The Color of Money

This article is about the lm. For other uses, see The City and, after several victories, nds himself facing o
Color of Money (disambiguation).
against a more world-wise Vincent. He beats Vincent,
but later, when he is celebrating with girlfriend Janelle
The Color of Money is a 1986 drama lm directed by (Helen Shaver), Vincent arrives and informs Eddie that
he intentionally lost in order to collect on a bet. He gives
Martin Scorsese from a screenplay by Richard Price,
based on the 1984 novel of the same name by Walter Eddie $8,000 as his cut. During his semi-nal match
against Kennedy, Felson sees his reection in the cue ball
Tevis. The lm stars Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, with
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Helen Shaver, and John and chooses to forfeit the game.
Turturro. The lm featured an original score by Robbie Out-hustled again, Eddie returns the money, saying that
Robertson.
he wants to beat Vincent legitimately. The two set up
Newman won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his a private match, where Eddie informs Vincent that if he
doesn't beat him now, he will in the future because I'm
performance.
back!"
The lm continues the story of pool hustler and
stakehorse Edward Fast Eddie Felson from Tevis rst
novel, The Hustler (1959), with Newman reprising his
2 Cast
role from its lm adaptation (1961). The lm begins at a
point more than 20 years after the events of the previous
Paul Newman Fast Eddie Felson
lm, with Eddie retired from the pool circuit. Although
Tevis did author a screenplay for the lm, having adapted
the storyline directly from his novel, the lmmakers decided not to use it, instead crafting an entirely dierent
story under Tevis title.[1][2]

Tom Cruise Vincent Lauria

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio Carmen
Helen Shaver Janelle
John Turturro Julian

Plot

Bill Cobbs Orvis

Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) is a former pool hustler turned successful liquor salesman. One night he
meets Vincent Lauria (Tom Cruise), a young, charismatic pool player and video gamer who hustles smalltime nine-ball games while working as a sales clerk at a
toy store. Eddie, who still stakes bets for talented players
like Julian (John Turturro), persuades Vincent and girlfriend/manager Carmen (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio)
to go on the road, where he can teach Vincent how to
make much more money hustling pool.

Forest Whitaker Amos

Many top American pool players of the 1980s had speaking roles, including Steve Mizerak, Grady Mathews, and
Keith McCready, and there were many cameo appearances, including Jimmy Mataya, Mark Jarvis, Howard
Vickery and Louie Roberts.

Director Scorsese has a cameo walking his dog, and another playing pool. Another notable cameo is that of Iggy
With Eddie staking their bets, Vincent visits a series of Pop, who plays one of the many contenders on the road.
billiard halls where Eddie tries to teach him that pool
excellence is not about excellent pool. Although Carmen is a quick study, Vincent chafes at Eddies scams, 3 Production
which routinely require him to play well below his abilities. Eventually, Eddie picks up a cue himself, doing Scorsese has cited the inuence of techniques and lighting
well in several games before being taken in by a pool in the 1947 Powell-Pressburger classic Black Narcissus in
shark named Amos (Forest Whitaker). Humiliated, Ed- making the lm. In particular he states that the extreme
die leaves Vincent and Carmen with enough money to close ups of Tom Cruise around the pool table were inmake it to the championships in Atlantic City.
spired by those of the nuns in that lm.[3] Newman said
Wearing new eyeglasses, Eddie begins working out and that the best advice he was given by Scorsese was to try
practicing. He enters the 9-ball tournament in Atlantic not to be funny. Cruise performed most of his own shots.
1

5 RELEASE

An exception was a jump shot over two balls to sink another. Scorsese believed Cruise could learn the shot, but
that it would take too long, so the shot was performed for
him by Mike Sigel. Cruise mentioned, to prepare for the
role, he bought a pool table for his apartment and practiced for hours on end until it was visible that he was
tremendous at the sport. Standing in for the extremely
valuable "Balabushka" cue in the movie was actually a
Joss J-18 (which later became the Joss N-07), made to
resemble a classic Balabushka.[4]

5 Release
The Color of Money held its world premiere at the
Ziegfeld Theater in New York City, NY on October 8,
1986. The lm was commercially released in the United
States on October 17, 1986. This release was limited to
only select theaters throughout the country, with the lm
opening in more theaters during the next four weeks of its
initial release. After its run, the lm grossed $52,293,982
domestically.[7]

