Last Remaining Seats: The Sting

That's right, folks!

It's summer again, which means another six Wednesdays of Last Remaining Seats, the movie series the nonprofit Los Angeles Conservancy puts on in the beautifully restored movie palaces downtown on Broadway. You've got no less than a dozen of these giant three- or four-story single-screen movie palaces in downtown L.A., all along Broadway between Second and Ninth Streets, built between 1910 and 1931. It's the single largest concentration of pre-World War II movie theaters in the country. I'm sure I said that last year when I blogged about the previous Last Remaining Seats series, but I'll say it again because it's a pretty impressive statistic. It's also the reason I joined the Conservancy a year ago March, after reading about their Bringing Back Broadway initiative in Westways, the Southern California Auto Club magazine.

The BBB project is quite comprehensive in scope and will take at least another five or six years. It's not just about making all the movie theaters pretty again. So much about Broadway could use a facelift. And get this: They're actually going to bring back the Broadway streetcar. Yes! Now that is something to look forward to. Because then, right? I could grab a bite at, say, the Edison, up on Main and 2nd. And then I could hop on the streetcar and head the seven blocks south to the Orpheum and not have to hurry through my meal because otherwise that's a pretty healthy walk. And not a walk I'd want to take with a stomach full of lobster corndogs and sweet potato fries. Believe me. I'm speaking from experience.

Tonight was the first night of the 2009 series. They showed The Sting at the Orpheum. That's awesome 'cause The Sting is one of those classics I've known about since forever and have always wanted to see but never got around to. And the Orpheum's beautiful. Oh heck, all three of the theaters restored so far (the other two are the Los Angeles and the Million Dollar) are monuments to eye candy.

As was my custom last year, I got downtown well ahead of time. Partly that's because you can't take anything for granted with traffic and the subway. Getting from work to the North Hollywood red line station wasn't so bad. And when it's rush hour, trains come pretty frequently. No mishaps tonight. I was downtown by six or six-thirty or so. The movie didn't start until eight. Again like last year, I took advantage of the extra time to have dinner at one of the innumerable awesome restaurants you've got downtown. Tonight I tried out this brand new Mexican joint on Bunker Hill (i.e. the northern half of downtown; the Broadway theaters are down in the southern half) called Casa Cocina y Cantina. I've been seeing ads for it in the LA. Opera programs for a couple months now. It was okay. Not the best Mexican joint I've ever been to, but the service was terrific. Very friendly and attentive, and mind you, they had a healthy Happy Hour crowd to deal with, many of whom showed up to watch the Lakers-Nuggets playoff game. The margaritas were especially good, even if they did forget the salt on the first one. I was there by myself, but they still served me the normal portion of chips and guacamole and salsa which, personally, would be just fine for two or three people. But I was hungry. And I love guac. Yes, I scarfed it, as I did the quesadillas even though they were so-so.

It was a hike down to the Orpheum. This is why I'm more then ready for the streetcar. Casa Cocina's on Grand Ave. between Third and Fourth. So you've got to head three or four blocks over to Broadway, and then six blocks south to Broadway and Ninth. Granted, it helps that Pershing Square's there to cut through, but still.

No matter. I got to the Orpheum with a good forty or so minutes to spare, plenty of time to use my Blackjack II to snap a bunch of pics of the theater before the movie started. I even got to visit the projection room for a spiel by the head projectionist about all the massive equipment up there. Seriously. Check it out among the photos at the bottom of this post. The projectors looked more like cannons.

As is always the case with these screenings, there's a bunch of stuff that happens beforehand. Well, maybe not a bunch, but a couple things anyway. Enough things so that the movie itself doesn't start until close to nine. L.A. Conservancy head Linda Dishman came out, as she always does, and gave a little spiel. She seems like a sweet gal and I hope I get to meet her someday. The main point of her pre-show spiels is to thank all the various sponsors who make these screenings possible. And she also gives the intros to the pre-show guests. It's usually either a guest lecturer, a series of two or three lecturers, and/or a Q&A with a scholar or, if the film's recent enough that those involved in its making are still alive, then a Q&A with people from the film. And it's that last one that was the highlight of tonight's pre-show activities. Even before Linda came out and did her thing, stagehands had already set up three chairs in the center of the stage, so it was obvious a Q&A of some sort was coming.

Before that, though, and somewhat annoyingly, we were treated to a hyper-energetic introduction to the film and the guests by this kat named Charles Phoenix. The program says he's an author and pop cultural enthusiast. But neither the program, nor Linda, nor Charlie himself said what he's written. According to Amazon, his specialty seems to be coffee table books about various sunny places in the fifties: Southern California in the fifties, Hawaii and Vegas in the fifties, that kind of stuff. For the purposes of this evening, though, it's the enthusiast part that seemed more relevant. In fact, enthusiast is far too weak a word for how hyper this guy is. What's more, like last year, he was decked out in an old-fashioned striped suit and bowler hat. And he talked really fast, like a circus showman or something. Seriously, if Charlie was trying to make us think he just stepped out of an old movie, he did a terrific job.

