Daily Dialogue — June 20, 2018

“Five hundred thousand dollars to win. Lucky Dan. Third race at Riverside.”

— The Sting (1973), written by David Ward

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Heist.

Trivia: David S. Ward got the idea for this movie when he was working on the script for Steelyard Blues (1973), which includes a pickpocketing scene. Researching this, Ward found himself reading about con artists. Ward had shown the other screenplay to Tony Bill, so he now gave him an outline of this story. Bill liked it immediately and brought in Julia Phillips and Michael Phillips; the three then produced both films. Ward wrote the script with Robert Redford in mind as Hooker, but Redford initially turned the part down. Even after changing his mind, he didn’t expect the movie to be a hit. Robert Shaw got the part of Lonnegan only after Richard Boone and another actor had declined it. George Roy Hill saw the screenplay by accident and asked for the director’s job. He routinely showed his projects to Paul Newman, and Newman was pleased to join this one. Hill wanted to film the picture on location, but Henry Bumstead was adamant that it would be much too hard to get the period appearance right; for example, things like lane markings on the streets. In the end, the only location shooting was a few days’ worth in Chicago and Los Angeles; most of the exteriors were filmed on Universal’s back lot.

Dialogue On Dialogue: This line of dialogue is the equivalent of ‘setting the hook,’ getting Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) to drop a half million dollars on a bet he is about to lose. The Sting is one of the classic heist movies.