Mike Sigel was technical director, and he and Ewa

Mataya Laurance served as technical consultants and
5.1
shot-performers on the lm.
Absent from the lm is the character Minnesota Fats,
played by Jackie Gleason in The Hustler. Newman later
said that he had wanted the character to appear, but that
none of the attempts to include him t well into the story
that was being written. According to Scorsese, Gleason apparently agreed with Newmans opinion that Minnesota Fats was not essential to the lms story. Scorsese
said that Gleason was presented a draft of the script that
had Fats worked into the narrative, but that upon reading it, Gleason declined to reprise the role because he
felt that the character seemed to have been added as an
afterthought.[2][5]

3.1

Opening voiceover

Critical reaction

Upon its release, the lm received mixed to positive critical response with many critics noting that the lm was
an inferior followup to The Hustler. Based on 37 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the lm received a
92% approval rating from critics, with an average score
of 7.3/10.[8] Siskel and Ebert gave the lm two thumbs
down, Scorseses only lm to receive such a review from
the team.[9]
The lm positively inuenced the popularity of pool.[10]
Ben Stiller, then a lm student at NYU and a cast-member
of the Broadway production of The House of Blue
Leaves, created a student lm, The Hustler of Money,
that parodied the movie. It featured Stillers Broadway
co-stars John Mahoney, Danny Aiello and Julie Hagerty,
with appearances by his parents. The lm appeared on
an episode of SNL.

Reecting the general theme of the lm, director Martin

Scorsese delivers an opening uncredited voiceover, describing the game of nine-ball, over a scene of cigarette 5.2 Academy Awards
smoke and a piece of cue chalk:
Wins[11]

Nine-Ball is rotation pool, the balls are

pocketed in numbered order. The only ball that
means anything, that wins it, is the 9. Now, the
player can shoot eight trick shots in a row, blow
the 9, and lose. On the other hand, the player
can get the 9 in on the break, if the balls spread
right, and win. Which is to say, that luck plays
a part in nine-ball. But for some players, luck
itself is an art.

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Paul Newman

Nominations
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Mary Elizabeth
Mastrantonio
Best Art Direction: Art Direction: Boris Leven; Set
Decoration: Karen O'Hara
Best Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from
Another Medium): Richard Price

5.3 Home video

Soundtrack

The Color of Money was rst released onto DVD on June

4, 2002. The lm was later released on Blu-ray on June
The soundtrack to the motion picture was released by 5, 2012.[12] Neither of the releases contain any special
MCA Records in 1986.[6]
features pertaining to the lm itself.[13]

References

[1] LoBrutto, Vincent (November 30, 2007). Martin Scorsese: A Biography. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 978-0-275-98705-3.
[2] Forsberg, Myra (October 19, 1986). "'The Color of
Money': Three Men and a Sequel". The New York Times.
[3] Black Narcissus (The Criterion Collection) (2001) DVD
commentary. Criterion. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
[4] Commercial information about the Joss N7 model pool
cue
[5] Levy, Shawn (May 5, 2009). Paul Newman: A Life. New
York: Harmony Books. ISBN 978-0-307-35375-7.
[6] The catalogue number for the original CD release was
DMCG 6023. The soundtrack information was taken
from the CD booklet.
[7] The Color of Money (1986)". Box Oce Mojo. Retrieved September 13, 2012.
[8] The Color of Money. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved
September 13, 2012.
[9] Ebert and Roeper at the movies
[10] Most Signicant Event: The Color of Money (1986)",
Billiards Digest, October 2003, page 72.
[11] The 59th Academy Awards (1986) Nominees and Winners. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 2014-03-15.
[12] "'The Color of Money' Announced for Blu-ray. Retrieved 2012-06-11.
[13] Reuben, Michael (June 6, 2012). The Color of Money
Blu-ray Review: We've Been Hustled. Blu-ray.com. Retrieved September 14, 2012.

Bibliography
Available editions of the book include: ISBN 0-44632353-5 (1984, rst edition), ISBN 0-446-34419-2
(1986, movie tie-in edition), ISBN 0-349-10150-7
(1990), ISBN 1-56849-689-3 (1997), and ISBN 156025-485-8 (2003).

External links
The Color of Money at the Internet Movie Database
The Color of Money at the TCM Movie Database
The Color of Money at AllMovie
The Color of Money at the American Film Institute
Catalog
The Color of Money at Rotten Tomatoes

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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8.3

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