Reviews

So often, when something about a film enters into the culture at large, it actually diminishes the film for later generations. That's because the aspect which is so striking to the original audience is commonplace to those who come after.

The use of ragtime in The Sting is a good example of that. It had been almost forgotten music, which had very little popularity from WWII until the Hamlisch arrangements caught people's fancy here. It was that that IMO caused the brief flurry of piano and orchestral interpretations of Joplin's work through the rest of the 1970s. And ragtime has never receded to its old post-war levels since. Because of that, the music is not likely to seem as new and therefore as delightful as it did in 1973.

The Sting is also, of course, a wonderful example of revenge served cold. In that regard it's the only film that form me does as good a job as Poe's short story The Cask of Amontillado.

Ackroyd's awkward professor role finds himself sucked into a secret wild life. OK, it's not very plausible, but it doesn't require more suspension of belief than most other comedies.

At the end, there's a nice underlying message (which, depending on your mode can be subtle or cloddishly obvious) that if you have something to say and you stumble onto a bully pulpit, USE IT.

In this case, what Ackroyd had to say isn't exactly original, now matter how true it and important it is. But the process he goes through to come out of his shell and make the most of his situation is heart-warming (when you're not laughing too hard) and inspiring.

The plots had a similar complexity to the wonderful Robert Conrad/Ross Martin series Wild Wild West, and the characters are rather similar, though their attributes were combined and scrambled into the two new characters. Here Shatner is the disguise master, but is also the nominal lead, while disguse-master Martin played second fiddle to Conrad 10 years earlier.

Unfortunately, the intelligence (or rather, attention) of the audience had so deteriorated over the previous decade that this show was promptly canceled because the plots were deemed too complex.

If you've never seen Wild Wild West, see that instead. If you've seen that already and you're willing to put up with Shatner, then this can scratch your itch.

What could be more schlocky than the idea of private detectives getting involved with the women they're supposed to be spying on? And most of the dialogue as written is perfectly banal.

But the actors turn the dialog into something that makes sense. You can see real people behind the unreal lines. And the directing is wonderful. Each scene does just what it has to and ends without dragging on too long.

I showed this to several friends in the mid-80s because I was perplexed at how such bad material could be made into such a good movie. The friends enjoyed it too.

The entire casting and pacing are great, and it's one of the rare TV series that of the era that doesn't strive for the dim-witted portion of the potential audience. I'm 95% straight, Hutton/Ellery's brains and charm reminds me why it's only 95%. I hope it comes out on video someday.

The script is a bit preachy (a lot at the end) and Houghton is boring, the premise, characters-as-conceived, and non-Houghton characters-as-acted are excellent.

What really makes it memorable, though, are Tracey's and Hepburn's ability to succinctly convey emotion. They could rely on a facial expression where most actors would need paragraphs.