Search - The Hustler on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Adult Situations Movie Release: 1961 DVD Release: 06/04/2002 Format: DVD - Black and White,Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV - Closed Captioned Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 2 hrs 15 mins Studio: 20th Century Fox Members Wishing: 14 Genres: Drama, Psychological Drama, Sports Drama See Also: The Hustler

As The Hustler's "Fast" Eddie Felson, Paul Newman created a classic antihero, charismatic but fundamentally flawed, and nobody's role model. A pool player from Oakland, CA, as good as anyone who ever picked up a cue, Eddie has an Achilles' heel: arrogance. It's not enough for him to win: he must force his opponent to acknowledge his superiority. The movie follows Eddie from his match against billiards champ Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) as he falls in love with Sarah (Piper Laurie), an alcoholic would-be writer and sometime prostitute, and falls under the spell of Bert Gordon (George C. Scott), a successful gambler who offers to take Eddie under his wing and teach him how to play in the big time. However, when Sarah joins Eddie and Bert on a trip to Louisville for a high-stakes match with a dandy named Findlay (Murray Hamilton), the consequences prove tragic. Along with a classic performance by Newman, The Hustler also features turns by Scott, Laurie, and Gleason, in a rare dramatic role. Cameos from pool champ Willie Mosconi and boxer Jake LaMotta add to the atmosphere of Harry Horner's grubby production design and Eugen Schüfftan's camerawork. Director Robert Rossen, who had been working in films since 1937, was to direct only one more film, Lilith (1964), before his death in 1966. In 1986, Newman returned to the role of "Fast" Eddie in Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money, for which he finally earned an Academy Award as Best Actor. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Paul Newman - "Fast" Eddie Felson
Jackie Gleason - Minnesota Fats
Piper Laurie - Sarah Packard
George C. Scott - Bert Gordon
Myron McCormick - Charlie Bums

Lovingly restored and featured on a disc with a bevy of solid extras, this 20th Century Fox Special Edition of The Hustler could be used as a template for releasing other classic movies on DVD. Listed at a budget price, the disc features a pristine widescreen anamorphic transfer that shows off Eugene Schuftan's starkly beautiful black-and-white Oscar-winning cinematography. Paul Newman should have won an Academy Award for his typically exceptional performance in The Hustler and he's featured in both the engaging audio commentary track and in a much better than average making-of documentary entitled "The Huster: The Inside Story." The kind of gritty, tough yet humanistic movie that mainstream Hollywood just doesn't make anymore, both the commentary track and the documentary about The Hustler should be of interest to filmmakers, students, and fans alike. The DVD also contains a featurette on how to do the trick pool shoots that are contained in the movie and the good people at 20th Century Fox have close-captioned the disc for the hearing impaired. The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track comes in both stereo and mono (the original film was released in mono) and the track sounds clean and well balanced in either version. This quality disc is worthy of the upscale Criterion Collection, yet the extremely reasonable list price on The Hustler disc is less than half of what consumers so often pay for lavishly produced DVD reissues such as this. If only the major studios treated all of their classic films in the same loving manner which they've treated The Hustler. ~ Nick Dedina, All Movie Guide