“I Don’t Rattle, Kid” Robert Rossen’s The Hustler (1961) and The Wounded Dreamer
INTRODUCTION
“What will happen to us when the money runs out?” the emotionally-marred Sarah Packard asks her brooding live-in boyfriend, “Fast” Eddie Felson. It is a just question when one considers the emotional torpidity of Sarah and Eddie’s relationship; the pessimism with which they both regard life itself is their only uniting factor. Felson is a damaged loner and has never exhibited any inhibitions toward abandoning those who have aided him in the past. Call it “Artistic obsession”, “professional immersion”, or whatever other label you like, but ultimately it is the condition solely responsible for Felson’s entrapment in his own history. Engulfed by the specters of his past, the fate of Eddie’s future grows ever more dubious with each passing day.
During the 1960s, internal and external factors left Hollywood with a similar concern for its industrial outlook. Jon Lewis eloquently captions the conflict in his text American Film, “…Hollywood was in transition. At the time it was far clearer what the industry was leaving behind than where it might end up.” (Lewis, pg. 235) And Lewis is absolutely correct in his assertion: the rise of television, the Paramount Case, conglomerate business intervention, dwindling box-office figures, film censorship disputes, and simultaneous actor and writer strikes of 1960 left the American film business scrambling to accommodate their new reality. Both socially and politically the 60s were a time of rebellion against established convention; for far too long had the achievements of the individual been overshadowed by those of the institution. And this phenomenon would inevitably find reflection in the increasingly adult content featured in Hollywood’s offerings. And for many, questions were regarded as more important than answers as our country searched for a lost piece of itself amidst the haze of the decade.
ROBERT ROSSEN AND THE FILM’S PRODUCTION
In order for one to fully comprehend the inherent value of The Hustler as a solid representation of 60s cinema, one must first uncover the rather unfortunate conditions which surrounded director Robbert Rossen’s Hollywood career and the eventual difficulties these conditions would spell for the film’s production. Rossen’s was a tale of bright optimism left trampled by the sustained betrayal and accusations laid upon him by his peers. As former Communist supporter Robert Rossen faced considerable difficulty in his attempts to reignite the tail-end of his career. His mounting frustration with the domineering system that constantly doubted his loyalty would manifest itself most overtly in his later films like The Hustler. As Alan Casty puts it in his biographical text The Films of Robert Rossen, “The violence and emotional intensity that are the regular ingredients of a Rossen film surround an inner struggle, a search for identity within the attractions and limitations of society.” (Casty [1969], pg. 2)
The Hustler was most assuredly a very personal project for Rossen, one whose jaded lower-class protagonist must have echoed the victimized sympathies held by the director himself. Like Eddie Felson, Robert Rossen was born into humble means and quickly adopted the specialized skills needed in order to make a living in film production. Though Rossen (a former NYU student) drew a paycheck from scriptwriting while Felson (a disciple only of “The Church of the Good Hustler”) supported himself via dishonest gambling, the two men were united by a bustling passion for their respective crafts. It was precisely this fiery passion for filmmaking that would allow Rossen to dust off his past transgressions, rise to the occasion, and create a film that could be just as deeply introspective as it was socially consciousness.
