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The Sting

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Also known as Sting

1973 film by George Roy Hill

OverviewAI-generated

The Sting is a 1973 American film directed by George Roy Hill and written by David S. Ward. Produced by Tony Bill, Julia Phillips, and Michael Phillips, the movie stars Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, and Charles Durning. It is classified as a heist, buddy, comedy, and drama film, with gambling and organized crime as its main subjects. The narrative is set in Chicago, while filming took place in Santa Monica, Chicago, and LaSalle Street Station.

The film was distributed by Universal Pictures and Netflix. It received the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Writing, Original Screenplay. Other nominations included Best Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing. Marvin Hamlisch composed the music, and the original motion picture soundtrack was released in 1974. The film has a runtime of 129 minutes and a budget of 5,500,000.

Synthesized by Vinony from 45 facts across 6 sources: Wikidata, TMDb, IMDb, MusicBrainz, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Film · TMDB

8.0

A novice con man teams up with an acknowledged master to avenge the murder of a mutual friend by pulling off the ultimate big con and swindling a fortune from a big-time mobster.

Released: 1973-12-25129 minDir: George Roy HillComedy, Crime, DramaBudget: $5.5MBox office: $160MPart of: The Sting Collection

Cast

  • Paul Newman as Henry Gondorff
  • Robert Redford as Johnny Hooker
  • Robert Shaw as Doyle Lonnegan
  • Charles Durning as Lt. Wm. Snyder
  • Ray Walston as J.J. Singleton
  • Eileen Brennan as Billie

Themes

  • bet
  • chicago, illinois
  • repayment
  • horse race
  • con man
  • mafia boss
  • heist
  • caper
  • ragtime
  • off track betting

This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.

Ratings

IMDb

8.2/10

302,333 votes

Year
1973
Runtime
129 min
Genres
Comedy, Crime, Drama

via IMDb

~17 min read

Encyclopedic overview

The Sting is a 1973 American caper film. Set in 1936, it involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss (Robert Shaw). The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who had directed Newman and Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). The screenplay by David S. Ward was inspired by real-life cons perpetrated by brothers Fred and Charley Gondorff and documented by David Maurer in his 1940 book The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man.

The film plays out in sections introduced by old-fashioned title cards, drawn by artist Jaroslav "Jerry" Gebr in a style reminiscent of The Saturday Evening Post. It is noted for its use of ragtime, particularly the melody "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin, which was adapted (along with other Joplin pieces) for the film by Marvin Hamlisch, producing a Billboard-topping soundtrack and a top-10 single. The film's success created a resurgence of interest in Joplin's work.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “The Sting” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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