Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) and Charlie Burns (Myron McCormick) adjourn to a bar, where they let it be known they’re headed to a sales convention in Pittsburgh. The men shoot pool, and the inebriated Eddie loses bet after bet to his pal by boasting he can repeat a lucky shot. Charlie refuses to keep taking Eddie’s cash, but a greedy bartender takes the bet. Eddie buries the shot.

The cocky pool shark known as “Fast Eddie” next enters Ames Billiard Hall in New York. “Church of the Good Hustler,” he says to his manager Charlie, who proclaims, “Looks more like a morgue to me. Those tables are the slabs they lay the stiffs on.” Ames has “no bar, no pinball machines, no bowling alley, just pool, nothing else.” Eddie is here on a mission to beat the legendary Minnesota Fats – who hasn’t lost in fifteen years – in a game of straight pool.

Fats (Jackie Gleason) enters at eight pm, wearing a three piece suit, carnation and gold rings. Twelve hours later, Eddie has hooked him for $11,400. Charlie wants to quit while they’re ahead, but this isn’t about money to Eddie, who won’t end the game until Fats says it’s over. The titanic match attracts the attention of stakehorse Bert Gordon (George C. Scott), who sits in and quickly sums Eddie up as “a loser.”

Sure enough, after too many bottles of J.T.S. Brown, Eddie stumbles out of the pool hall thirteen hours later with an epic hangover and only $200 to his name. He leaves Charlie in shame and checks his belongings into a bus station locker. In the coffeeshop, he meets a lush named Sarah (Piper Laurie) who is also adrift in the night.

Eddie stumbles into Bert Gordon, who tells the kid he has talent, but lacks character. He offers to help Eddie raise the bankroll he needs to challenge Fats to a rematch, staking him for 75% of his winnings. With Sarah in tow, the men head to the Kentucky Derby for billiards against a gentleman gambler (Murray Hamilton). Sarah and Gordon battle for Eddie’s soul, while the hustler becomes even more obsessed with beating Fats.

Directed by Robert Rossen and adapted by Sidney Carroll and Rossen from the 1959 novel by Walter Tevis, The Hustler clocks in at 134 minutes, and requires the devotion of either a cinema lover, or pool hall junkie to truly enjoy. Nothing moves fast in the movie, but – in a change of pace from the inspirational sports drama – Paul Newman personifies what it’s like to hit rock bottom as a gamer.

The Hustler examines an anti-hero, what happens when a winning streak enters his life, and tells that story with style. Shot in stark black and white and employing the widescreen “CinemaScope” aspect ratio, Rossen and director of photography Eugen Shuftan recreate the atmosphere of the old school pool hall, with its highs and lows rendered in fine detail. The way the players move across the frame – studied by the mooches who live off pool action – is almost poetry.

Newman, Gleason and General George C. Scott are terrific to watch at work. A game devoted to knocking balls across a table isn’t a dramatic backdrop for a movie, but the cynical story comments on greed, pride, alcohol, and how much a player is willing to lose so he can say he “won.” The script features whipsmart dialogue throughout, and very memorable characters.

The Hustler was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Newman, Gleason, Laurie, and George C. Scott were all nominated too, though Scott turned his Oscar nomination down. A worthy sequel – The Color of Money – caught up with Eddie a quarter century later, as a liquor salesman who tries to redeem himself by schooling a new kid in the ways of the pool hall hustle.