Behind the Scenes: The Sting (Hill, 1973) with Paul Newman and Robert Redford

I was researching pickpockets and I had a bunch of books on pickpockets and grifters in general and all the books had chapters and information on Confidence Man. And the more I read about Confidence Man, I thought, God, this is an incredible subculture. I'd love to do a movie about this. I've never seen a movie about Confidence Man, at least not about this kind of Confidence Man. And since it was something that I'd never seen a movie about before, I just said, I've got to do this. And the thing that sort of attracted me about Confidence Man were they seemed to be in some ways almost moral outlaws because they didn't use violence. They didn't even steal. They used the Marx own greed against them. And in that way, they were sort of, even though they weren't consciously trying to do this, they were obviously trying to make money. But in some ways they were exposing the hypocrisy and the greed of supposedly respectable people. The Sting came in a whole different package. It was a much smaller film with a whole cast of young people, young producers, young money people, very, very young, out of New York, very ambitious, hadn't really done anything themselves. This was going to be a first shot. The writer, David Ward, was attached to it because it was his first, no, I think his second work. And they all had a kind of collective and they wanted to support each other, which I totally respected. And they wanted him to direct it. And so when they sent it to me, they sent it to me because we were, we all kind of knew each other. And would I support him directing it and so forth? And I read it. And when I read it, I thought, okay, I don't know, I guess maybe, you know, I tried hard to see myself in it really. It seemed fun. It seemed different and kind of quirky. But because of its structure, I thought it would take a real master director to pull it off. And I didn't want to insult or not support a newcomer. But I said, I'm sorry, I don't think, I think for me to be in this, it would have to be in the hands of a more experienced director. So if you want to do it with David, which I totally support, then why don't you go and see if you can put it together. So they had another cast in mind. They had other people involved. Next thing I knew, George called me and he said, look, I just read this script. I think it's fabulous. I said, you do? He said, yeah. And they told me why he was obviously very taken with. That's the first good sign when the director has a vision that you, you're going to be very drawn to that. When they did Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, George Roy Hill rented a house from Paul in Beverly Hills. Now, when he came out to do the sting, he called Newman on the phone and he said, is that house by any chance available at the moment for rent? And Newman said, yeah, yeah. As a matter of fact, what do you, you want to rent it? And Hill said, yeah. And Newman said, well, what do you do? What are you doing out here? George Roy Hill said, I'm making a picture with Redford. And Newman said, oh, anything in it for me? Now, George Roy Hill told me this story. There came a pause and George Roy Hill saw the dollar signs turning in his head. And he answered, yes, yes, there's a part. But I got to tell you now, it's the second part. And Newman said, send me a script. George sent me a script. And I said, George, I think the script is wonderful. In fact, it's near perfect, but I am dead wrong for that part. And he said, why? I said, well, I said, it seems very clear to me. This is the king handing the scepter to the prince. Gondorf was a big, big man, big, heavy set guy with lots of weight. I said, you should get someone who's long in the tooth and is gone fading and needs a replacement. That's what the whole point of the story is. This is my memory. And you can corroborate that with Redford. But Joanne and I were living in a tiny little apartment on East 50th Street, and they came up to talk to me about doing this. And we lived on the fourth floor. Someone, they punched the button and the elevator went past the fourth floor up to some other floor. And during that time waiting for the elevator, the silence was absolutely deafening. And then George said, I think you're a, if you don't do this film. And I said, in that case, what can I say? And then the elevator came back down again. I always keep thinking, what if the guy hadn't rung it on the 12th floor? And they'd come up the fourth floor and nobody had insulted me like that. Paul has no mind. He has a very poor mind. So I don't know what Paul remembered, but I suspect that sometime we were in an elevator, but I know that I can remember what happened in an elevator. I do know that George wanted him in the movie. So I really can't comment on it. I think maybe maybe Paul and George might've been in an elevator. I don't remember an elevator, but then I'm losing my mind too. It was a terrific script because first of all, it was extremely unique. It was touching territory that had never even been close to being touched before, but you can't underestimate George. He's such a craftsman. He's had such experience with script. And because of his own life experience