Though The Hustler was not made until 1961, the political hardships that would face its director occurred nearly a decade prior. While the Hollywood stigmas listed in the introduction section certainly had their own relative sway over how most films were made in the 60s, Robert Rossen’s movies were most affected by the HUAC hearings of the 1950s. As a young idealist, Rossen had joined the Communist party in 1937 claiming that “…We had pretty much reached the apex of a pretty materialistic society... [Communism] offered every possible kind of thing to you at that time which could fulfill your sense of idealism…” (Casty [1969], pg. 5) And indeed by this time in its history, the Hollywood studio system had already been labeled by cynics as a “homogenized dream factory” and a place unwelcome to radical thinkers. By 1944 pressures from anti-Communism pundits in the entertainment business forced Rossen into a one-year hiatus that would cool his reputation among major studios like Fox and Warner considerably. Unsurprisingly by 1947, Rossen had severed all ties with the party and spoken out publicly against Communism’s inherent goal to suppress creative writers. But he experienced betrayal firsthand again in 1947, when he was labeled as a commie by Jack Warner and made to testify before Joseph McCarthy’s committee. Though ultimately Rossen was spared the grief of being lumped into the notorious “Hollywood Ten”, his refusal to name names or even condemn his past interactions with the Communist Party forced him into another two years without work. It was only after writing a lengthy letter of appeal to HUAC that Rossen was able to testify a second time on May 7th, 1953 and this time willfully release the names of fifty-seven known Communist sympathizers operating in Hollywood. When asked how he felt surrendering such information, Rossen was quoted, “I don’t think after two years of thinking, that any one individual can ever indulge himself in the luxury of individual morality…” (Casty [1969], pg. 30) His professional survival had been hinged on the need to submit to authority, and though Rossen had played ball, his career would be forever marked by the constant need to defend his work against the doubts held by studio executives.
Though it is now largely known that Rossen never set foot in Hollywood again after 1953, The Hustler proves his deep comprehension of the void that marginalized voices could fulfill for a mainstream audience. After reading the original novel by Walter Tevis, Rossen approached Daryll Zanuck at Fox studios to discuss bankrolling a film adaptation. Despite a large public outcry for more mature material after the success of Otto Preminger’s PCA-dodger film The Moon is Blue, Zanuck and Fox were concerned that the book’s lowlife main character and morally-bankrupt pool hall setting would alienate most filmgoers. Rossen argued that the film was an examination of humanity that transcended its roots in billiards, and after much deliberation the studio issued a two-week formal dress rehearsal just in time to beat out Frank Sinatra for his own optioning of the novel’s rights. As Jon Lewis points out, “In the post-Paramount decision Hollywood stars became more important than ever to a film’s and, by extension, a studio’s success.” (Lewis, pg. 236) This statement could not resonate more truly for Fox studios: the overshadowing financial pressures of their historical-epic Cleopatra made it so that only films with a recognizable actor attached would be considered for production. Fortunately Rossen had always imagined the budding young star Paul Newman as his lead, and the after reading just half of the script, Newman chased the role fiercely. With proper funding in place, Robert Rossen then set about the task of removing as much of Fox’s influence from the project as possible: he would shoot the film on-location in New York and feature as little studio-shot scenes as possible.
Though the auteur movement was officially still a few years away, Rossen enveloped himself inside nearly every aspect of the film’s production from the ground up. Rossen penned a sharp and vibrant script with the aid of famed screenwriter Sydney Carroll, he single-handedly produced the film, and he also masterfully instructed his actors from the director’s chair. While other past-generation directors fumbled to connect with the new youth audience and retreated to making lazy, predictable films, The Hustler perfectly exhibits Rossen’s optimism for the next generation and shows the relative ease with which he adopted innovations such as Cinemascope. “His talent, business acumen, and personal force enabled him to develop his career with a degree of independence unusual in the American industry… Rossen remained one of the very few able to exert relatively complete control over his work…” (Casty [1969], pg. 2)
Despite shooting the film in less than ten weeks, Rossen was met in New York by a Fox studios representative during the film’s editing phase. The studio had issued erroneous film synopses to the entertainment press which revealed a corporate misunderstanding of the film’s deeply personal conflict. It was a misunderstanding that would not be remedied even by the time of the New York meeting. Fox refused to release The Hustler and demanded that major changes be administered to the Rossen’s cut. No longer a man who would be bullied by executives, Rossen enlisted the services of PR expert Arthur P. Jacobs to rally support for an uncut version. Jacobs successfully booked a local Manhattan theater to capacity with an audience comprised entirely of celebrities. It was only after the waves of support rolled in for Rossen’s version of The Hustler that Fox agreed to green-light the film’s national release.
