Tag Archives: Paul Newman

The Color of Money

The Color of MoneyIt’s hard for me to imagine that more than a handful of my blog’s visitors and readers have yet to see the 1986 billiards movie masterpiece The Color of Money.  As this is my 50th blog post, rather than attempt to review this film, I thought I would commemorate it with an appropriately-titled quiz, “50 Questions about The Color of Money.”  Answers appear after the quiz, including some detailed explanations.   Though I anticipate a lot of you will be able to answer many of these questions, I suspect precious few can answer them all, as they range from the easy to the esoteric.   For those who can answer more than 40, you are truly Balabushka-worthy.  Enjoy!

Origins

  1. How many years occurred before The Color of Money was made as a sequel to The Hustler?
  2. Who wrote the book The Color of Money?
  3. In preparation for the movie, who said, “I know nothing about pool.”
  4. Why does Jackie Gleason’s character, Minnesota Fats, not appear in The Color of Money?
  5. Who convinced Martin Scorsese to make The Color of Money?

Actors

The Color of Money

  1. Which three actors have received Oscar nominations since the release of The Color of Money?
  2. Who won a Best Actor Oscar for his acting in The Color of Money?
  3. Who plays Amos, the young man who successfully hustles Eddie?
  4. What actor, who frequently appears in Spike Lee and Coen Brother movies, plays Julian?
  5. What actress from The Color of Money first appeared on-screen as an uncredited extra in another Martin Scorsese film, The King of Comedy?

Quotes

  1. Who provides the opening voiceover in which the game of 9-ball is described?
  2. What does Carmen tell Eddie he’ll be doing if he wins one more game (against Grady Seasons)?
  3. According to Eddie, what are the two things one needs to win?
  4. Who said the memorable quote, “It’s like a nightmare isn’t it?  It just keeps getting worse and worse.  The impossible dream.”?
  5. What are the final two words spoken in the movie?

Critical Reaction

  1. What film critic panned The Color of Money, calling one of its pool sequences “gimmickry that looked like it had been set up for a TV commercial”?The Color of Money
  2. What newspaper ran a review of The Color of Money, calling it “a white Cadillac among the other mainstream American movies of the season”?
  3. How many Oscar nominations did The Color of Money receive?
  4. What film critic said, “If this film had been directed by someone else, I might have thought differently about it because I might not have expected so much.”?
  5. What newspaper ran a review of The Color of Money, calling it “a scratch, a contrived cliffhanger that sets us up for Hustler III”?

Music

  1. What famous Warren Zevon classic was used when Vince first plays Moselle and introduces him to “Doom” (the Balabushka in the case)?
  2. What song did Eric Clapton write and sing specifically for The Color of Money?
  3. What punk rocker makes a cameo as one of the many people Vincent hustles on the road?
  4. What famous musician produced the soundtrack to The Color of Money?
  5. What song is the lounge singer singing in the Atlantic City green room?

Pool Professionals

  1. Tom Cruise did all his own trick shots, except the shot in which he jumped two balls. Who made that shot?
  2. What professional pool player plays Vincent’s nemesis, Grady Seasons?
  3. What four pool professionals had speaking roles in The Color of Money?
  4. What two professional pool players served as the principal technical consultants in the movie?
  5. In 1996, what two professional pool players competed in an event called “The Color of Money,” a three-day race-to-120 challenge match of 9-ball?

Pool Playing

  1. What’s the name of the initial hustle that Eddie teaches Vince and Carmen?
  2. What type of pool cue was made to look like the famous Balabushka that Eddie gives to Vincent?
  3. As Eddie starts to regain his confidence, what kind of “trick” 8-ball shot does he successfully make?
  4. In contrasting the game of 9-ball to straight pool, what two games does Eddie mockingly compare 9-ball to?
  5. In which ball does Eddie see his reflection when he decides to forfeit at the Atlantic City 9-Ball Classic tournament?

Locales

  1. What is the name of the real-life pool bar where Eddie first discovers Vincent and hears his “sledgehammer break”?
  2. To what restaurant does Eddie take Carment and Vincent for a meal and a lesson in “human moves”?
  3. What famous Chicago billiards hall is used in the scene where Vince first plays Grady Seasons?
  4. Where was the final Atlantic City 9-Ball Classic tournament actually filmed?
  5. What former billiards hall was used for the scene in which Eddie is hustled by Amos?

