Sting, The (HD DVD)

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I have yet to watch an HD-DVD that didn't look and sound better than its standard-definition counterpart. That is not to say that all HD-DVDs are great; it depends on the condition of a film's original print. But it certainly applies to "The Sting," which I have now owned in five different formats: first on a homemade Beta tape, then on a prerecorded VHS tape, followed by a regular-edition DVD, a Special-Edition DVD, and currently a high-definition DVD. Good things just keep on getting better.

In terms of the movie, I don't think there is much more that I can add that hasn't already been said about one of the most-honored and most-beloved films in Hollywood history, except to tell you how much I enjoyed it again on HD-DVD. "The Sting" was the second and final collaboration of stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford with director George Roy Hill. The resulting action-comedy caper was a smashingly successful attempt to recreate the charm of their first film together, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," made four years earlier. "The Sting" was the highest-grossing money earner of 1973, and it managed to win seven Academy Awards, earning Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Writing, Art Direction, Costume Design, Editing, and Music. Universal was wise in bringing it to HD-DVD, because it actually looks better than I remember it in a movie theater.

In the film, Newman plays Henry Gandorff, a big-time confidence man now down on his luck, and Redford plays Johnny Hooker, Newman's protégé. The camaraderie between the two principal actors is almost as appealing as it was in "Butch Cassidy," although cynics will claim it is just as sweetly cloying and overdone. Nonsense. The two films almost single-handedly established the "buddy-movie" format and their first pairing elevated Redford to true star status (Newman was already there).

Anyway, Robert Shaw plays a mob boss, Doyle Lonnegan, who is the target of Gandorff and Hooker's elaborate scam, basically a complicated con game set in 1936, involving a host of con men all readily participating to bring down Shaw, who has killed one of their own. The plot, somewhat mechanical in its unfolding, is nevertheless full of twists and surprises everywhere, as well as full of fine comic-dramatic acting and great comic-dramatic characters. I say "comic-dramatic" because although the film is essentially a comedy, it has some decidedly serious turns of events along the way, particularly in the beginning and at the end.

The colorful supporting cast includes Charles Durning as a crooked cop, and Ray Walson, Harold Gould, Eileen Brennan, Dana Elcar, and Jack Kehoe as some of Newman and Redford's fellow conspirators. Everyone plays it lightheartedly, so don't expect the drama to become too serious or the portrayals of crooks and gangsters to be too realistic. These are all lovable rogues, more like personalities out of Damon Runyan than anything else.

Also lending to the mood of the piece is the director's extensive use of Scott Joplin piano rags. Never mind that ragtime had already run its course by the 1930s and historically didn't fit the period; the music works, if it is perhaps a little overused. The director's pace is slick, the settings are vivid, the action is deft, and the humor is clever. But if the movie's tepid sequel, "The Sting II," is any measure, it was Newman and Redford who made "The Sting" work. It's no wonder that fans ever since have been asking if they would ever work together again. They are a joy.