales and preps himself to go on stage like any good actor would–to the ridiculously delightful climax (‘you won’t be able to get a game of Jacks’!) where he out-cons the con. You don’t need to know how to play poker to follow this scene which is quite simply shot–no dollying around the table, no overhead atmospheric angles–and edited within an inch of its life. Even the sound track–the perfectly cued locomotive train whistle when Newman’s cards are revealed at the end–is perfection. By the way, I watched the whole movie rather recently and it holds up beautifully. I even forgave it for the dreadful anachronism of using turn of the century Scott Joplin music for a story set in the 1930s. It certainly didn’t hurt the film. At the time, though, I was one pissed off ten year old—I appeared to be the only person in fourth grade who knew that ‘The Entertainer’ was ‘The Entertainer’ and not some song called ‘The Sting.’
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I tried to pay extra attention to the editing, but got so engrossed in the scene. I remember not liking to film at the time. It seemed too…sweet. (I was more into film noir and foreign films at that moment.)
I’ve always had a greet fondness for The Cincinnati Kid. Maybe you’ll post something about that in this poker series. It’s got a great title song (Ray Charles) and a great line spoken by Edward G. Robinson summing things up: “It gets down to what it’s all about. Making the wrong move at the right time.”
I guess all really good editing is invisible. The best job is one that you don’t see being performed (or some reasonably pithy aphorism like that). I haven’t seen ‘Cincinnati Kid’ in years–might be worth a watch…