Title: The Hustler
This week I read Walter Tevis’ The Hustler and then watched the 1961 film starring Paul Newman. They both start out the same and kind of have the same climax, but do have significant differences.
The story centers around Fast Eddie Felson. Eddie is an up and coming pool hustler. He and his partner, Charlie, are touring from town to town hustling small stakes pool. Their goal is to build a large enough stake to take on the best pool hustler in the country, Minnesota Fats.
They arrive at Fats’ pool hall and Eddie starts playing Fats. The two fight a see-saw battle until it appears that Eddie is going to decisively beat Fats. However, Fats gains a second wind that Eddie can’t respond to. Eddie ends up losing all of his money and collapses to the ground.
Now reduced to poverty again, Eddie meets a lonely alcoholic named Sarah at a bus station cafeteria. They strike up an uneasy friendship that becomes an affair. Determined to build another stake so that he can challenge Fats again, Eddie begins playing low stakes pool again. At one particularly seedy pool hall, he plays a little too well and the patrons there break both of his thumbs as punishment. He has reached a nadir.
Meanwhile, a gambler named Bert Gordon has taken an interest in him. Having seen him lose to Fats, Bert tells Eddie that, although he’s the best pool player that he’s ever seen, Eddie lacks character. Eddie’s always looking for an excuse to lose instead of willing his way to victory. Bert must see potential for Eddie because he agrees to finance Eddie’s comeback, albeit with a 75% commission.
Here the film diverges from the novel. In the novel, Eddie leaves Sarah behind to go to play a Kentucky high stakes billiards player with Bert. In Kentucky, he plays and beats the Kentucky hustler, winning enough funds to be able to challenge Fats again. Back in town with Sarah again, their relationship is left in a muddied state after he nearly bought an engagement ring for her but instead settled for a more innocuous watch. He plays Fats again. After some setbacks, his will to win overpowers Fats and Fats concedes defeat. Bert then steps in and announces that he is now Eddie’s manager and that he has already lined up his next matches. Eddie refuses but Bert makes clear that he’s a dead man unless he acquiesces. Eddie realizes that Bert is a crime boss and that he is now stuck in his web.
In the film, Sarah goes with Bert and Eddie to Kentucky. There Sarah gets very drunk. When she comes to, she sees that Eddie is being defeated by the Kentucky hustler. She implores him to stop hustling and to make a new life with just the two of them. Angrily he pushes her away. After she leaves, Eddie continues playing and eventually beats the hustler. Bert gets back to their hotel before Eddie. There he seduces Sarah with alcohol. While Bert is passed out, Sarah goes into the bathroom and kills herself. When Eddie gets back to the hotel, he angrily attacks Bert. Back in the city, Eddie challenges Fats, ultimately beating him. Bert demands his share of Eddie’s profits. By invoking Sarah’s name, Eddie gets Bert to back down. Bert agrees to let him go on the condition that he give up pool hustling. The film ends with Eddie walking out of the pool hall.
The film is considered a classic. It received multiple acting nominations for Paul Newman as Fast Eddie, Piper Laurie as Sarah, George C Scott as Bert, and Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats.
Here’s the thing. I actually really didn’t like the film all that much, especially in comparison to the novel. First, and most importantly, even though all of those actors received Academy acting nominations, none of them really did anything for me. Laurie was kind of a blank as Sarah. Scott was blustery as Bert when in the novel he’s more like a cold, calculating machine. Gleason barely had any lines. He was kind of a cipher. In the novel, Fats is huge. Gleason really isn’t all that large of a man. At best, he was more like Minnesota Portly.
Newman was the biggest disappointment. In Tevis’ novel, Eddie is quick witted, charming, and full of life. Certainly Newman has the capability to play him like that, but here he seems strangely flat. I was expecting a larger than life portrayal like Brando’s Kowalski in Streetcar.
The relationship between Eddie and Sarah on the film is similarly empty. These are both people that, for one reason or another, are reluctant or maybe find it even impossible to be in love, but yet find themselves possibly falling in love. In the film, there’s just no screen chemistry between Newman and Laurie. The two characters barely seem to even like each other.
Bert’s sexual aggression and Sarah’s resulting suicide muddies the central theme of Eddie’s willingness to sacrifice all for the sake of winning. In the novel, this is a much cleaner line. Does Eddie want the chance for conventional love and happiness or does he choose the life of winning at all costs? Adding the complexity of making Bert a sexual predator detracts from that. Having Sarah commit suicide seems just a device for emotional conflict.
The novel is written with a masculine sparseness that I found reminiscent of Hemingway. The film tries to accomplish this with a noirish feel, but falls short.
The novel also effectively brings us into the world of pool halls and hustling. The feel and smell of the pool hall and the men that loiter in them are all brought out in full detail. The thrill of an all night hustle with the full range of its emotional valleys and mountaintops are eloquently portrayed.
The murky state of Eddie’s and Sarah’s relationship and the trap that he’s fallen into of Bert’s making ends the novel on the perfect note.
If you’re given the choice, I’d recommend reading the novel.
dorkenstein 