This won Best Picture Oscar? I can understand why it was a big hit – plenty of twists in the story, humour, two big stars at their peak, period flavour, Scott Joplin’s music – but an Oscar? Each to their own, I suppose. Paul Newman and Robert Redford again work well together, even if Redford’s part really should have been played by a younger actor (Newman keeps calling him “kid” but it doesn’t work) and Newman’s character is so skilled and smart you don’t believe he’s down and out at the beginning. It’s a shame they couldn’t have given Newman and Redford better looking women to bed – maybe they figured that would distract from their bromance.
The support cast is littered with vaguely familiar middle aged character actors, like Ray Walston and Charles Durning. This is very pro-con man – the cons are loveable types who team up to beat a nasty gangster (Robert Shaw). I think of all the professions glamorised by the movies out of proportion to what they are in real life, it would be con men. In reality, they tend to be sociopaths who prey on the elderly, sick and infirm. In movies they’re always taking on people who deserve to be robbed. (As if Redford wouldn't have accepted the money at the end).
It was made by Univeral which might explains why the period detail and costumes, etc looks a little cheap and ugly. Films from that studio never looked as good as those from the others. Best moment: when the girl who's slept with Redford is killed. That was a genuine shock.
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