coming from a publishing family, being interested in comic strips, when he was a kid, he found great value in comic strips, the Sunday comics, because he believed that the four panel sequencing, where you had to tell a story in four, at the most five panels, have a beginning, middle, and complete. It was a very powerful guide. And he kind of followed that. He told me that story once, which I thought was amazing. I don't remember a more perfect script. I know George had worked with David Ward on it for some time. I don't know to the extent that it had been changed, but I don't think we changed four words in that script the entire time we shot it. It's a really just about a perfect piece of work in terms of screen craftsmanship. When I write scripts, I tend to listen to music because it sort of keeps me in the mood of the piece. I mean, you write something over two or three months, you can sort of tend to lose that original feeling that made you want to write the script in the first place. And the music is always sort of a reminder to me of where I started. And when I was writing The Sting, I was listening to a lot of blues from the 30s and 40s, Bessie Smith, Big Bill Brunzi, Ida Cox. And so I sort of always felt that Hooker came from the world of blues, black Chicago, sort of South Side Chicago. And that's why I made Luther Black, who was sort of his surrogate father. And that was the music I sort of saw for the movie. I remember George giving me a call and saying, come on over the house. We rented a place out in California where I was making a film. So I'm going to play something for you. And he discovered Scott Joplin, which nobody had heard of. We'd heard of Ragtime, but I never heard of him. And he was quite a good pianist and he would play it. And he had it in his head that the rhythm of the film should follow that, that that had to do with the character ability of the piece itself and a period piece. It was just so much about George. I think that probably George made the right choice in using Ragtime instead. I was actually opposed to it at first because I said it's the wrong time. Ragtime was much earlier. Ragtime was turn of the century, 1910. And George said, David, you may be one of five people who sees this movie that knows that. Nobody's going to care. I think it's right for the spirit of the movie, for the feeling of the movie. It expresses for me the kind of feeling I want the movie to have. And he was right. My kind of humor that I like and this film are very much akin. And therefore, I could treat it with a little tongue in cheek. And I think that's what George liked. In fact, we had a running gag, which was that when we were going to record the film, I said to him, well, if you get there first, you can play the piano. And if I get there first, I'll play the piano because, you know, George Ray Hill can play the piano. And so for the first day, I got there about 45 minutes early, you know. One of the things that makes the con itself believable is the creation of the entire world of The Confidence Man, which was a world that could only exist in the 30s and 40s because of the nature of police departments and the way cities ran in those days. But we wanted everything to be authentic from the way things looked, the way The Confidence Men talked, their slang, the way they organized the con, the way they ran a con. I researched all of that very carefully. And George was very concerned to keep that authenticity in the movie. It was so authentic that it was just what I had remembered as a kid, being a depression baby. And I was born in 1923. So all through the 30s, I was that kind of kid. You know, nobody had any money. I mean, you put the newspapers in the soles of your shoes, and you walked around like that because everybody had holes in their shoes. And you didn't think about it. And you invented games, you know. There were two or three things, how to make stilts out of tin cans. And we invented those things, you know. The scooter, one roller skate, and a two-by-four, and a box you picked up at the A&P. There is a bit of Robin Hood quality in The Confidence Men, although they didn't give the money to the poor. But they did certainly steal from the rich. The Confidence Men were all from lower-class backgrounds. They were usually not educated, but they were able to sort of mimic people who were educated and wealthy. It was one of their great strengths, is that they could pass themselves off as being cultured, as being educated, as running in the right circles. They sort of delighted in doing that. They sort of delighted in putting that on, because that's not at all who they were. And he's not hurting anybody. He's taken from other crooks, you know. The first guy he takes it from, that guy said, was the easiest money I ever made. Drive me to the railroad station. And then he realized he's been had. So they wind up with a hole in his eye. It was a picture that had a great deal of camaraderie in it, and ensemble playing. And George Roy Hill had a great, great deal to do with that. The way he did those two weeks of rehearsal, you knew that you were in a piece with a lot of people. They were as important, or even more important, than you. So forget you, and join. One of the things George