Unsung Heroes: The Technical Advisor on 'The Hustler'

Willie MosconiSerious Film's Michael C. here. 2011 will mark the 50th anniversary of Robert Rossen's classic The Hustler, so in this episode of Unsung Heroes I thought it a great opportunity to tip my hat to a man who is a large part of why the film is still watched and loved five decades later.

There is a vibe you get from certain films, a vibe that tells you “this movie knows what it’s talking about. This is how it really is.” The film's subject may be totally unfamiliar, space travel or gourmet cooking, but you can still sense when a film has done its homework and when it’s faking it. It’s the difference between the poker movie which simply gives the hero a royal flush, and the poker movie that knows it is more impressive to watch the hero play an average hand brilliantly.

Robert Rossen’s The Hustler is a movie you can feel knows its business cold from its first seconds. The Hustler had as technical advisor pool playing great Willie Mosconi, a man whose impact on the game of pool is comparable to Wayne Gretzky’s on hockey. His mastery seeps into every frame of this movie.

From the way the players screw their cues together to the way they call their shots this film has every detail in place. The Hustler is especially skilled at showing what happens when two competitors at the top of the game come up against each other.  A lesser movie would simply have billiard balls spinning and hopping all over the table but The Hustler is wiser than that. Thanks to Mosconi’s know-how, and the great script by Rossen, it makes clear that the game is won or loss on stamina and concentration, not on show-off displays and trick shots.

Rather than bogging it down with technical info this level of detail opens the story as a battle of personalities. The Hustler understands not only how pool is played, but how different characters types manifest themselves on the table. In one memorable exchange George C. Scott informs Newman's Fast Eddie he has the talent to be the best. When Newman asks why it was he lost anyway, Scott smirks that it was a lack of character. It's a testaments to the depth of the film's portrait of the game that we know exactly what he’s talking about.

Beyond creating a fully realized battlefield for the characters to clash, the technical know-how achieves something even more crucial to the film’s lasting success: It makes the movie incredibly cool. This is what I responded to most strongly when I first found this film as a teenager. These guys weren’t just hotshots. They were religiously devoted to the game. The question of the best was as weighty in the pool hall as it was in the world of chess or dance. With the aide of Mosconi, Rossen was able to show, for the first time to most of the public, that the pool hall was a worthy arena for this level of drama.

"Introducing" Winona Ryder. Here's to 25 Years in Movies

Congratulations to our Noni on a quarter century in the movies. Twenty-five years ago yesterday her first film (Lucas) hit movie theaters. Jump forward a quarter century and here she is again; Black Swan hits DVD today as if celebrating that very silver screen anniversary. People will be popping in the Black Swan DVD and Blu-Ray all over the place today and there she'll be, glass raised perversely. On her own behalf?

Oh sure, it's an in-character moment as "Beth", retiring prima ballerina, but don't think for a second that Black Swan's casting wasn't carefully orchestrated for the mirror affect of all those dark pale beauties not to mention the the cruel passing of the stardom and movie goddess batons.

I bring up this unpublicized anniversary because Noni could use a little public love... or at least Hollywood could use a public reminder that she still has many fans. When she's used correctly, as she was in Black Swan, she's really something else.

I fell instantly and madly in love with her the very first second I saw her in Lucas, which is as stated the first time anybody had the opportunity to see her onscreen. She was all of 14 but it wasn't pervy. This was 25 years ago and we were both babies... so age appropriate! Just look at her. This was the thunderous moment, burned forever into my brain.

I was bursting in my seat "who is this?!" Truth: This is the very first time I ever looked for a name in the movie credits. This was four years before IMDb even existed y'all. I memorized her name and hoped against all hope I'd see her again. Beetlejuice rescued me two years later. People kept calling it a "Michael Keaton Movie" and I'm like "WINONA RYDER! Squeeeee!!!" and everyone is like "who?" and after Beetlejuice nobody asked little me that anymore.

