Interesting observation... "The Hustler"

[Scott Lee]

100kbet...Yep! Eddie had balls the size of watermelons! :thumbup:

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

lol, good call Scott

Gotta love a guy who gambles it all on his own money though.

"how about three thousand a game fats? thats my entire bankroll my life's savings. alls you have to do is beat me the first game and I'm on my way back to california"

 

[pwd72s]

more importantly, what do you think bert whispers to her before she goes nuts?

In real life? Probably something like: "This is the 14th take...let's both work really hard at getting this right so we can go to lunch."

 

[Scott Lee]

Rich93...In Dyer's "The Hustler and The Champ", Mosconi tells a story about how Gleason used to hustle all the set guys on the Honeymooners, who would go play at 7/11, and rooms like that, after work. Somebody who knew Mosconi, got him to come up to NY, from Philly, and "hook up" a game with Gleason (this was before The Hustler, and could have one reason why Gleason was chosen for the role). Anyway, Mosconi pretended to be a garment buyer, and beat Gleason two or three times, pretty good, before Gleason wised up, and realized, "Geez, dis guy can REALLY play!" After getting the cheese, Mosconi told Gleason who he was, and Gleason felt like a dope! LOL

Although today, if you can run 50 balls, you "got game", back in that era, occasional 50-ball runners were a dime a dozen. Gleason did play just "okay" for those days. Most guys in the poolroom (real players) could run 50 almost any time. In those days, it was not uncommon for guys trying to get action, to play "100 or no count", which means if they didn't run 100, every time they got to the table, their score didn't count in the game. The opponent got to keep all his points. That's pretty STRONG! I've even heard that there were guys in NYC, who gambled at "200 or no count"! :yikes: Now THAT's a player! :grin-square:

Both Newman and Gleason definitely LOOKED the part of real poolplayers! Props to Mosconi for that! :thumbup:

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

I would say Gleason was better than pretty good. I can't remember the exact quote, but Mosconi said something like "Gleason was able to run 40 or 50 balls on occasion". Running 40 or 50 on occasion deserves good without the pretty - and this from a guy who was a show business phenomenon (our younger readers may not realize just how big a star Gleason was in the early days of TV). I had also read somewhere that his high run was 80 balls on a 5x10 table, but I can't remember where I saw that (or even be sure that I did see it). Mosconi said Gleason was the best of the show biz pool players, and he knew all of them.

It's true that Newman had never played. Mosconi's job was not to make him a good player but to make him handle himself like a good player, like a hustler, knowing that Mosconi could shoot for him in the picture. But actually Newman did a lot of his own shooting - when you saw just hands, that was Mosconi, but you saw Newman take many shots himself and he did look good. Of course, Newman was one talented guy - look how he became a serious auto racer in middle age.