had as a filmmaker was that he understood the value of surprises. He would throw a surprise at the audience. Just when the audience thought they had something figured out, he'd go right, or left, when they were going right. He'd throw a wrench into it. By the time they got back on board, he thought you were back on again. He'd take another until he got to the end. So George had this wonderful, kind of, that was part of his perversity. Just when you thought you were in safe territory, he jumped to another track, and you wondered what was going on. And I think that's what kept the movie alive. The shots in The Sting, I can remember them discussing them. The boys, I'll call them, had their input. They had a freedom with him. And Redford, at that particular moment, I don't know whatever it was that he liked, but he said the image of her coming down in that outfit against those steps, he said, just look at it. I remember him saying to George, just look at it. You know, it was between them, but I do know that Redford slowed it down. And Redford's saying, just, there's an image there that's just, you know, he's a painter, Redford. And he just saw an image that he just said, let's just hold on that. They had that with each other, that freedom, that allowance to make a suggestion. It was just a great sense of allowability. You know, anything goes. Show me what experimentation and free reign to make mistakes and show your rear end. It was a great set to work out. I just remember when we were rehearsing, he said, why are you walking out of the scene? I said, I'm getting a tray of ice cubes. He said, what for? He says, well, if you've been out on a night like that, I mean, man, you got to find somewhere to wake up. Paul and I come from the same seed in terms of how we came into the business. We came through theater in New York. So craft is important. Therefore, we approach our roles in very much the same way. Seriously crafting the character and being in character, playing the character, despite whatever of your own self is going to show up, you're playing a character. So we take that seriously. So we're committed to delivering the characters to the story and not going off track like you're a personality or celebrity where you feel you're being hired as a personality. So you give them personality no matter what the script of the story is doing. That's not who we are. On the other hand, your own whatever is there. So I think that is what the relationship that Paul and I have in real life is going to show up somehow on the screen, even though our characters are different. I was a much younger guy than he was. He was kind of washed up. I was just a brash kid that didn't have any experience. He was my mentor. What I connect to this was just the fun that we had working together probably showed up in the characters, even though there was a lot of adversarial stuff in it. He was giving me a hard time. I was giving him a hard time. But I think that underneath that, the enjoyment of giving each other a hard time probably had some benefit. They both had a Porsche parked right out of the stand's door. And when they weren't shooting a scene, they either one of them or both of them were out there polishing that thing with a rag. I think one time he found the key, got the keys to Redford's Porsche and went out and took it and hit it. And I think Redford said, I knew one day somebody was going to steal my car. I go out and I do the sting. Meeting Paul Newman was, wow. So we did a scene together and I said, Paul Newman, I thought there was going to be something. You know, there's nothing. I tore him up. Well, when it came out of the screen, you couldn't get your eyes off Paul Newman. And I'm trying to look at myself and I can't. He was incredible. I did not give any particular or special treatment to J.J. Singleton, except what came out of the rehearsals and what was coming out of George and especially what was coming out of Redford and Newman. For example, I had on a pair of dark glasses during rehearsal, sitting around the table. Redford said, hey, that's a great touch, those sunglasses. I said, well, I'm just wearing them now. I don't intend to wear them in a picture. He said, oh, that's too bad because it's a good touch. I didn't do any special work. I tell you, that screenplay was so well written, you didn't have to go far afield. The material itself was so original and it was such a, I mean, it's not a rehash of an old idea. I guess the hustle is something that you can say, well, it happened in the hustle. But this was such a beautifully designed, or it was like, it was like the variety that you would be allowed if you were a great pianist playing Mozart. I mean, it was classic, what you had to start with. So what you're left with then is the little modulations that was already a great piece of work by the time it was on the printed page. A lot of the slang, you can figure out the meaning from the word. Quill happens to be one that isn't quite so obvious. I don't know why quill means the best. I don't know what the derivation of that is, but that was in their language quill meant top drawer. It was a great experience. First of all, the cast was terrific. Everybody loved each other. We had a great time. We all knew