Last week we got hardcore mobsters in The Godfather. This week we get softcore (if there is such a thing) con artists in The Sting (1973, Universal-Bill/Phillips-George Roy Hill Film Production; Zanuck/Brown Presentation; Universal). The Sting is kind of a mixed bag. I thought it might be funny, and it is—at parts. Then I thought it might be risqué and violent, and it is—at parts. Finally, I thought it might be sad, and I won’t give away any specifics here, but it is a bit sad—in parts—as well.

Robert Redford and Paul Newman in The Sting.

The Sting was one of the two leading contenders at the 1974 Academy Awards (the other major contender that year was The Exorcist—yikes!), both of which received ten nominations (followed by The Way We Were with six nods). The Sting came out the big winner of the night, taking home seven Oscars, but it is notable that neither one of the night’s two favorites won any acting awards. The Sting nabbed statuettes in the following categories: Music (Scoring: Original Song Score and Adaptation -or- Scoring: Adaptation), Art Direction, Writing (Story and Screenplay—based on factual material or material not previously published or produced), Costume Design, Directing for George Roy Hill, Film Editing, and Best Picture (it failed to win for Cinematography, Sound, and Best Actor for Robert Redford as Johnny Hooker).

There are several quite interesting points to draw out about the 1974 Academy Award nominees and winners (besides the fact that a streaker ran across the stage right before the BP winner was announced!). First, The Exorcist became the first horror film to be nominated for Best Picture. Forty-five years later, there are no less than four sequels/prequels to the original movie, and Fox just wrapped up the second season of its TV drama of the same name this past December. Gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

Second, The Sting’s Best Picture victory meant that Julia Phillips became the first woman to win the Academy’s most prestigious Oscar as the film’s co-producer (she shared the award with her then-husband Michael Phillips and producer Tony Bill—the trio purchased the screenplay for The Sting for a mere $5,000!). If you’re feeling like indulging in an interesting read, Phillips wrote two books chronicling her time in Hollywood (including her struggles with illegal substance abuse): You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again (1991) and Driving Under the Affluence (1995), both of which at least sound rather creative.

Third, Tatum O’Neal starred in 1973’s Paper Moon with her real-life father Ryan O’Neal and became the youngest person to ever win an Oscar—she was 10 years, 148 days old when she took home her Academy Award for Actress in a Supporting Role. No one has loosened her grip on this record, although a couple of child actors/actresses have come close. In 1993, Anna Paquin nearly stole the record when she won Actress in a Supporting Role for The Piano; but she was “older” at 11 years, 240 days. I suddenly have the sense that I haven’t accomplished enough in my “long” lifetime…

Lastly, in 1974, Edith Head won the Oscar for Costume Design for her work on The Sting. She had been born in San Bernardino, California, right before the turn of the century (as in, she was born in the 1800s!). She seems to have been quite the academic, earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in letters and sciences from Berkeley and her Master of Arts degree in romance languages from Stanford by 1920. For a short while she taught French, Spanish, and art at an all-girls school in La Jolla, California; but after answering an ad for a sketch artist for Paramount, Head embarked on what would become one of the most illustrious careers anyone has ever had in Hollywood. After a few years as design assistant, Head became Head of Design (no pun intended) for almost 30 years at Paramount, after which she moved to Universal (for whom she worked on The Sting). Out of the more than 1,100 films she worked on, some of Head’s most famous credits include Roman Holiday (1953), The Ten Commandments (1956), and six Best Picture winners: Wings (1927/28), Going My Way (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), All About Eve (1950), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), and The Sting. By the end of her career, Head had accumulated 35 Academy Award nominations and won eight Oscars—more than any other woman to this day. The Sting was her final Academy Award win, which makes her story pretty fitting for this particular post.

Edith Head with just a few of her Oscars.

For more thoughts on The Sting and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!