The main point of him being there was to interview two people involved in making The Sting. You had producer Tony Bill and screenwriter David S. Ward. As it turns out, I may have judged Charlie Phoenix a bit too harshly. He ended up getting a lot of great info out of Dave and Tony.

First, let's cover the basics because there were a lot of people in the audience who'd never seen this film. Like, say, me. And there were many others who hadn't seen it in quite some time. The Sting was originally released in December 1973. The reviews were glowing. The program actually had a reprint of the review from Variety, from December 12, 1973. Suffice it to say this isn't one of those films that was misunderstood when it first came out and was only appreciated decades later. No, this seems to have pretty much been an instant classic, evidenced by how many Oscars it scooped up, including Best Original Screenplay for Dave and Best Picture for Tony. Cool, huh? And apparently it was competing with George Lucas's American Graffiti in both categories. Wow, what a great year for movies then. I love American Graffiti. The Sting swept that year with seven Oscars total, the other five for directing, music, editing, art direction, and costume design. Based on my personal experience with watching the Oscars, those last two tend to go to period pieces, which The Sting certainly is. It's set in Chicago in September 1936.

The first thing Charlie asked them was about the very famous music. Even if you haven't seen The Sting, I know you've heard the music somewhere. I wish there was someway I could reproduce it for you here. Anyway, go to YouTube and you'll know what I mean. Apparently we have the screenwriter of all people, Dave, to thank for that. See, what happened was, during the production, Dave spent a lot of his free time listening to very early 20th century music, from the first decade of the century. It was just a phase, as he described it, nothing more. He knew that The Sting's director, George Roy Hill, was a big music buff. Dave told us that George was a PhD in music and that he had this ritual very early every morning of playing the piano the way a lot of people go to the gym first thing. "We didn't have gyms in those days," Dave joked. So anyway, Dave played him some of this old music just for fun. George listened and decided it would form the basis for The Sting's soundtrack. Dave told him it would be a bit anachronistic since The Sting is set in the thirties and the music's from thirty years earlier. George didn't care, he just went with it. And obviously the audience didn't care either. I don't care. For whatever reason, the music fits the film perfectly.

Dave had another great story about George. So when they first started shooting, right? George warned Dave not to talk to Paul Newman if he could help it. George had already directed Paul--and Robert Redford too for that matter--in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. So he had some experience with him. And later he'd direct Paul yet again in Slap Shot. Well anyway, George told Dave that if he talked to Paul, then Paul would go on and on about his character, asking loads of questions that ultimately wouldn't change anything in terms of his acting. Dave took this advice to heart, and it meant the atmosphere on the set was awkward. Oh yeah, and that's another thing. George Roy Hill was one of those rare directors who didn't shut out the screenwriter during the production. Dave was very much welcome on the set for his input and for any last-minute rewrites, but he just couldn't talk to Paul. So the way Dave told it tonight, whenever he saw Paul getting near him between takes, he'd have to wander off and avoid eye contact. How weird.

Leave it to Paul to break the ice. During one day on set, Paul didn't seem to be around, so Dave figured he could relax. Wrong! Paul snuck up behind him and wrapped his arms around him and made him guess who it obviously was. Dave said they hit it off, but luckily Paul didn't ask him about the character. They talked about non-movie stuff. But then George walked over and told them to stop chatting. Dave said that George had an infamous evil eye. And he was using that to full effect now. Much to Dave's chagrin, Paul told George how Dave had given him all these great ideas about the character. Just as Dave was bracing himself for the third degree, Paul copped to the prank. The great thing for Dave was that, from that moment forward, he and Paul didn't have to avoid each other. The atmosphere on the set became more relaxed.

Dave also talked about Oscar night. This was of course way before the Kodak Theatre existed. The Oscar ceremony tended to alternate between the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion downtown and the Shrine Auditorium down by USC. While I lived a block north of the Shrine during my USC days, I never went inside. As for the Chandler, I've been there countless times. That's where LA Opera is based. For these Oscars, in the spring of '74, they had it in the Chandler. Dave remembers it pretty well. He said he was completely taken aback when he won. When he went up to the stage to accept, the lights were right in his eyes and he had no idea if he was looking into the camera. Dave's gone on to have a pretty decent career. He's written some of my favorite films, like Major League and Sleepless in Seattle.

