Misplaced Pages

#910089

67-493: The Santa Monica Pier is a large pier at the foot of Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica, California , United States. It contains a small amusement park, concession stands, and areas for views and fishing. The pier is part of the greater Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area . The pier contains Pacific Park , a family amusement park with its solar panelled Ferris wheel . The brightly lit wheel can be seen from

134-636: A 60-metre (200 ft) high bungee jump over the North Sea waves. The present pier is a successor of an earlier pier, which was completed in 1901 but in 1943 destroyed by the German occupation forces. The first recorded pier in England was Ryde Pier , opened in 1814 on the Isle of Wight , as a landing stage to allow ferries to and from the mainland to berth. It is still used for this purpose today. It also had

201-581: A Roller Derby star. The rinks operator was Jack Goodrich who was a former vaudeville and silent film star. The operators daughter Michelle Goodrich later became a showgirl in the Ice Capades. The La Monica Ballroom was demolished in 1963 as a result of the Newcomb family waiting too long to start repairs. The Pleasure Pier thrived during the 1920s but faded during the Great Depression . During

268-459: A color scheme of muted browns and maroons for the film and a lighting design that combined old-fashioned 1930s-style lighting with some modern tricks of the trade to get the visual look he wanted. Edith Head designed a wardrobe of snappy period costumes for the cast, and artist Jaroslav Gebr created inter-title cards to be used to introduce each section of the film that were reminiscent of the golden glow of old Saturday Evening Post illustrations,

335-543: A complicated plot by two professional grifters (Newman and Redford) to con a mob boss (Shaw). Hill had previously directed Newman and Redford in the Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). The screenplay, written by David S. Ward , inspired by real-life cons perpetrated by brothers Fred and Charley Gondorff and documented by David Maurer in his 1940 book The Big Con: The Story of

402-643: A distance and has been turned off during the Earth Hour observance. It also has an original carousel hippodrome from the 1920s, the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium operated by Heal the Bay , shops, entertainers, a video arcade , a trapeze school, pubs , and restaurants . The pier's west end is a popular location for anglers . The pier is a venue for outdoor concerts, movies, and other activities. Santa Monica has had several piers; however,

469-444: A future studio head, but then an agent. He wrote in his coverage that it was "the great American screenplay and … will make an award-winning, major-cast, major-director film." Medavoy said that he would try to sell it on that recommendation, promising to fire Cohen if he could not. Universal bought it that afternoon, and Cohen keeps the coverage framed on the wall of his office. Academic David Maurer sued for plagiarism, claiming

536-559: A large crew to create a phony off-track betting parlor. Snyder and Lonnegan's men track Hooker to Chicago; Gondorff warns Hooker that if either of them find him, the con will have to fold. Aboard the opulent 20th Century Limited , Gondorff, posing as the boorish Chicago bookie "Shaw", buys into Lonnegan's private, high-stakes poker game, being facilitated by the train's conductor. "Shaw" infuriates Lonnegan with his obnoxious behavior, then cheats him out of $ 15,000 ($ 329,353 in 2023). Hooker, posing as "Shaw's" disgruntled employee "Kelly",

603-642: A leisure function in the past, with the pier head once containing a pavilion, and there are still refreshment facilities today. The oldest cast iron pier in the world is Town Pier, Gravesend , in Kent , which opened in 1834. However, it is not recognised by the National Piers Society as being a seaside pier. Following the building of the world's first seaside pier at Ryde, the pier became fashionable at seaside resorts in England and Wales during

670-666: A linear littoral quayside, and such piers are usually much shorter. Typically each pier would carry a single transit shed the length of the pier, with ships berthing bow or stern in to the shore. Some major ports consisted of large numbers of such piers lining the foreshore, classic examples being the Hudson River frontage of New York , or the Embarcadero in San Francisco . The advent of container shipping , with its need for large container handling spaces adjacent to

737-477: A new pier was built in 1933. It remained till the present day, but was partially transformed and modernized in 1999–2004. In Nieuwpoort, Belgium there is a pleasure pier on both sides of the river IJzer . Scheveningen , the coastal resort town of The Hague , boasts the largest pier in the Netherlands , completed in 1961. A crane, built on top of the pier's panorama tower, provides the opportunity to make

