Twilight Zone: A Game of Pool

In almost 60 years of television shows featuring billiards, one episode is consistently – and perhaps, rightfully – lauded as the best:  “A Game of Pool” from Season 3 of The Twilight Zone.   Aired in October 1961, just 3 weeks after The Hustler was released on the big screen, this 25-minute show is about “the story of the best pool player living and the best pool player dead,” according to Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/440810

Jack Klugman stars as Jesse Cardiff (the best pool player living) and Jonathan Winters stars as James Howard “Fats” Brown (the best pool player dead).  That’s it.  Two great actors in a single room pool hall on Randolph Street in Chicago. How these two come to play pool is because Jesse yells aloud, “I’d give anything, anything to play him one game!”  And, since this is the Twilight Zone, the deceased Fats suddenly appears, saying to the dumbstruck Jesse, “[Am I] dead?…Not really…as long as people talk about you, you’re not really dead.”

Faced with an once-in-a-lifetime (literally) opportunity to play Fats, Jesse accepts the terms of Fats’ deal: “Life or death.  You beat me, you live; you lose, you die.” And so begins a game of 14.1 continuous pool (i.e., straight pool, same game in The Hustler) to 300 points.  For those that don’t know, straight pool is played by pocketing any called ball into a designated pocket.  Each pocketed ball is a point.  For a given rack, when one ball is remaining on the table, the opponent re-racks the remaining 14 balls before game play continues.

While the filmed pool playing is at best average (except for a couple nice three-cushion shots), there are two aspects of the billiards that are noteworthy.  First, there’s nothing brief about straight pool.  As one reviewer noted, given the final score approaches 299-266, that translates into about 40 racks, or easily 5-6 hours of play. It’s no wonder both men are sweating considerably.

The second aspect is the trash-talking. Pool, like so many sports, is a true mental game.  And pool players will often do what they can to rattle their opponents.  In this match, the taunting starts before play even begins, as Fats says to Jesse, “You like to play with fire, but you don’t like to cook…deep down you know you’re second rate.” As the game progresses, Fats condescendingly lectures Jesse that “pool is geometry…a science of precise angles and forces.”  And, in the final points (for reasons we only understand at the very end), he resorts to cheap tactics to distract Jesse.   Since this is the Twilight Zone, we know there will be a final twist.  I won’t give it away.  Watch the episode.

The full episode of “A Game of Pool” is available to watch above.  “A Game of Pool” was also remade in 1989, starring Esai Morales and Maury Chaykin.  That episode will be the subject of a future post.

And as a final postscript, let us say R.I.P. to Jonathan Winters, who passed away just 3 months ago.

The Pool Hustlers

For those who believe “billiards” and “pool” are synonymous, it’s well-worth checking out The Pool Hustlers (1983, Italy, also known as Io, Chiara e lo Scuro), a romantic comedy that prominently features a little-known form of carom billiards called goriziana (or 9-pins).

In goriziana, nine pins sit in the center of a 284 cm x 142 cm pocketless table. Two cue balls and a red ball are used. Each player attempts to hit the opponent’s ball and, from there, scores points by striking the red ball, or by making the opponent’s balls or the red ball knock over the pins. Play continues until someone reaches or surpasses a pre-set number of points. Unlike most billiard games, players alternate turns, regardless of how they shot.

Directed by Mauricio Ponzi, The Pool Hustlers focuses on Francesco (or “The Tuscan”), a shaggy-haired goof who has a meaningless hotel job, but is an incredibly skilled goriziana player.  As he says, “I either play billiards or I’m at work thinking about billiards.”

The movie opens with the Tuscan walking into a billiards hall to challenge Scuro (played by real carom billiards legend Marcello Lotti), the reigning goriziana player.  As the Tuscan refuses to bet for money, he gets Scuro to agree to a wager of “spiked coffee.” The Tuscan wins, giving him great happiness and confidence.  But, the situation quickly turns when he is obligated to give Scuro a rematch, and he breaks his own no-betting rule.  To no surprise, he quickly falls into debt, and can only pay off the debt by stealing from the safe deposit boxes at the hotel where he works.  His only chance to break out of his Ponzi-like financial obligations is to play in the International Single Set Goriziana Championship, where he will compete once more with Scuro.

As far as rom-coms go, the film is pretty weak.  His relationship with the gorgeous Chiara feels paper-thin, and it’s hard to understand how the relationship gets serious so quickly, especially since it begins with him stalking her.

