George Roy Hill’s con-game comedy gives Paul Newman and Robert Redford room to be funny, and its elaborate plotting mostly earns the time it takes. A few stretches dawdle, but the company makes them easy to forgive.
George Roy Hill’s The Sting is a thoroughly enjoyable crime comedy, with a little more preparation than it needs. Set among confidence men in 1930s Chicago, it takes its pleasures seriously without requiring us to do the same. David S. Ward’s screenplay makes the swindle complicated enough to keep us occupied, while Hill finds time for the people arranging it. We are invited to enjoy their work, including the bits that a brisker film would hurry past. For most of its 129 minutes, that invitation is easy to accept.
Paul Newman, as Henry Gondorff, makes confidence look like a matter of not being in a hurry. Robert Redford’s Johnny Hooker supplies more restless energy, and their different speeds keep the partnership interesting even when there is business to explain. We laughed at Newman’s poker-table performance. He takes such evident pleasure in deceiving someone that the joke needs little help from the dialogue. Hill knows when to leave an actor alone, and Newman rewards the attention without appearing to ask for it.
Robert Shaw’s Doyle Lonnegan provides the resistance the film needs. Shaw’s severity stops the charm becoming too easy, and he is funnier for refusing to advertise the joke. Eileen Brennan, as Billie, and Harold Gould, as Kid Twist, help make the supporting company worth watching in its own right. The pleasure of these smaller performances is that we can pay attention to someone other than the stars without feeling we are waiting for the proper film to resume.
Robert Surtees’s cinematography makes the 1930s settings attractive without letting the scenery dominate every scene. The angled views keep the eye busy, rather than simply inviting us to admire the surroundings. Edith Head’s costumes contribute to the period detail without demanding attention at the expense of the faces above them. There is plenty to inspect in the production design, and Hill occasionally seems reluctant to leave it behind. That fondness for the setting is understandable, though it contributes to the leisurely pace.
William Reynolds’s editing works with the chapter headings to divide the complicated business into manageable stages. That structure is helpful, though it can also make us aware of how much arranging remains to be done. Scott Joplin’s ragtime, reworked by Marvin Hamlisch, does a good deal to keep the waiting enjoyable. Its buoyancy suits the cheek of the scheme without forcing every exchange into a joke. The music lets the film take its time more successfully than the cutting always does.
The qualification is that Ward and Hill sometimes enjoy the preparations longer than we do. There are stretches when the next piece of business feels more dutiful than amusing, and Reynolds does not quite disguise the extra length. We would happily lose a little of the arranging, even if it meant spending less time in those settings. The people are engaging, but the film seldom asks much of us emotionally. That limits it without spoiling the evening.
Con-game films can become tiresome when catching the audience out is their only source of amusement. Hill has the sense to make individual scenes enjoyable before we know how they fit together. His patience with the performers is particularly welcome in a genre that can reduce actors to delivering information and concealing it. Give it time, and resist turning it into a competition to guess ahead.