SECTION 10

#1732773367911

804-566: A pier has two decks. Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier in Galveston , Texas has a roller coaster, 15 rides, carnival games and souvenir shops. Early pleasure piers were of complete timber construction, as was with Margate which opened in 1824. The first iron and timber built pleasure pier Margate Jetty , opened in 1855. Margate pier was wrecked by a storm in January 1978 and not repaired. The longest iron pleasure pier still remaining

871-456: A pier presents a set of different circumstances to fishing from the shore or beach, as you do not need to cast out into the deeper water. This being the case there are specific fishing rigs that have been created specifically for pier fishing which allow for the direct access to deeper water. In Blankenberge a first pleasure pier was built in 1894. After its destruction in the World War I ,

938-735: A popular publication of the 1930s. The movie was filmed on the Universal Studios backlot , with a few small scenes shot in Wheeling, West Virginia , some scenes filmed at the Santa Monica pier's carousel , in Southern California, and in Chicago at Union Station and the former LaSalle Street Station . An antique car buff, co-producer Tony Bill helped round up several period cars to use in The Sting . One of them

1005-644: A rating of 92% from 101 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and director George Roy Hill prove that charm, humor, and a few slick twists can add up to a great film." On Metacritic , the film has a weighted average score of 83 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". The soundtrack album, executive produced by Gil Rodin , includes several of Scott Joplin 's ragtime compositions, adapted by Marvin Hamlisch . According to Joplin scholar Edward A. Berlin , ragtime experienced

1072-658: A revival in the 1970s due to several events: a best-selling recording of Joplin rags on the classical Nonesuch Records label, along with a collection of his music issued by the New York Public Library ; the first full staging of Joplin's opera Treemonisha ; and a performance of period orchestrations of Joplin's music by a student ensemble of the New England Conservatory of Music , led by Gunther Schuller . "Inspired by Schuller's recording, [Hill] had Marvin Hamlisch score Joplin's music for

1139-521: A safe eating advisory for any fish caught from Santa Monica Pier to Ventura Harbor due to elevated levels of mercury and PCBs. On October 9, 2023, part of the pier was forced to evacuate after a man who claiming to have a bomb climbed onto the Ferris wheel at Pacific Park. He was then arrested and taken into custody. The City of Santa Monica created a non-profit in response to the damage and called it Santa Monica Pier Restoration Corporation (SMPRC). SMPRC

1206-626: A sequence toward the beginning where he goes to the La Monica Ballroom for an audition. The pier is also featured in the 2018 film Pacific Rim Uprising , starring John Boyega , where a kaiju attack destroys the pier (as well as the entire city). Jack Dawson in Titanic references the pier, which would have been just three years old in 1912, when the ship sank. Pier Piers have been built for several purposes, and because these different purposes have distinct regional variances,

1273-453: A single from the film's soundtrack). The film's success created a resurgence of interest in Joplin's work. Released on Christmas of 1973, The Sting was a massive critical and commercial success and hugely successful at the 46th Academy Awards , nominated for ten Oscars and winning seven, including Best Picture , Best Director , Best Film Editing and Best Original Screenplay ; Redford

1340-421: A year for Ward to fine-tune this aspect of the script and to figure out how much information he could keep from the audience while still making the leads sympathetic. He also imagined an underground brotherhood of thieves who assemble for a big operation and then melt away afterward. Years later, director Rob Cohen recounted how he found the script in the slush pile when working as a reader for Mike Medavoy ,

1407-460: Is a kind of con game, devoid of the poetic aspirations that weighed down Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ." Variety wrote, "George Roy Hill's outstanding direction of David S. Ward's finely-crafted story of multiple deception and surprise ending will delight both mass and class audiences. Extremely handsome production values and a great supporting cast round out the virtues." Kevin Thomas of

SECTION 20

#1732773367911

1474-411: Is actually Hickey, a fellow con man, who has been running a con atop the con with his "FBI agents" to divert Snyder and ensure that Lonnegan abandons the money without ever realizing he was taken. As the con men strip the room of its contents, Hooker refuses his share of the money, claiming he would lose it anyway, and walks away with Gondorff. Screenwriter David S. Ward has said in an interview that he

1541-647: Is at Southend-on-Sea , Essex , and extends 1.3 miles (2.1 km) into the Thames Estuary . The longest pier on the West Coast of the US is the Santa Cruz Wharf , with a length of 2,745 feet (837 m). Providing a walkway out to sea, pleasure piers often include amusements and theatres as part of their attractions. Such a pier may be unroofed, closed, or partly open and partly closed. Sometimes

