Trivia / The Hustler (1961)

• Billing Displacement: Jackie Gleason gets second billing yet has twenty minutes worth of screentime.
• Cast the Expert: Robert Rossen hired real street thugs and enrolled them in the Screen Actors Guild so that they could be used as extras.
• The Cast Showoff: Jackie Gleason was an accomplished pool player in Real Life; all of the shots he made in the film are his own. Paul Newman once challenged Gleason to a real pool game. After Newman broke, Gleason took his turn and sank all fifteen balls without allowing Newman another shot.
• Deleted Scene/Missing Episode:
  • A scene cut from the film had Eddie in the hospital after having his thumbs broken. More details here.
  • According to editor Dede Allen, an entire scene from this film was omitted after much deliberation between Allen and her director Robert Rossen. Even though both agreed that the scene, an impassioned speech by Eddie in the pool room, was possibly the best part of his entire performance, they had to throw it out because "...it didn't move the story." Paul Newman, though Oscar-nominated, later claimed that the deleted scene most likely cost him the Academy Award.
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • Paul Newman had never held a pool cue before he landed the role of Fast Eddie Felson. He took out the dining room table from his home and installed a pool table so he could spend every waking hour practicing and polishing up his skills.
  • Burt Gordon is always seen drinking milk while working, implying that he's The Teetotaler. George C. Scott was a heavy drinker in Real Life.
• Method Acting:
  • Prior to filming, Paul Newman had never held a pool cue before. To prepare for the role, he took out the dining room table from his home and installed a pool table so he could spend all his free time practicing.
  • As part of her research, Piper Laurie actually hung out at the Greyhound bus terminal at night.
• Playing Against Type: For both Jackie Gleason and Piper Laurie. He got to play against his well-known comedic persona, while she leaped at an opportunity to play a character who wasn't The Ingenue.
• Reality Subtext: The film was also somewhat autobiographical for Robert Rossen, relating to his dealings with the House Un-American Activities Committee. A screenwriter during the 1930s and '40s, he had been involved with the Communist Party in the 1930s and refused to name names at his first HUAC appearance. Ultimately he changed his mind and identified friends and colleagues as party members. Similarly, Felson sells his soul and betrays the one person who really knows and loves him in a Faustian pact to gain character. Rossen also takes aim at Capitalism, often showing money as a malign and corrupting influence. Felson, Bert Gordon and Findley are all shown to be perverted by their pursuit of money. Of the pool hall inhabitants, only Minnesota Fats, who never handles money himself, focusing only on the game he is playing, is uncorrupted and undamaged by the end. He is beaten, but knows when to quit. Rossen often points out and exposes class divisions, for example when Minnesota Fats asks Preacher, a junkie willing to run errands on command, to get him some "White Tavern whiskey, a glass and some ice", Eddie counters by ordering lower-shelf bourbon, without any of the niceties: "J.T.S. Brown, no ice, no glass".
• The Red Stapler: The film started a national resurgence in the popularity of pool.
• Shrug of God: Later, people would ask Piper Laurie what George C. Scott had whispered to her in one scene, but she didn't know-whatever he'd whispered was too faint for her to hear. So she asked him. Scott said, "You know, I never really said anything. I figured anything that I said would not be as powerful as what your imagination could bring."
• Star-Making Role: Paul Newman was catapulted into the top tier of Hollywood actors for his portrayal of Eddie Felson.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Scenes that were included in the shooting script but did not make it into the final film include a scene at Ames pool hall establishing that Eddie is on his way to town (originally slated to be the first scene of the film) and a longer scene of Preacher talking to Bert at Johnny's Bar which establishes Preacher is a junkie.
  • Frank Sinatra optioned the novel at one point.
  • Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Cliff Robertson turned down the role of Fast Eddie.
  • According to Bobby Darin's agent, Martin Baum, Paul Newman's agent turned down the lead role. Newman was originally unavailable to play Fast Eddie regardless, being committed to star opposite Elizabeth Taylor in Two for the Seesaw. Rossen offered Darin the part after seeing him on The Mike Wallace Interview. When Taylor was forced to drop out of Seesaw because of shooting overruns on Cleopatra, Newman was freed up to take the role, which he accepted after reading just half of the script. No one associated with the production officially notified Darin or his representatives that he had been replaced; they found out from a member of the public at a charity horse race.
  • Kim Novak turned down the role of Sarah Packard.
• Working Title: The studio suggested changing the title, as "Hustler" was also a well-established (since 1924) slang term for a prostitute. One alternate title suggested was Stroke of Luck. When cooler heads prevailed, "Stroke of Luck" was added to the Kentucky Derby scene as the name of one of the horses.

---