But, the billiards playing, both in the opening scene and at the championship, is extraordinary, especially since the spin, angles, and shot complexity, are almost exaggerated in goriziana. A love of billiards also permeates the movie.  It’s impossible not to smile as the Tuscan explains how God, a “leftie billiards player,” created the universe in one shot.  Or, how an aluminum cue (preferred by the Tuscan) is different from a wooden one since an aluminum cue initially “has no heart” and thus once a player wins the cue over, the cue’s heart belongs to the player forever.

I also appreciated the director’s clear homage to The Hustler, from the overall storyline to the character of Scuro, who is modeled after Jackie Gleason’s Minnesota Fats in everything from his impeccable attire to his gentlemanly aura.  And while the Tuscan is no Fast Eddie, Chiara does pay him the ultimate compliment when she says he “looks like Paul Newman” when he plays billiards.

For those that want to continue their goriziana education, The Pool Hustlers was followed by Casablanca, Casablanca (1985, Italy), and then much later by Il signor Quindicipalle (1998, Italy).  Assuming I can track down copies, both these movies will be reviewed in future posts.  The Pool Hustlers is difficult to find in any format except VHS.

The Hustler: The Genre’s Masterpiece

The irony of writing about The Hustler, the most critically acclaimed and well-known pool movie, is that for many, it was not really a movie about pool.  As film critic Roger Ebert wrote, “Billiards is the arena for the movie’s contests, but…the film could be about any seedy game depending on bluff, self-confidence, money management and psychology.” And critic James Bernardinelli, who, like Ebert, also gave the movie his highest rating, said, “this movie is no more about pool than Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull is about boxing…the film is far less about Fast Eddie’s confrontations with other players than it is about his war with his own demons and his struggle to define the intangible meaning of ‘character.'”

One thing is certain: Robert Rossen’s 1961 B&W film, based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis, is a masterpiece.  The movie received 3 Golden Globe nominations, 2 Oscars (for Art Direction and Cinematography), and 7 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.  All four stars got Oscar nods, as did the director and screenwriter. The movie is on multiple American Film Institute lists. And among most pool movie fans (who really don’t understand what these critics are yammering about), The Hustler is far and away the best of the genre.

In brief, the movie is about small-time pool hustler “Fast Eddie” Felson (played by Paul Newman) whose amount of cockiness and bravado is only matched by his skill with a cue stick.  His desire to prove himself the best leads to a 40-hour straight pool match and loss against legend Minnesota Fats (played by Jackie Gleason).  Humiliated, Felson bottoms out and gets involved first with a hopeless alcoholic (played by Piper Laurie) and then with a vicious manager (played by George C. Scott). Felson ultimately has his rematch against Fats, but not before paying a terrible price and learning much about his own character.

Aside from the incredible acting, direction, screenplay (jointly written by Sidney Caroll and Robert Rossen) and jazz score, the film succeeds because of the unbelievable pool.

For starters, The Hustler was the first full-length movie to prominently feature pool (excluding the 1935 romantic comedy Bad Boy, which I’ll discuss in subsequent post).  Though filmed in 1961, the movie heralded an earlier era, when pool halls were far more common and the place where regional, if not national reputations, could be cemented.

The Hustler also brought gritty realism and respect to the filming of pool through the many choices the director and producer made. They set much of the movie in two now-defunct New York City pool halls, McGirr’s and Ames Billiard Academy, that were great establishments of the time.  They hired pool legend Willie Mosconi to personally coach Paul Newman and to serve as the movie’s technical advisor. (For a great breakdown of some of the key shots in the movie, including the opening frozen 8-ball on the rail shot, check out Dr. Dave’s write-up in the August 2004 Billiards Digest.) They also gave Mosconi a cameo as the man who holds the initial stakes.  Gleason, of course, needed no such coaching, as he was already an incredible billiards player, which only added to the movie’s realism.  And finally, they devoted 20 uninterrupted minutes — an inconceivable amount of time back then — to filming the initial pool match.

But, perhaps the greatest aspect of The Hustler is what it did for the game of pool itself.  According to the article “Reel Life: The Hustler“:

Pool was very popular from the turn of the century until World War II. According to one estimate, in the late 1920s there were about 40,000 pool halls in the U.S. But after the war, the game went into a steep, rapid decline, with many poolrooms closing. “By the end of the 1950s, it looked as though the game might pass into oblivion,” writes pool historian Mike Shamos. The Hustler created a resurgence in the game in the 1960s, and its sequel — The Color of Money — which came out in 1986, spiked another pool revival.

So, whatever foibles the movie may have, The Hustler deserves great respect from the pool-playing community for its representation and respect of the sport and for the future impact it had both on pool-playing and on the genre of pool movies.  As it is said in the film’s final lines:

Fast Eddie:  Fat Man, you shoot a great game of pool.

Minnesota Fats:  So do you, Fast Eddie.