The Sting

Not only does it sting, it floats like a butterfly as well.

Academy Award Winner Best Picture, Academy Award Winner Best Director-George Roy Hill, Academy Award Winner Best Screenplay-David S. Ward, Academy Award Winner Best Editing-William Reynolds, Academy Award Winner Best Song Score-Marvin Hamlisch, Academy Award Winner Best Art Direction/Set Decoration-Bumstead & Payne, Academy Award Winner Best Costume Design-Edith Head, Nominated for Best Actor (Redford), Best Cinematography, Best Sound.

Few films can draw me in and indulge me on repeat viewings like The Sting does, it was barely 36 hours ago when I sat there talking to the screen offering advice like I was in the flipping film. I have seen it written that the film's success wa...

Say what you like about the undoubted chemistry between Paul Newman ("Henry") and Robert Redford ("Johnny") this film belongs to a superb effort from the understated but hugely entertaining Robert Shaw. He's the hard-nosed gangster "Lonnegan" who gets (anonymously) fleeced by a "Johnny" who quickly decides that discretion is the better part of valour and gets out of Dodge. It's at this stage that the two grifters decide that their mark could be good for a great deal more money and so set up an elaborate operation purporting to be an undercover betting (on horses) proposition. Now "Lonnegan" ain't no easy target and every step they take is filled with danger - but slowly and surely the two, alongside a veritable army of fellow cons, start to...

It is imperative to rediscover this magnificent film.

There are many films about con artists and confidence games (Oceans Eleven and its two or three sequels, for example), but I had never seen one that was so good-natured and in which the main characters were so likable. It's a light, family comedy from the 70s, in which a group of tricksters decides to risk their lives to deceive a powerful and rich mobster in order to avenge a friend, killed by his hitmen. This film was, at the time, a huge financial success in the USA and won notable awards, especially seven Academy Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Soundtrack, Best Original Screenplay, Best Costume Design, Best Editing and Best Art Direction!

Therefore, it is di...