There is an extraordinary amount of writing out there about  "seminal" films.  These are movies which are rightly adjudged as works of art like Citizen Kane, films that initiated a style as Double Indemnity did for film noir or a picture that captured a national shift in culture or mood such as Easy Rider.

But what about a film that was more than just a classic? A picture that fundamentally changed the actual subject matter it was based on. A picture that created a mythical character mantle that was assumed by a real person who subsequently became that character in the public's eye. 

By the end of the 1950's, pool was dying out as a venerable pastime for the American male.  The pool room, one of the last bastions of the American bachelor (including millions in uniform that were dislocated during World War II) were going the way of the dinosaurs. The Eisenhower postwar prosperity headed by suburbia, the G.I. Bill and the nuclear family had dried up all of the moneyed joints in towns like Norfolk, Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia. The legendary Willie Mosconi eked out a living working for Brunswick and scuffling in tournaments.  Stone pool hustlers from the old school like Wimpy Lassister and a fast-talking cherub named Rudolf Wanderone  (aka "New York Fats" and a half dozen similar nicknames) either went the tourney route or stayed home. Only in New York, did the few die-hards hang on in places like the 7-11 and Ames.

Then Robert Rossen went out and made The Hustler (1961). He took the two principal characters, "Fast Eddie Felson" and "Minnesota Fats" right out of Walter Tevis' novel. The story is straightforward. Felson is the young pool hustler who gives his all to beat the established champion, Minnesota Fats. Felson's obsession to be the best with a cue becomes a tapestry of tragedy. Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason brought this compelling story to life in what became the classic pool room milieu on screen, particularly in their opening face-off set in Ames Pool Room:  "No food, no bar, no pinball machines... just pool, nothing else. This is Ames, Mister". 

Gleason, in a munificent dramatic turn, initially assesses his young rival with pity and a dash of contempt,  calling out over his shoulder to a cigar-chomping Michael Constantine:  

"Big John? Do you think this boy's a hustler ?"                                                                            

Bob Rossen was an accomplished screenwriter and director who made Body and Soul, and All the Kings Men among other fine pictures. He was blacklisted and then recanted in 1953, naming his colleagues and friends in order to continue his career. By 1961, many in Hollywood considered him an unlovable man so he went to New York City and filmed The Hustler on location.  The picture additionally features an electrifying Oscar nominated performance by George C. Scott, a tragically compelling turn by Piper Laurie as Newman's fatalistic girl friend (Rossen had to fight Fox to cast Laurie and to keep the important initial scene of Newman and his partner on the hustle from being cut) and a lyrical jazz score by Kenyon Hopkins.

Rossen perceptively understood the cultural importance of the pool room: " Pool halls at a certain stage of life in America were a poor man’s opium den”. The Hustler was Robert Rossen's best work and is a classic film. However, what the film did for pool generally and Rudolf Wanderone particularly was even more noteworthy.

Sales of pool tables exploded after The Hustler was released. Pool tournaments, formerly consigned to bowling alleys and lacking sanctioning bodies during the doldrums of the previous decade, morphed into televised events with a huge following. The 1960's became the Golden Age of Pool, dominated statistically by the genial Wimpy Lassiter, who had hustled pool around the country for years and was virtually unbeatable in tournament play well into the early 70's. Lassiter might have won the championships, but Rudolf Wanderone sought bigger game. The man, known universally by pool hustlers and gamblers as  "Fats", actually camped outside a drive-in where The Hustler was playing and introduced himself as "Minnesota Fats" It worked.  Fats had lazed through life as a professional gambler since the 1920's by lying constantly and outrageously as well as shooting a very good stick (though not in the same league with Lassiter and others ). The Hustler provided Fats with his greatest hustle.

Wanderone anointed himself as Minnesota Fats and the public ate it up. He got his own television show, toured the country and became a celebrity. Fats talked trash out of the side of his mouth like W.C. Fields and people loved it. The high point was when Fats was matched against Willie Mosconi on ABC's Wide World of Sports  with Howard Cosell moderating the action. How a single broadcast had enough air time for a pair of gas bags like Cosell and Fats was incredible enough, but this pool match became the highest rated televised sports program for the entire year less the Spinks-Ali Fight. Mosconi, a taciturn ball running automaton who professed to hate gambling, cleaned Fats' clock on the table but nothing stopped Fats from yakking... all the way to the bank. Moscone finally sued Fats in a frustrated attempt to halt him from publicly lying to all and sundry that he had beaten Mosconi at pool , but this was a vain gesture of a technician admitting defeat to a larger-than-life figure.

I

Ironically, Willie Mosconi acted as the technical advisor on The Hustler, teaching the finer points of pool to Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason. True to the real (or is it mythical?) Minnesota Fats tradition, Gleason promulgated the fable that he performed a lot of the trick shots in the movie. Mosconi allowed that Gleason was better than Newman on the felt, but that all of the trick shots in The Hustler were performed by the technical advisor.

Rack' em!

P.S. Is The Hustler film noir?  Nope.