1608-472: Is convinced after being provided the trifecta of another race, and agrees to finance a $ 500,000 bet ($ 11 million in 2023) to break "Shaw" and get revenge. Shortly thereafter, Snyder captures Hooker and brings him before Polk, who forces Hooker to betray Gondorff by threatening to jail Luther Coleman's widow. Feeling despondent the night before the sting, Hooker sleeps with a diner waitress named Loretta. The next morning, as she walks toward him in an alley,

1675-760: Is headquartered Hippodromes second floor, with former apartments being converted into offices, and conducted the daily operations of the Santa Monica Pier, such as managing events, filming, promotions, tenants, and street performers. SMPRC has produced the Santa Monica Pier Paddle Board Race and the Twilight Summer Concert Series. Also, in 2011, SMPRC changed the company name to the Santa Monica Pier Corporation (SMPC). In

1742-510: Is sent to collect the winnings and to convince Lonnegan to help him take over "Shaw's" operation. Hooker returns home to find Lonnegan's men waiting to assassinate him, but avoids their efforts; Gondorff is spooked by their attempt, but Hooker convinces him to keep the con alive. Snyder's pursuit of Hooker attracts the attention of undercover FBI agents led by Agent Polk, who orders Snyder to bring Hooker in to entrap Gondorff. Meanwhile, Lonnegan, frustrated with his men's inability to kill Hooker for

1809-477: Is the one at Southend. First opened as a wooden pier in 1829, it was reconstructed in iron and completed in 1889. In a 2006 UK poll, the public voted the seaside pier onto the list of icons of England. Many piers are built for the purpose of providing boatless anglers access to fishing grounds that are otherwise inaccessible. Many "Free Piers" are available in larger harbors which differ from private piers. Free Piers are often primarily used for fishing. Fishing from

1876-475: The Los Angeles Times called it "an unalloyed delight, the kind of pure entertainment film that's all the more welcome for having become such a rarity." John Simon wrote that The Sting as a comedy-thriller "works endearingly without a hitch". Pauline Kael of The New Yorker was less enthusiastic, writing that the film "is meant to be roguishly charming entertainment, and that's how most of

1943-627: The Victorian era , peaking in the 1860s with 22 being built in that decade. A symbol of the typical British seaside holiday, by 1914, more than 100 pleasure piers were located around the UK coast. Regarded as being among the finest Victorian architecture, there are still a significant number of seaside piers of architectural merit still standing, although some have been lost, including Margate , two at Brighton in East Sussex , one at New Brighton in

2010-769: The Wirral and three at Blackpool in Lancashire . Two piers, Brighton's now derelict West Pier and Clevedon Pier , were Grade 1 listed . The Birnbeck Pier in Weston-super-Mare is the only pier in the world linked to an island. The National Piers Society gives a figure of 55 surviving seaside piers in England and Wales. The Sting The Sting is a 1973 American heist film directed by George Roy Hill and starring Paul Newman , Robert Redford and Robert Shaw . Set in September 1936, involving

2077-507: The health of sandy beaches and navigation channels . Pleasure piers were first built in Britain during the early 19th century. The earliest structures were Ryde Pier , built in 1813/4, Trinity Chain Pier near Leith, built in 1821, Brighton Chain Pier , built in 1823. and Margate Jetty 1823/24 originally a timber built pier. Only the oldest of these piers still remains. At that time,

Santa Monica Pier - Misplaced Pages Continue

2144-409: The 1930s, most of the amusement park facilities were closed down and its attractions sold off. A breakwater was built in 1934 that provided docking for up to 100 fishing and pleasure boats near the pier. The bridge and entry gate to Santa Monica Pier were built in 1938 by the federal Works Project Administration , and replaced the former grade connection. The Newcomb Pier was privately owned until it

2211-408: The 1958 Maverick television series episode " Shady Deal at Sunny Acres ", starring James Garner and Jack Kelly . Jack Nicholson was offered the lead role but turned it down. He later said "I had enough business acumen to know The Sting was going to be a huge hit, [but] at the same time Chinatown and The Last Detail were more interesting films to me." Newman signed on the film after

2278-498: The Carousel and Hippodrome were locations for the film The Sting . Storms swept away the protective breakwater in 1982. During storms in early 1983, the pier experienced a significant loss. On January 27, there were reported swells of 10-feet during this winter storm. When the storm was over, the lower deck of the pier was destroyed. The City of Santa Monica began repairs on March 1, 1983, when another storm rolled in. A crane which

