"The Sting" | Film script and black and white photographic still

Henry Gondorff: You wanta wait for your share?

Johnny Hooker: Nah. I'd just blow it.

Screenplay for The Sting, written by David S. Ward and directed by George Roy Hill

"One key to plots about con men is that filmgoers want to feel they are in on the trick. They don’t have to know how a scheme works, and they don't mind a twist or two, but it’s important for the story to feature clearly recognizable 'good' and 'bad' characters. It took Ward a year to correctly adjust this aspect of the script, to figure out how much information he could hold back from the audience while still making the leads sympathetic. He went back to the same milieu Damon Runyon (and Capra) employed, imagining an underground brotherhood of crooks and thieves who assemble for a big operation and then melt away after the “mark” has been taken. This is the fable Ward pitched to [producer] Tony Bill" (Eagan).

Director George Roy Hill sent the script to Paul Newman, who was reluctant to play “an older guy handing off the scepter to a younger one.” In order to remedy this, Ward expanded what had been a supporting role, and after the film's producers agreed to sweeten the deal by giving Newman top billing, $500,000, and a percentage of the profits, he signed on for the part of Henry Gondorff.

REFERENCES: Daniel Eagan, "The Sting," in America's film legacy : the authoritative guide to the landmark movies in the National Film Registry (New York : Continuum, p. 700)