Lucas is a sweet movie but it fell apart right then and there because the whole movie is about how 14 year old Lucas (Corey Haim) has a crush on 16 year old Maggie (Kerri Green) and then THIS girl walks in, his friend Rina (Noni) and you immediately realize she loves him and he barely even notices her. So Winona is forced to look at Corey Haim (RIP) longingly for the whole movie. Like SHE is unworthy of him.

Oh, the humanity!

Do you remember the first time you saw Winona? And for those of you old enough to remember movie-watching before the internet (That would be 30somethings on up), did you ever have that "I must find out who this is!" credit scroll moment with anyone?

New to the Film Experience? Try us out for a few weeks to see if you like.
Related Posts of Note: Overheard: Black Swan, Sassy Gay Swan, Aronofsky's Favorite Actors

Tennessee 100: Baby Doll

Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here, with a last-minute postscript to Tennessee Williams Week.

Sweaty, conflicted sexuality? Check. A seedy, decaying southern setting? Check. Characters who alternate wildly between decadent hedonism and harrowing descents into madness? Yes, we're in pure Tennessee Williams country with Elia Kazan's Baby Doll, starring Carroll Baker as the titular 19-year-old minx. She's married to Archie Lee Meighan (Karl Malden), the hot-tempered owner of a local cotton gin, and together they live in a rural mansion called Tiger Tail that, like their respective families, has seen better days.

This creaky house, considered haunted by the locals, plays a role similar to that of the cramped tenement in Kazan's adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire. It helps define the film visually with its labyrinthine corridors, piled high with the detritus of the past, and it's the perfect setting for the psychosexual slapstick antics of Baby Doll and her would-be seducer, Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach). Vacarro—a Sicilian interloper who's new to the area—suspects Archie Lee of burning down his cotton gin, and he's willing to resort to some hanky-panky in order to secure proof.

So begins an absurd, twisted battle of the wills, in which the line between economic and sexual success gets blurred to the point of invisibility. Read the full post.

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"Maggie the Cat is Alive!"

Tennessee Williams Centennial Week Wraps

Maggie the Cat, the sex-starved slip-covered wife at the heart of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (discussed earlier this week) is not just alive, she keeps coming back to life. True to her feline symbolism she's had several of them, eight bigs ones actually. Who will risk playing Maggie the Cat's ninth major life and how soon will that be?

Here is a history of the key Maggies for those who love the play... or just if you like to see major actresses in their lingerie. Have you ever seen a production of this play anywhere or just the 1958 film? Do tell in the comments. Would love to hear Tin Roof stories.

1955 ~ Original Maggie

Barbara Bel Geddes, originated the role on Broadway in the 1956 and won a Tony nomination. (She lost to Julie Harris in "The Lark"). Other Key Roles: I Remember Mama (1947, Oscar nomination. Lost to Claire Trevor in Key Largo), "Midge" in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), "Mary, Mary" on Broadway (1961, Tony nomination), and "Miss Ellie Ewing" on Dallas (1978-1990, 3 nominations/1 win at the Emmys)

1958 ~ Legendary Maggie

Elizabeth Taylor slinked, steamed, pawed and nagged her way to consecutive Oscar nomination #2 in the 1958 film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Suddenly Last Summer was Oscar nom #3 in 1959. Then a win for her fourth consecutive nomination for BUtterfield 8 (1960). Many more Liz photos in the gallery section of the site. If you've been away, catch up on the Liz commemorative posts.

Elizabeth is not the only two time Oscar winner who played Maggie. Lots of stars have slinked around in that white slip: Jessica Rabbit, a Dreamgirl, and even one of Elizabeth's few rivals in 60s Movie Superstardom. 

1974 ~Cognoscenti's Maggie

Elizabeth Ashley's early 60s film breakout gave way to a highly acclaimed theatrical career with lots of guest starring TV roles on the side. She won raves and a Tony nomination for the sexually charged 70s revival of Broadway. People Magazine featured her in their Stage section at the time.