2345-575: The Carousel, PTC #62, in 1922. It features 44 hand-carved horses. It was rebuilt in 1990 inside the Hippodrome. A calliope provides musical accompaniment. The La Monica Ballroom opened on July 23, 1924. Designed by T. S. Eslick with a Spanish façade and French Renaissance interior, it was the largest dance hall on the west coast , accommodating 5,000 dancers on its 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m) hard maple floor. Country music star Spade Cooley began broadcasting his weekly television show from

2412-569: The Confidence Man . The film plays out in distinct sections with old-fashioned title cards drawn by artist Jaroslav "Jerry" Gebr in a style reminiscent of the Saturday Evening Post . It is noted for its use of ragtime , particularly the melody " The Entertainer " by Scott Joplin , which was adapted (along with other Joplin pieces) for the film by Marvin Hamlisch (and a top-ten chart single for Hamlisch when released as

2479-628: The Joliet con, orders the job to be given to Salino, his best assassin. A mysterious figure with black leather gloves begins following and observing Hooker. "Kelly" gives Lonnegan a tip on a 7-to-1 long shot in a horse race that pays off. When Lonnegan presses him for details, he reveals that he has a partner, "Les Harmon" (actually con man Kid Twist), in the Chicago Western Union office, who will help them topple "Shaw" by winning bets he books on horse races through past-posting . Lonnegan

2546-802: The Pleasure Pier eventually included the Santa Monica Looff Hippodrome building (which now houses the current carousel and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places ), the Blue Streak Racer wooden roller coaster (which was purchased from the defunct Wonderland amusement park in San Diego), the Whip, merry-go-rounds, Wurlitzer organs, and a funhouse. The Philadelphia Toboggan Company built

2613-565: The Roxbury (1998), Mighty Joe Young (1998), Miracle Beach , Forrest Gump (there is a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company Restaurant on the pier), Not Another Teen Movie , Iron Man , Desperate Teenage Lovedolls , Dark Ride , Cellular , The Hottie and the Nottie , Falling Down , Ruthless People (the pier is the site of the movie's climactic final scene), Love Stinks , Hancock , The Happytime Murders , Sharknado ,

2680-653: The audience takes it, but I found it visually claustrophobic, and totally mechanical. It keeps cranking on, section after section, and it doesn't have a good spirit." In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #39 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written. On Rotten Tomatoes , The Sting holds

2747-700: The ballroom in 1948, where the program remained until 1954. In the summer of 1955, the Hollywood Autocade opened at the La Monica with one-hundred famous and unusual cars, including Jack Benny 's Maxwell and a Rumpler Drop Car . From 1955 until 1962, the ballroom served as a roller skating rink ; first as Skater's Ballroom, and later as the Santa Monica Roller Rink, where the speed skating club won many state and regional championships and later Champion speed skater Ronnie Rains become

Santa Monica Pier - Misplaced Pages Continue

2814-403: The black-gloved man appears and shoots her dead before she could shoot Hooker. The man reveals to Hooker that he was hired by Gondorff to protect him and that the waitress was in fact Salino. At "Harmon's" direction, Lonnegan bets $ 500,000 at "Shaw's" parlor on a horse named Lucky Dan. As the race begins, "Harmon" arrives and expresses shock at Lonnegan's bet: when he said "place it" he meant that

2881-412: The current Santa Monica Pier is made up of two adjoining piers that long had separate owners. The long, narrow Municipal Pier opened September 9, 1909, primarily to carry sewer pipes beyond the breakers and had no amenities. The short, wide adjoining Pleasure Pier to the south, also known as Newcomb Pier, was built in 1916 by Charles I. D. Looff and his son Arthur, amusement park pioneers. Attractions on

2948-534: The film four out of four stars and called it "one of the most stylish movies of the year". Gene Siskel awarded three-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it "a movie movie that has obviously been made with loving care each and every step of the way." Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film was "so good-natured, so obviously aware of everything it's up to, even its own picturesque frauds, that I opt to go along with it. One forgives its unrelenting efforts to charm, if only because The Sting itself

3015-529: The film into a full-length novel, The Sting (1974), based on the screenplay by David S. Ward . The movie was issued on DVD by Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment in 2000. "If Paul Newman really does retire, he can spend his rocking chair years feeling smug about this," enthused Bruno MacDonald for OK! "The story's not the important thing: what makes it are the quirky soundtrack, the card-sharp dialogue and two superduperstars at their superduperstarriest." A deluxe DVD – The Sting: Special Edition (part of

