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The con man who teaches the trade
In The Sting, released in 1973 and directed by George Roy Hill, Paul Newman plays Henry Gondorff, a master con artist in 1930s Chicago who takes a young grifter under his wing to pull off one enormous swindle. Robert Redford plays Johnny Hooker, the young man whose friend is murdered by a crime boss, Doyle Lonnegan, played by Robert Shaw. Hooker wants revenge, and Gondorff, once the greatest con man of his generation but now drinking too much and hiding from the law, agrees to help him. Together they plan “the wire,” an elaborate fake betting parlour designed to take Lonnegan for a fortune. The film is a caper, a comedy, and a piece of period nostalgia all at once, and Newman is at the centre of it, calm, amused, and always one step ahead.
Gondorff is a wonderful Newman role because he is a teacher as much as a thief. He does not simply plan the con; he shows Hooker how to think like a con man. He explains that a good con is not about trickery, but about trust. The victim must believe he is the clever one, outsmarting everyone else, while in fact he is walking exactly where the con men want him to go. Newman plays Gondorff as a man who has learned this lesson the hard way. He is older than Hooker, wearier, and more cynical, but he still loves the game. When he puts on a suit, practices his accent, and becomes a respectable Chicago businessman for the purposes of the swindle, we see the actor’s own pleasure in performance. Gondorff is playing a part, and Newman is playing a man playing a part, and both performances are delightful.
Chicago in the 1930s, in ragtime
One of the reasons The Sting was such a huge success is its loving recreation of 1930s America. The film is divided into chapters with old-fashioned title cards, like a novel, and it is scored with the ragtime piano music of Scott Joplin, especially “The Entertainer,” which became a hit all over again in 1973. The costumes, the cars, the offices, and the betting parlour are all rendered in warm, golden colours, as if the Depression were a storybook rather than a hardship. Hill knew exactly what he was doing. He was not making a documentary about crime. He was making a fairy tale for adults, in which clever, charming rogues outwit a violent, greedy villain, and the audience is invited to root for the rogues.
Newman fits this world perfectly because he never makes Gondorff seem cruel. The con men in The Sting steal, but they steal from a man who has murdered and cheated his way to wealth, and the film is careful to keep the moral balance in their favour. Gondorff is generous to his team, loyal to his friends, and kind to Hooker, even when Hooker makes mistakes. When the plan goes wrong — and it goes wrong several times, with corrupt policemen, rival gangsters, and Lonnegan’s own men closing in — Gondorff never panics. He adjusts, he improvises, and he trusts his partners. Newman plays this steadiness with a twinkle in his eye, as if to say that the real pleasure of the con is not the money, but the elegance of the plan itself.
The twist that fooled everyone
The climax of The Sting is one of the most famous twists in cinema, and it works because the film has been honest with the audience without ever giving the game away. Without spoiling it for first-time viewers, it is enough to say that the final scene, in which the con appears to collapse into violence, is itself part of the con, and that even the audience, who have been watching every step of the plan, are fooled for a few seconds. When the truth is revealed, and Gondorff and Hooker walk away with Lonnegan’s money, the relief and delight in the cinema are complete. Newman plays the reveal with perfect understatement. He does not celebrate or gloat. He simply walks away, as if this were just another day’s work, and that restraint makes the moment funnier and more satisfying.
The film won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and it became one of the highest-grossing films of the decade. It also cemented the Newman-Redford partnership that had begun with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Where Butch had been the talkative dreamer to Sundance’s silent gunman, Gondorff is the experienced mentor to Hooker’s eager pupil, and the chemistry between the two actors is just as strong. They make friendship look easy, which is the hardest thing of all to fake on screen.
Why Gondorff endures
Henry Gondorff endures as a signature Newman role because he brings together the actor’s two great gifts: charm and intelligence. Gondorff is not a brute or a bully. He wins by thinking, by planning, and by understanding people better than they understand themselves. Newman, who was forty-eight when he made the film, plays him as a man at the peak of his powers but old enough to know that power is temporary. He drinks too much, he has enemies, and he knows that one mistake could end his career or his life. That edge of danger keeps the comedy honest. We laugh with Gondorff, but we also worry for him, and that combination is what makes The Sting more than a clever puzzle.
Watch The Sting for Newman’s face during the long con scenes. Notice how little he does, how calm he remains while everyone around him is nervous, and how a small smile tells us that he already knows how the scene will end. That is the essence of the character, and of the actor. Gondorff does not need to raise his voice to be in charge, and neither did Newman. In a film full of noise, music, and elaborate deception, the quietest man in the room is the one running the show.