'I was one of those people who became a 'star' very young, and I turned into a monstrous human beging - Bessie von Bitch, they called me. I was in analysis forever.'

She now sees herself as made for the stage - 'a leading woman who can handle anything they've got, but God knows I'm not a movie star.'

Other Key Roles: The original Corie from Broadway's Barefoot in the Park (Jane Fonda got the movie role); "Mollie" in Take Her She's Mine" (1962 Tony Award); Monica in The Carpetbaggers (1964, Golden Globe nomination); Jenny in the Best Picture nominee Ship of Fools (1965); Recently played Mattie Fae in August: Osage County (replacement).

Jessica Rabbit, a Dreamgirl and some crazy oroborus-style Jessica Lange trivia after the jump.

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The Man With the Italian Tattoo

Williams and MagnaniJose here, to continue celebrating the centennial of American playwright and icon Tennessee Williams.

Williams grew up watching movies. He was one of the major playwrights who learned his craft, not through Shakespeare and Moliere but through the works of De Mille and Chaplin. This can easily be seen in the way his works lack the naturalism of "the theater" and their reality is more grounded on high drama, film noir and even slapstick. You can almost picture the young Williams sitting inside a dark movie theater, enthralled by the images projected on the screen (makes a case for why some of his characters are usually described as "larger than life" huh?).

During one of his many movie adventures, Tennessee spotted Anna Magnani. I like to assume it was Rome, Open City, but of course am probably wrong.

He became so obsessed with the Italian diva that he ended up writing an entire play just for her: The Rose Tattoo. When he approached her to play the leading role of Italian widow, Serafina Delle Rose, Magnani declined because she was unsure her limited English skills would do justice to the play. (Maureen Stapleton did the role on Broadway instead, winning the Tony in 1951.)

This didn't stop Tennessee and Anna from starting a friendship that would endure until their deaths. Williams described Magnani, 

 I never saw a more beautiful woman, with such big eyes and skin like Devonshire soap.  

The temperamental Magnani felt at home with Tennessee and when the time came to take The Rose Tattoo to the movies, she obliged. 

She took on the role of Serafina with such intensity and passion that she ended up taking home the Oscar for Best Actress. She didn't attend the ceremony because she thought she would lose, even after she'd won the critics' awards, the Golden Globe and BAFTA for the role.

The film might not be counted as one of the strongest Williams' adaptations (and the play itself is often regarded as a minor work) and in the years that followed, the movie earned a reputation for being full of stereotypes and even for discriminating against Italian immigrants.

Sure, the film is filled with symbols, bare chested lovers (Burt Lancaster mostly), weeping, screaming, gossiping neighbors, Virgin Marys (and nods to virginity), wine, loud laughing fits and thick accents but few back then realized that the film wasn't being touted as a portal into reality. It was an interpretation of the immigrant experience by someone whose knowledge consisted mostly of neorealist films.

More than this, the movie was a tribute to Anna Magnani. Not the Magnani Williams came to know later, but the Magnani who embodied a nation in the aftermath of WWII. The one Williams had met at the movies.

The Rose Tattoo therefore, is less about the characters than about what inspired their creation. The play is filled with nods to Williams' own life and the motifs that would define his work (sex, passion, humid settings, dead men...) The very tattoo in the title can mean much more than the ideas associated with the flower (love for example) since Rose was the name of Tennessee Williams' favorite sister. I'm sure she accompanied him to see Magnani's films on many occassions... 

Therefore, we understand that the role of Williams in the play is that of the tattoo artist, imprinting precious memories on the skin of his characters and his audience. But above all, imprinting them onto his own creative skin. Some works of art are misunderstood because the are too personal and deciphering their meaning only leads to migraines and shouts of "pretentious".

The Rose Tattoo would be one of these works; so private, so intimate; that we carry them around with us all the time, waiting only for a casual slip of the sleeve, a careless morning after, an accidental movement, to share them with others who might be fascinated, disgusted or even indifferent to their nature.