The Hustler

"He is great! Geez, that old fat man. Look at the way he moves, like a dancer... And those fingers, them marshmellow fingers. And that stroke, it's like he's, uh, like he's playin' a violin or somethin.'"

"[After discovering that Charlie kept some money from him] With that fifteen hundred, I could have beat him. That's all I needed, Charlie... You'd love to keep me hustlin' for ya, huh, wouldn't ya? I mean, a couple more years with me scufflin' around in them little towns and those back alleys, you might make yourself enough to get a little pool room back in Oakland, six tables and a handbook on the side... Lay down and die by yourself."

"Now why did I do it, Sarah, why did I do it? I could've beat that guy, I could've beat him cold. He never would have known. But I just had to show him. Just had to show those creeps and those punks what the game is like when it's great, when it's really great. You know, like anything can be great, anything can be great. I don't care — brick-laying can be great if a guy knows. If he knows what he's doin' and why and if he can make it come off."

"[to Eddie] George Findley is a very rich man. His grandfather left him twenty-five percent of his tobacco company... He's a gentleman. Gentlemen gamble. He gets his kicks playin' a hustler. He's got an old Southern mansion with a pool table in the basement, drinks eight-year-old bourbon, smokes a cork-tipped cigarette... I never saw him play. They say he's one of the best... I've got confidence in Findley... That means I've got confidence that he's a loser, all the way a loser. You happen to be about only one-half loser, the other half winner."

"A motion picture that probes the stranger... the pick-up... why a man hustles for a buck or a place in the sun!"

"They called him "Fast Eddie"... He was a winner... He was a loser... He was a hustler."

"Only the angel who falls knows the depths of hell."

"It delves without compromise into the hungers that lie deep within us all."

"Trapped by the underworld . . . they risked love and fortune in a desperate gamble!"

"Paul Newman - "Fast" Eddie Felson"

"Jackie Gleason - Minnesota Fats"

"Piper Laurie - Sarah Packard"

"George C. Scott - Bert Gordon"

"Myron McCormick - Charlie Burns"

"Murray Hamilton - Findley"

"Michael Constantine - Big John"

"Jake LaMotta - Bartender"

"Vincent Gardenia - Bartender"