3082-691: The film, thereby bringing Joplin to a mass, popular public." Shipments figures based on certification alone. Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis (music and lyrics), writer Bob Martin , and director John Rando created a stage musical version of the movie. The musical premiered at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey on March 29, 2018. Henry Gondorff was played by Harry Connick Jr. , with choreography by Warren Carlyle . The stage musical incorporates Joplin's music, including "The Entertainer". Robert Weverka adapted

3149-434: The film. Phillips' book asserts that Shaw was not nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award because he demanded that his name follow those of Newman and Redford before the film's opening title. Shaw's character's limp in the film was authentic. Shaw had injured his leg while playing handball shortly before filming began. Director Hill encouraged him to incorporate the limp into his character rather than withdraw from

3216-599: The fishing and cargo industries and serves as a port for large cruise ships in the area. Many other working piers have been demolished, or remain derelict, but some have been recycled as pleasure piers. The best known example of this is Pier 39 in San Francisco . At Southport and the Tweed River on the Gold Coast in Australia , there are piers that support equipment for a sand bypassing system that maintains

3283-495: The horse would "place" (i.e., finish second ). In a panic, Lonnegan rushes to the teller window and demands his money back, at which point Polk, Snyder, and a half-dozen FBI agents storm the parlor. Polk tells Hooker he is free to go. Shocked at the betrayal, Gondorff shoots Hooker. Polk shoots Gondorff and orders Snyder to get the ostensibly respectable Lonnegan away from the crime scene. With Lonnegan and Snyder safely away, Hooker and Gondorff rise amid cheers and laughter: "Polk"

3350-564: The image of a Victorian cast iron pleasure pier. However, the earliest piers pre-date the Victorian age . Piers can be categorized into different groupings according to the principal purpose. However, there is considerable overlap between these categories. For example, pleasure piers often also allow for the docking of pleasure steamers and other similar craft, while working piers have often been converted to leisure use after being rendered obsolete by advanced developments in cargo-handling technology. Many piers are floating piers, to ensure that

3417-442: The indie romantic comedy She Wants Me , and Hannah Montana: The Movie (the scene with Lilly's birthday party). During the earthquake in the movie 2012 , the pier can be seen sinking beneath the waves. The Natalie Wood film Inside Daisy Clover (1965) features the pier in the beginning of the picture. The pier was also featured in the 2012 film version of Rock of Ages . The Glenn Miller Story with Jimmy Stewart has

SECTION 50

#1732773367911

3484-453: The introduction of steamships and railways for the first time permitted mass tourism to dedicated seaside resorts . The large tidal ranges at many such resorts meant that passengers arriving by pleasure steamer could use a pier to disembark safely. Also, for much of the day, the sea was not visible from the shore and the pleasure pier permitted holidaymakers to promenade over and alongside the sea at all times. The world's longest pleasure pier

3551-461: The pier stretching far enough off shore to reach deep water at low tide. Such piers provided an economical alternative to impounded docks where cargo volumes were low, or where specialist bulk cargo was handled, such as at coal piers . The other form of working pier, often called the finger pier, was built at ports with smaller tidal ranges. Here the principal advantage was to give a greater available quay length for ships to berth against compared to

3618-603: The piers raise and lower with the tide along with the boats tied to them. This prevents a situation where lines become overly taut or loose by rising or lowering tides. An overly taut or loose tie-line can damage boats by pulling them out of the water or allowing them so much leeway that they bang forcefully against the sides of the pier. Working piers were built for the handling of passengers and cargo onto and off ships or (as at Wigan Pier ) canal boats. Working piers themselves fall into two different groups. Longer individual piers are often found at ports with large tidal ranges , with

3685-851: The popular book series The Dark Artifices by Cassandra Clare, the fictional Los Angeles Institute overlooks the Santa Monica Pier. Most of the major plot is set in this vicinity. The Santa Monica Pier has been used as a filming location for many decades. The amusement park attractions as they existed in 1930s are seen prominently in the Our Gang short Fish Hooky (1933). It also appears prominently in Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), Quicksand (1950), Elmer Gantry (1960), 1941 (1979 film), The Opposite of Sex (1998), They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), Night Tide (1961), Bean (1997), The Sting (1973), Farewell, My Lovely (1975) with Robert Mitchum , Her (2013), A Night at