Though the film was met with much critical praise in the press, its profit potential was ultimately compromised by the industry’s lacking regard for a former Communist. Its risqué subject-matter carried no noticeable negative effect inside a new world where films were protected by First Amendment rights. Though publicly Rossen had time and again articulated a sincere passion for American ideals, The Hustler seemed to reveal his conflicted view of capitalist industry and its potentially negative effect on artistic purity. Alan Casty accurately strikes at the very heart of Rossen’s insecurity in Robert Rossen: The Films and Politics of a Blacklisted Idealist, “In Rossen’s Hollywood, betrayal had become as much a part of the climate as the indifferent sun… For Rossen, this damaging way of life, this misuse of one’s power within the pressures of a society that is oppressive or falsely alluring, could be embodied in the concept and self of the hustler.” (Casty [2013], pg. 10) Rossen’s own career which had been haunted by duplicity and relegation would now lend a subtle voice to a new generation of people who also felt sidelined by those in power.
PAUL NEWMAN AND THE FILM’S CONTENT
“Fast” Eddie may have been gifted with all the talent in the world, but in the world of The Hustler it is the concept of “character” which ultimately provides the dividing line between a small-time grinder like Felson and a major player like Minnesota Fats. The same logic holds true for the film as a whole: any talented director could have produced a thrilling sports film from the script, but only a director imbued with true character like Rossen could have told a thoughtful story which merely used billiards halls as its backdrop. In the documentary Milestones in Cinema History: The Hustler, the film’s editor Dede Allen recalls that it was on almost a daily basis that Rossen would express to her that his film put people first and only secondarily was it about the sport of pool. (Milestones, xx) Robert Rossen believed in his script and more importantly he believed in his characters; he possessed a powerful conviction which he would also instill into his lead actor, Paul Newman.
Like Robert Rossen, Paul Newman himself became one with Felson character, and most viewers now claim that they couldn’t imagine anyone else in the role. Newman’s fire best exemplified by the challenging scene from the shady pool hall called Arthurs: Felson practically spits out the line “I don’t rattle, kid. And just for that I’m gonna beat you flat!” with a panache that conveys new-world confidence over old-world authority. Together Newman and Felson have mined “the cool” that musician Miles Davis had defined in 1957. Paul Newman along with Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, and a handful of other actors would form the public’s image of the “new masculinity”. On the way out the door would walk the “man-cattle” of the past and in their place would stride the somber and lean lone wolves of the current generation. Though rough-and-tumble cowhands like John Wayne and chiseled-feature WASPs like Rock Hudson would continue to stardom, their relevance was quickly diminishing as audiences of the 1960s demanded a more sensitive man, one who struggled with his own inner-demons rather than swept them under the carpet. Filmgoers no longer wanted to aspire to be like the characters in movies, they merely wanted to relate to their conflicts.
This new perception of manliness would naturally couple itself with the ever-redefined gender roles and liberal sexuality of a more open-minded era. The year 1960 ushered in the FDA approval of the first orally-ingested birth-control pill marketed to general consumers. With its introduction, depictions of relationships engaged in pre-marital sex became all the more common as films like The Hustler were released. The mutual lifestyle chosen by Eddie and Sarah is far from the conventional model: Sarah is an alcoholic college-educated woman who provides a place to crash and a bed to share with her wayward grifter-boyfriend. “All we do is drink, lay around, and make love. We’re just strangers living together!” Sarah pleads with Eddie after he is unable to tell her that he loves her. His hands broken by a gang of thugs, Eddie pushes her away when she tries to help him undress but afterward he also kisses her in a deep and apologetic way largely unknown to male characters of the 1950s and prior. “Listen Eddie, You’ve got problems and I’ve got problems and maybe we shouldn’t see eachother at all.” Sarah tells Felson when he first tries to court her. Though Eddie and Sarah’s liaison is doomed from the start, Rossen goes to great lengths to express to his audience that their kismet can be attributed to the characters’ damaged psyches and not simply to the atypical structure of their relationship.