Producer Tony Bill talked about some interesting stuff. For starters, he wasn't surprised at all that The Sting won Best Picture. That might sound arrogant, but that's not how he meant it. If you watch the Oscars, you know that they save the Best Picture trophy for the very end. Well, on this particular night, The Sting had already won six trophies by the time they got to the Best Picture category, the most of any film that night. So it just made sense that they'd give Best Picture to The Sting. That's all he meant. Usually if one film claims both the writing and directing awards, it'll nab Best Picture.

Tony talked about the carousel you see toward the beginning of the film. It's the same carousel they have on the Santa Monica Pier. At the time, the city of Santa Monica was about to get rid of it because it was old and decrepit. But then Tony swooped in and had it completely restored. Ostensibly they were doing it for the film, but after the production, the Santa Monica folks were so happy with how good it looked that they kept it where it was. So if you're ever in Santa Monica, know that the carousel on the pier is still there thanks to The Sting. Eventually it did need yet another paint job, but not until the nineties. Tony's crew had done a pretty thorough job obviously.

While small portions of the film were shot in Santa Monica and Chicago, most of The Sting was filmed at Universal. As convenient as that was, they still had to create backdrops to make the audience think they were in Chicago. This is where Tony became really proud of his troops. They came up with a whole bunch of matte paintings for the backdrops which, I have to say after seeing the film, did look pretty good.

The best anecdotes Tony shared were about Robert Redford and Robert Shaw. Two weeks before the shoot, Robert Shaw tore his Achilles or something playing racquetball. He went to George Roy Hill and said there was no way he could do the film. But George? He brushed it off and said don't worry about it. When Robert Shaw showed him the cane he had to use, George was like, "That means your character will have a cane." And it's funny. During the film, sure enough, Robert Shaw's hobbling around with his cane, and it's never explained why. Further, you never really care. His character's this big-time gangster from New York. Like a lot of gangsters, you figure he's absorbed his fair share of wounds. I actually had no idea Robert Shaw was in this before tonight. That's pretty awesome. As a Bond fan, I've always considered his character Grant in From Russia with Love one of the best bad guys ever. He was also great in Jaws, and as the Sheriff of Nottingham opposite Sean Connery in Robin and Marian. Not surprisingly, he made a great bad guy in The Sting. Dude had bad guys down to a science.

Robert Redford also hurt himself just before shooting. He broke his thumb playing tennis. When you see The Sting, that's why that one thumb is always akimbo. Tony said some of the critics gave Redford a lot of props because they thought he was channeling Jimmy Cagney. Hilarious.

That does it for the Q&A. I don't want to talk about the film too much because, as with any movie that centers on a con or a heist, it's chockfull of twists and turns. But the plot isn't that complicated. The best films tend to have the simple plot lines. This one's no exception. The Sting is basically a simple revenge story. Robert Redford plays a small-town con artist named Johnny Hooker (great name). His specialty is what they call the quick con. His partner is an older black guy named Luther, played by Robert Earl Jones, father to James Earl "Darth Vader" Jones, which is awesome. That basso profundo runs in the family. Robert Earl had quite the career apparently, but I'd never seen him in anything before tonight.

When we first meet Johnny and Luther, they pull off a con against this one gangster who, unbeknownst to them, works for a big-time New York crime boss named Doyle Lonnegan (yes, that's Robert Shaw). Doyle's furious that someone would rip him off, so he orders someone to reciprocate in kind. His guys show up and kill Luther. And Luther had a lot of family we'd gotten to meet beforehand, so it's especially poignant the way these assholes dispatch him so brutally in his apartment. Johnny wants revenge.

That's what takes him to Chicago to meet Paul Newman's character, Henry Gondorff. Henry had been friends with Luther. Whereas Johnny's good at the small cons, Henry's good at the big stuff, what they call the long con. Johnny and Henry team up to pull off a long con against Doyle. And so there's the essential thrust of the story. 'Course there's tons of drama along the way. That's the thing about long cons. Not only are they, well, long, but they typically involve a lot of people. Henry and Johnny assemble a whole crew to make it look like they run a track betting office. It's hilarious. They pull out all the stops to convince Doyle they're legit. The cops find out about it and want in on it. But are the cops in Doyle's pocket? And so on. It's also got a terrific cast. In addition to Newman, Redford, Shaw, and Darth Vader's dad, you've got folks like Ray "My Favorite Martian" Walston and Charles Durning.

If you haven't seen this classic, don't hesitate. Throw it on that queue! The fact that I got to see it at the Orpheum's pretty awesome. See? This is why I'm part of the L.A. Conservancy. The Sting at the Orpheum. It doesn't get much better than that if you're a movie nut like me.