Ah, pool . . . straight pool, eight-ball, nine ball, bank shots, massès, women bending over in public. The chalk, the pockets, that smooth fabric on the table . . . is it felt? Yes, but only when I'm feeling randy! As Fast Eddie Felson puts it: "When I'm goin', when I'm really goin', I feel like a, like a jockey must feel when he's sittin' on his horse . . . It's a great feeling, boy--it's a real great feeling--when you're right and you know you're right. Like all of a sudden, I got oil in my arm. Pool cue's part of me." To paraphrase another working class poet, Homer Simpson: if horseracing is the Sport of Kings, surely pool is a very good sport too.
Men like you and me will never be as good as Fast Eddie Felson (men like me will never be as good as my nine year old cousin Valerie). But we can still see the beauty of the game like he did. Still feel the power when we sink something . . . sink anything. Sure, those moments are few and far between, but ah, what a rush. So why does malevolent gambler Bert Gordon (the recently deceased George C. Scott, and no relation to schlock king Bert I. Gordon) think Fast Eddie Felson is a loser?
Well, the accusation is that he lacks "character"? This is the same charge that they leveled at President Clinton (another very handsome man), and as with Slick Willie, it just doesn't stick. Fast Eddie is played by Paul Newman, and Paul Newman has played bad men (Hud), and weak men (Frank Galvin in The Verdict), and misfits (Cool Hand Luke), but a loser? Never.
He's a bit immature, I'll grant Gordon that. In the big match that opens the game, he takes on Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason), and pretty much has him beat--he's up nearly twenty-thousand dollars, he's shooting like a Gatling gun in a Clint Eastwood movie, and the only thing that can beat him is himself. But when a game goes on for 40 hours, it takes more than skill to get by. When Fats heads into the bathroom, cleans himself up, and comes out looking fresh, pink and new, Fast Eddie just takes another gulp of whiskey and loses his cool. And starts to lose the game.
But anyone who's seen Martin Scorsese's sequel, The Color of Money, knows that Fast Eddie eventually developed some character. So where did it come from? That, my friends, is the story which The Hustler aims to tell.
Surprisingly, for a story about gaining character, it involves a woman. The woman in question is Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie), an alcoholic with a childhood polio disfigurement who has strong hatred for men. In other words, a catch. Fast Eddie meets her in a bus station, and they become lovers. But it ain't much of a relationship--mostly sex, and booze--Sarah describes it as a "contract of depravity" . . . okay, I know that sounds pretty good, but for purposes of this review, let's say it's not much of a relationship.
But there's some love there, amid all the desperation . . . is such a relationship doomed to failure? Will Eddie's obsession with being top dog at pool alienate Sarah and send her on a downward spiral that will eventually force Fast Eddie into a confrontation with his demons, and will he emerge a winner, or a broken man?
These are all juicy questions, and the answers lie at your local video store where you can pick up a copy of The Hustler. Again in the words of Homer Simpson, this time an exact quote but taken bafflingly out of context, "It's fan-fugu-tastic."
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