3752-572: The producers agreed to give him top billing, $ 500,000 and a percentage of the profits. His previous five films had been box-office disappointments. In her 1991 autobiography You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again , producer Julia Phillips writes that Hill wanted Richard Boone to play Lonnegan. Much to her relief, Newman had sent the script to Robert Shaw while shooting The Mackintosh Man in Ireland to ensure his participation in

3819-537: The project. Hill wanted the film to be reminiscent of movies from the 1930s and watched films from that decade for inspiration. He noticed that most '30s gangster films had no extras. "For instance", Andrew Horton's book The Films of George Roy Hill quotes Hill as saying, "no extras would be used in street scenes in those films: Jimmy Cagney would be shot down and die in an empty street. So I deliberately avoided using extras." Along with art director Henry Bumstead and cinematographer Robert L. Surtees , Hill devised

3886-427: The screenplay was based too heavily on his 1940 book The Big Con , about real-life tricksters Fred and Charley Gondorff. Universal settled out of court for $ 600,000, irking Ward, who resented the presumption of guilt implied by an out-of-court settlement done for business expediency. Writer/producer Roy Huggins maintained in his Archive of American Television interview that the first half of The Sting plagiarized

3953-504: The shipping berths, has made working piers obsolete for the handling of general cargo, although some still survive for the handling of passenger ships or bulk cargos. One example, is in use in Progreso, Yucatán , where a pier extends more than 4 miles into the Gulf of Mexico , making it the longest pier in the world. The Progreso Pier supplies much of the peninsula with transportation for

4020-521: The term pier tends to have different nuances of meaning in different parts of the world. Thus in North America and Australia , where many ports were, until recently, built on the multiple pier model, the term tends to imply a current or former cargo-handling facility. In contrast, in Europe , where ports more often use basins and river-side quays than piers, the term is principally associated with

4087-529: Was a courier for vicious Irish-American crime boss Doyle Lonnegan. Lonnegan's men murder Luther and the courier. After finding Luther dead, Hooker flees to Chicago. Hooker finds Gondorff drunk and in hiding from the FBI , running a carousel that is a front for a brothel , and asks for help taking down Lonnegan. Initially reluctant, Gondorff relents and recruits a team of experienced con men. They decide to resurrect an elaborate, obsolete scam known as "the wire", using

SECTION 60

#1732773367911

4154-477: Was acquired by the city in 1974. During the 1960s and 1970s, various plans were proposed that would entail removal of the pier. The most extensive included the construction of an artificial island with a 1,500-room hotel. It was approved by the City Council, but citizens formed "Save Santa Monica Bay" to preserve the pier. The order to raze the pier was revoked by the city council in 1973. Within that same year,

4221-400: Was also nominated for Best Actor . The film rekindled Newman's career after a series of big-screen flops. Regarded as having one of the best screenplays ever written, The Sting was selected in 2005 for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". A sequel film , also written by David S. Ward,

4288-584: Was being used to repair the west end was dragged into the water and acted as a battering ram against the pilings. Over one-third of the Pier was destroyed. On May 25, 1996, The Santa Monica Pier welcomed its newest attraction Pacific Park. Pacific Park was the first new attraction since the 1930s. Construction began on December 2, 1994 and ended in February, 1996. On June 18, 2009, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment issued

4355-487: Was his own 1935 Pierce-Arrow limousine, which served as Lonnegan's private car. The film was a box-office smash in 1973 and early 1974, grossing $ 156 million in the United States and Canada. As of August 2018, it is the 20th highest-grossing film in the United States adjusted for ticket price inflation. Internationally, it grossed $ 101 million for a worldwide gross of $ 257 million. Roger Ebert gave

4422-443: Was inspired to write The Sting while researching pickpockets: "Since I had never seen a film about a confidence man before, I said I gotta do this." Daniel Eagan said: "One key to plots about con men is that film goers 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

4489-557: Was released in 1983. In 1936, amid the Great Depression , grifter Johnny Hooker and his partners Luther Coleman and Joe Erie con $ 11,000 in cash from an unsuspecting victim in Joliet, Illinois . Hooker loses his share of the con on a rigged roulette game, while Luther, buoyed by the windfall, decides to retire. He tells Hooker to seek out his old friend Henry Gondorff in Chicago to learn "the big con". Corrupt Joliet police lieutenant William Snyder confronts Hooker, revealing that their mark

#910089