Cultural Impact and References

  1. What comedic actor made a parody of The Color of Money called The Hustler of Money in which Vince is now an amazingly talented bowler?Color of Money
  2. What NBC comedy television show featured a spoof of the “Werewolves of London” scene, with both characters stripping out of their clothes?
  3. What first-person video shooter game got its name from a scene in The Color of Money?
  4. According to movie historians Ray Didinger and Glen Macnow, what movie was a cross between The Color of Money and Dumb and Dumber?
  5. In the movie Poolhall Junkies, Mars Callahan’s character, Johnny Doyle, wears a black shirt with white lettering that is intentionally a reference to the shirt Vince wears in The Color of Money.  What does Doyle’s shirt say?

Movie Minutia

  1. What video game does Vincent play and describe as tougher than 9-ball?
  2. At what toy store does Vincent work?
  3. What is the license plate of Eddie’s Cadillac?
  4. What is Vincent’s last name?
  5. How much did The Color of Money gross domestically?

 NOW THE ANSWERS

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The Hustler: The Genre’s Masterpiece

The irony of writing about The Hustler, the most critically acclaimed and well-known billiards movie, is that for many, it was not really a movie about pool.  As film critic Roger Ebert wrote, “Billiards is the arena for the movie’s contests, but…the film could be about any seedy game depending on bluff, self-confidence, money management and psychology.” And critic James Bernardinelli, who, like Ebert, also gave the movie his highest rating, said, “this movie is no more about pool than Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull is about boxing…the film is far less about Fast Eddie’s confrontations with other players than it is about his war with his own demons and his struggle to define the intangible meaning of ‘character.'”

The Hustler - Billiards MoviesOne thing is certain: Robert Rossen’s 1961 B&W film, based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis, is a masterpiece.  The movie received 3 Golden Globe nominations, 2 Oscars (for Art Direction and Cinematography), and 7 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.  All four stars got Oscar nods, as did the director and screenwriter. The movie is on multiple American Film Institute lists. And among most pool movie fans (who really don’t understand what these critics are yammering about), The Hustler is far and away the best of the genre.

In brief, the movie is about small-time pool hustler “Fast Eddie” Felson (played by Paul Newman) whose amount of cockiness and bravado is only matched by his skill with a cue stick.  His desire to prove himself the best leads to a 40-hour straight pool match and loss against legend Minnesota Fats (played by Jackie Gleason).  Humiliated, Felson bottoms out and gets involved first with a hopeless alcoholic (played by Piper Laurie) and then with a vicious manager (played by George C. Scott). Felson ultimately has his rematch against Fats, but not before paying a terrible price and learning much about his own character.

Aside from the incredible acting, direction, screenplay (jointly written by Sidney Caroll and Robert Rossen) and jazz score, the film succeeds because of the unbelievable pool.

For starters, The Hustler was the first full-length movie to prominently feature pool (excluding the 1935 romantic comedy Bad Boy, which I’ll discuss in subsequent post).  Though filmed in 1961, the movie heralded an earlier era, when pool halls were far more common and the place where regional, if not national reputations, could be cemented.

The Hustler also brought gritty realism and respect to the filming of pool through the many choices the director and producer made. They set much of the movie in two now-defunct New York City pool halls, McGirr’s and Ames Billiard Academy, that were great establishments of the time.  They hired pool legend Willie Mosconi to personally coach Paul Newman and to serve as the movie’s technical advisor. (For a great breakdown of some of the key shots in the movie, including the opening frozen 8-ball on the rail shot, check out Dr. Dave’s write-up in the August 2004 Billiards Digest.) They also gave Mosconi a cameo as the man who holds the initial stakes.  Gleason, of course, needed no such coaching, as he was already an incredible billiards player, which only added to the movie’s realism.  And finally, they devoted 20 uninterrupted minutes — an inconceivable amount of time back then — to filming the initial pool match.

But, perhaps the greatest aspect of The Hustler is what it did for the game of pool itself.  According to the article “Reel Life: The Hustler“:

Pool was very popular from the turn of the century until World War II. According to one estimate, in the late 1920s there were about 40,000 pool halls in the U.S. But after the war, the game went into a steep, rapid decline, with many poolrooms closing. “By the end of the 1950s, it looked as though the game might pass into oblivion,” writes pool historian Mike Shamos. The Hustler created a resurgence in the game in the 1960s, and its sequel — The Color of Money — which came out in 1986, spiked another pool revival.

So, whatever foibles the movie may have, The Hustler deserves great respect from the pool-playing community for its representation and respect of the sport and for the future impact it had both on pool-playing and on the genre of pool movies.  As it is said in the film’s final lines:

Fast Eddie:  Fat Man, you shoot a great game of pool.

Minnesota Fats:  So do you, Fast Eddie.