the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, this week joined by special guest Gerry Mooney, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This time, George Roy Hill’s The Sting.

When a simple con leads to horrific consequences, amateur con artist Johnny Hooker vows to avenge himself on crime boss Doyle Lonnegan. Enlisting the help of over-the-hill veteran Henry Gondorff and a motley crew of small-time hoods, Hooker sets in motion an elaborate con game with potentially disastrous consequences.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 100th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Show notes:

• Recorded 10th February 2019.
• Note: While it’s debated on the podcast, there is some ambiguity about the instruction given to Lonnegan at the climax; the phone call instructs him to “place it on Lucky.”
• The Sting at The Internet Movie Database.
• The IMDB 250 as it appeared at time of recording.
• UCD archive of the construction of the Savoy Cinema, 2015.
• Des Kerins talks about the Savoy at Arthur Lloyd, 2009.
• Paul Markey at RTÉ on the history and legacy of the Savoy Cinema in Dublin, November 2017.
• Scott Tobias at The A.V. Club on the popularity and the success of The Sting, June 2012.
• Roger Ebert reviews The Sting for The Chicago-Sun Times, December 1973.
• Andrew Pulver argues for The Sting as the best “Best Picture” winner at The Guardian, February 2017.
• Evan Saathoff at birth.death.movies argues that The Sting was a gentler movie than many of its New Hollywood contemporaries, January 2015.
• Sarah Weinman at Crime Reads on Davie Maurer’s anthropological study of the criminal class, January 2019.
• An excerpt from The American Confidence Man by David Maurer, June 1974.
• Druce Vertes at StreetEye compares The Sting to the work of David Maurer, August 2018.
• Comstock House looks at a real-life execution of “the wire con” in Santa Rosa at the turn of the century, June 2011.
• “Horse Play”, The Adventures of Harry Lime, November 1951.
• Andy Boyd at Engines of Our Ingenuity on the art of matte painting, February 2017.
• Vanessa Golembewski at Teen Vogue on the tendency to cast older actors as younger characters, June 2017.
• Michael Russnow at The Huffington Post on casting adult actors as teen characters, March 2011.
• Magda Origjanska at The Vintage News on the marriage between Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, November 2017.
• Pamela G. Hollie at The New York Times on the failure and decline of “First Artists” as a movie studio, December 1979.
• Fiona Tyrrell at The Irish Times on the record price for the pub lease to Judge Roy Beans in Dublin City, December 2004.
• Ken Kwapis talks to The Hollywood Reporter about the original plans to reunite Redford and Newman on A Walk in the Woods, February 2015.
• Paul Newman is profiled for The New York Times, March 1998.
• Paul Newman’s obituary at The Guardian, September 2008.
• Paul Newman’s obituary at Vanity Fair, September 2008.
• Robert Redford talks to ABC about Robert Redford, September 2008.
• Robert Redford is profiled for The New York Times, July 1974.
• Martin Arnold at The New York Times discusses the con man as a hero in American literature, June 2002.
• Ken Burns and Lynn Novick in The Atlantic on how the seventies broke the American public’s faith in the presidency, October 2017.
• Lynn Vavreck at The New York Times on America’s dwindling faith in its institutions, July 2015.
• Tom Santopietro talks to The Smithsonian Magazine about how films like The Godfather mirrored the climate of the seventies, January 2012.
• Jayne McCormack at the BBC on why actors struggle with the (Northern) Irish accent, September 2016.
• Declan Cashin at The Irish Independent on the history of foreign actors struggling with the Irish accent, January 2012.
• The Sting II at The Internet Movie Database.
• History.com on Scott Joplin’s success at the the Grammys for The Sting, November 2009.
• Alexis Soloski reviews Harry Connick Jr.’s adaptation of The Sting for The New York Times, April 2018.
• “Lions for Lambs”, Don’t Stop Or We’ll Die, November 2018.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: con artists, film, gerry mooney, Great Depression, Movie, new hollywood, nostalgia, Paul Newman, podcast, Robert Redford, the sting |