Tom Rothman on The Hustler

lfigueroa

lfigueroa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I was killing a little time last night channel surfing and came in at the start of an intro to "The Hustler" on "Fox Legacy with Tom Rothman." If you get the chance you should try and watch it the next time it comes around on your local TV listings.

Rothman, Chairman of Fox Films, gives a great synopsis of why the movie is important and interesting background on the director, Robert Rossen, the cast and plot. One tidbit: Bobby Darren was Rossen's original pick for Fast Eddie. But then a project Newman was signed up for with Elizabeth Taylor fell thorough. Newman got through reading half the script and called Rossen to say, "I'm in." One other observation made: Jackie Gleason, as Minnesota Fats, has very few lines in the movie. But based purely on his few lines and mostly his expressive reaction shots, he got an Oscar nomination.

Anywhos, it's like a 20 minute intro and well worth viewing. Of course then you get sucked into watching the movie for the umpteenth time too. Fortunately, it's in letterbox.

Lou Figueroa
 
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lfigueroa said:
I was killing a little time last night channel surfing and came in at the start of an intro to "The Hustler" on "Fox Legacy with Tom Rothman." If you get the chance you should try and watch it the next time it comes around on your local TV listings.

Rothman, Chairman of Fox Films, gives a great synopsis of why the movie is important and interesting background on the director, Robert Rossen, the cast and plot. One tidbit: Bobby Darren was Rossen's original pick for Fast Eddie. But then a project Newman was signed up for with Elizabeth Taylor fell thorough. Newman got through reading half the script and called Rossen to say, "I'm in." One other observation made: Jackie Gleason, as Minnesota Fats, has very actual few lines in the movie, But based purely on his few lines and mostly his expressive reaction shots, he got an Oscar nomination.

Anywhos, it's like a 20 minute intro and well worth viewing. Of course then you get sucked into watching the movie for the umpteenth time too. Fortunately, it's in letterbox.

Lou Figueroa
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Thanks, Lou, I would very much like to see that. I'll keep an eye out for it.
 
I watched that, it was very enjoyable. He told a lot about the story, which was intriguing. Newman played a great part. Newman said he would have done somethings a bit different today.

Newman got an Oscar I believe, for Color of Money, but did not attend the Oscars that year.
 
Well....thanks Lou....there goes 2 hours and 14 minutes of my Saturday....now my wife will be nagging me because "are you watching that thing again!" when I could be out Christmas shopping or something....OK, start the popcorn....

Bob
 
ceebee said:
I watched that, it was very enjoyable. He told a lot about the story, which was intriguing. Newman played a great part. Newman said he would have done somethings a bit different today.

Newman got an Oscar I believe, for Color of Money, but did not attend the Oscars that year.
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I think he said that, later on, Newman said he thought he overacted in the part.

And you're right about not attending the Oscars. He'd been nominated, but never won, something like six times. He thought by not attending that night he might change his luck.

Lou Figueroa
 
doitforthegame said:
Well....thanks Lou....there goes 2 hours and 14 minutes of my Saturday....now my wife will be nagging me because "are you watching that thing again!" when I could be out Christmas shopping or something....OK, start the popcorn....

Bob
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lol. Bob, my wife fell asleep.

Lou Figueroa
 
Very interesting!

I watched it, too. I was awakened by work stuff and couldn't go back to sleep, stumbled across it and watched the last hour or so. It gets better every time I see it!

Tom told some more stories after the movie was over. Apparently Fox films was struggling at the time, something about Cleopatra getting them in trouble. The Hustler was a low budget film that got them back on track. It won a couple of Oscars for black and white cinematography and something else having to do with black and white, both now obviously defunct categories.

Great stuff!!
 
It was on AMC, and it was wonderful. Everyone had gone to bed, the house was quiet, no commercial interruptions.....I was in heaven. :yeah:

Lisa
 
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