Eddie Felson expresses a flippancy for money that speaks loudly against the commoditized and pre-packaged American dream that audiences had already been sold on for years. How ironic is it that Rossen would choose a protagonist with an unrespectable profession like poolroom hustling to champion his anti-materialist cause. For Felson’s two managers Charlie and Bert money is the exclusive endgame, and while they may respect the sport itself, it is mainly just a vehicle used to amount capital. But “Fast” Eddie is an idealist and a passionate expert of his craft; he is an artist who operates in both collision and misdirection. Sitting on a picnic blanket on a hill Eddie confesses to Sarah that anyone, even a bricklayer, can be passionate about their skill if they carry enough respect for it. But artistry can always be exploited by industry, and Bert Gordon in particular aims to twist the sport into something far more nefarious. “I’m already rich, I just like the action.” Gordon tells Felson, but of course this is simply a clever ruse on oily man’s part. By the film’s end Bert Gordon makes it painfully clear that he only cares about money, and will liberally wield betrayal as his tradesman’s tool.
“[The Hustler] is certainly not directly about the period of Communism… And yet in its deepest emotions and implications it resonates with the wounds and woundings of that time of turmoil and jagged damage… In Rossen’s parable of the artist in Hollywood, all are merely human, all are hustlers.” (Casty [2013], pg. 216) Just as Bert Gordon stabbed Eddie Felson in the back by sleeping with Sarah Packard, Rossen too must have felt stabbed in the back by the accusations from his peers in Hollywood. Mistrust and skepticism plagued the 1960s as Americans across the country proclaimed the unreliability of their own government. Like Bert Gordon, the federal “G-Man” cloaked himself in all black and spoke with a measured detachment that left many unsettled. Sadly, those appointed to protect U.S. citizens wielded startling power which they could also use to compromise those very same citizens. For Rossen and Felson the corruption stowed aboard such unbridled sanction was among the most inhuman and self-destructive forces the world had ever known.
CONCLUSION
At the end of The Hustler, “Fast” Eddie Felson chooses his own credence over the stable future promised by wealth. Honorably he confesses before Bert Gordon that he loved Sarah Packard, and her absence on earth has left him feeling more incomplete than poverty ever could. Standing before a man far more powerful than himself, Felson never flinches as rejects the life imposed upon him by the empowered. He will never play big-time pool again, but he will also be able to sleep at night. “One can sense the personal echoes for Rossen in this final resignation: Eddie’s acceptance of this risk and his banishment, his exile, for the sake of what he believes in.” (Casty [2013], pg. 227)
Critics and the Academy alike must have shared Rossen’s feeling as they exited the theater after screening The Hustler. The film was met with much critical praise and took home the New York Film Critics Award for best direction. Additionally the film was nominated for eight Academy Awards (including best picture, best director, best lead actor, best supporting actor, and best cinematography) and won two of them (best cinematography and best art direction). To this day it is still considered the crowning achievement of Robert Rossen’s directorial career, and far and away his most intimate film. By hoisting himself out of the dregs of a blacklisted Hollywood and going on to make a film as celebrated as The Hustler, Rossen much like “Fast” Eddie Felson exclaimed to his doubters “I don’t rattle, kid!”
WORKS CITED
- Casty, Alan, and N.Y. York. The Films of Robert Rossen. New York: Museum of Modern Art; Distributed by New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, Conn., 1969. Print.
- Casty, Alan. Robert Rossen the Films and Politics of a Blacklisted Idealist. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland &,, 2013. Print.
- Lewis, Jon. American Film: A History. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008. Print.
- Milestones in Cinema History: The Hustler. Perf. Dede Allen. 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, 2006. DVD.
OTHER SOURCES
- Baxter, John. Hollywood in the Sixties. London: Tantivy;, 1972. Print.Cagin, Seth, and Philip Dray. Born to Be Wild: Hollywood and the Sixties Generation. 2nd ed. Boca Raton, FL: Coyote, 1994. Print.
- Grant, Barry Keith. American Cinema of the 1960s Themes and Variations. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers UP, 2008. Print.
- Lax, Eric. Paul Newman: A Biography. Atlanta: Turner Pub. ;, 1996. Print.
- Levy, Shawn. Paul Newman: A Life. New York: Harmony, 2009. Print.
- O'Brien, Daniel. Paul Newman. London: Faber, 2004. Print.