we were in a fun piece. We all knew we were in the hands of a master craftsman who had hired us all. So there was that camaraderie and everybody got so completely into their part. That was enjoyable when you're working with actors who are so into their parts. There's a kind of spirituality to that community there and it's just fun. It's when acting and entertainment coincide in a terrific, fun way. This picture has a way of like a great, great painting. You can go back to a great painting time and time and time again and you always see something new in it. And I think that's what this is. When we finished this film, I was amazed. I mean, I knew the film was gonna be a hit, but I was amazed that the music did so well because rock and roll, you know, going like crazy. Next thing you know, I'm driving around and I hear number four this week, The Sting with Marvin Hamlisch and I was going like, you gotta be kidding. There aren't too many directors like George Roy Hill. I've never worked with anybody who was as good as he. Never. He knew what he wanted. He knew how to talk to actors. He knew how to be firm, but right on the money. I picked up a lot of things from George that have been useful to me, mostly his sense of preparation, his sense of really wanting to understand every element of the script so that he can be as articulate and thorough with the actors as possible. I hope that some of George's love of just making movies is worn off on me. I mean, he just, he loved to do it. It was work. Yeah, it was like it is for everybody. It's very intense, strenuous kind of thing to do. There's a lot of tension, but he loved doing it. He loved telling stories. George sees himself as a storyteller. He's not the kind of guy who feels like he's got to put his indelible stamp on everything. You don't see that so much anymore. A lot of directors now, they want to be bigger than the material. George always defied being typed. His work always had a very clear mark on it and I didn't see The Sting when it came out. I was in Europe making The Great Gatsby. So when I saw it, I saw it in its whole and its entirely with just me being a piece of the whole. And so what I saw was the work of a master craftsman because he took a script that was very large, very, very witty and funny. He scaled it down to something manageable and realistic so it just wasn't a bunch of jokes. He shaped it, scaled it, trimmed it so it could move like a rocket. People were courteous. I mean, nobody was rude, you know. And when you think of the way crews are today, of course, you know, it's a different generation. It's a different thing. But I mean, it kind of hurts because they don't know what it was like then because they're all so much younger. But it was pretty wonderful. It used to be fun and there was a lot of camaraderie and now, I don't know, it's as though it's too expensive to be funny. It's too expensive to have fun. It's too expensive to really enjoy what you're doing because every minute costs $16,000 and tomorrow it's going to cost $18,000. And it's so expensive that people aren't certain of their own judgment anymore and they're not certain of their own taste and they're not certain of their own convictions. So they then have to put out cards to the audience and the audience then makes the changes. I can't remember that happening when we started making films. We made some pretty bad films. But I can't remember anybody ever, the director cut the film, the film was advertised, the film went into the theater. They didn't get focus groups or rump groups or rump focus groups or cards or did we like this guy or did we like, I don't know. But by and large, it's done by committee now. George Roy Hill would have their heads. George had something that is very rare. He had the courage of his convictions. When he made a decision, that was it. When he wanted to cast me, it didn't matter to him that Universal didn't want me. He fought for me. No, that was it. It's so rare today that you meet that kind of a person. So rare. And I mean, he had a life other than being a director too. I mean, this was a really renaissance man. The man was wonderful, but he had courage. He trusted his instincts. He trusted himself. He trusted his choices. It was wonderful. It's great. Because it inspires confidence from every actor. And I would imagine the crew too. You know, you know you're in the hands of a master. It's a good feeling. He scared the hell out of people. You'd see guys with powerful positions in the studio. They would quake if they knew that they were having a meeting with him. There was a liveliness about him. And yet a grandness and an elegance about him. There was an elegance about him. He was a good guy. I really liked him. I think it was melancholy all the way through. I think the music is melancholy. And I think when you start to think of where Mr. Hill is now, it's all melancholy. And I miss him. And I wish he was still working. I am not sure that George has received the attention that he deserves because he was rebellious and perverse and kind of went against the grain a lot of the time. He did these really odd, quirky pieces. And most of them he did a great job with. So I hope that one day he gets the credit he deserves as a filmmaker.