Fats employed every trick to beat Felson; otherwise he loses.

First of all I love the line, "You look beautiful, Fats, just like a baby, all pink and powdered up." HAHA!

When I saw the film for the first time and Newman delivered this line, I was in tears from laughing so hard. Even to this day, I still get a kick out of that line---I saw the movie late, late last night on AMC HD and it looked marvelous! Anyway, is there anyone else who find the line amusing or to be worthy enough of a "best quotes" reel (for this film at the very least)? Just curious.


As far as the opening sequence with Eddie vs Fats....
I have to say I don't think Eddie was really beat at the beginning of the film. What seems really obvious is that Eddie, despite spanking the baby, didn't feel he had succeeded simply because Fats didn't call it quits. In Eddie's mind Fats would not be beaten until he was beaten so bad he had conceded his loss to Eddie; thus, Eddie was convinced Fats was toying with him or had not yet revealed his "best game" of straight pool.

Obviously this was a bad move on the part of Eddie due to the outcome. Whether or not Fats had revealed his best game up front is debatable. Personally, I feel that Fats didn't have much more, if any, level of skill yet to reveal to Eddie; it was simply a combination of finding Eddie's weak point and exploiting it. This "weakness" and the exploitation, as we all know, was multi-pronged pitchfork in Eddie's side that night. Now, despite that his primary affliction was his ego (and the bravado that goes along with it as his "tell"), the drinking he had done as well as the lack of sleep and persistent playing contributed just as much to his collapse, both literally and figuratively speaking.

As it were, no one beat Eddie Felson but Eddie Felson. You might say he was hustled, or out played, or whatever you'd like to call it... but it remains that Fats had to call in his bank and overseer, Gordon, to fund him and help determine the optimal way to take Eddie out. He also had to "pretend" to drink seriously, and the point being is that Eddie's ego would force him to imbibe equally so that they would remain on a level playing field. The ruse of this should be obvious to everyone...
A. Fats was much heavier so thus he would have a natural advantage at holding his liquor over Felson,
B. he had all of his drinks on the rocks while Eddie was downing straight Bourbon,
C. According to what we are shown, Eddie was out-drinking Fats by a considerable margin, thus his game would surely have been more affected by liquor than Fats, and finally...
D. We really have no clue if Fats was even drinking (full strength) alcohol, where as it was plain as day to see that Eddie was taking swigs off a bottle of Jack Daniel's. (this is merely speculative, but its worth taking into account considering all the other aspects of the situation that were in Fats' favor... in other words I wouldn't put it past Fats/Gordon to resort to such schemes as drinking watered down whiskey, or not even liquor at all)

I could go on about how they were also playing on Fats' pissing grounds as well as his "reserved" table, or how Gordon had to goad Eddie verbally while Fats did the same with body language, his playing, the fact that he wouldn't call it quits, etc. etc. (watch Gleason closely in these scenes, watch what he does with his coat, his hands, his face even, and perhaps you'll take notice of this somewhat ineffable quality of Fats' character---also watch how Eddie mimics him, as to keep the playing field even, in my estimation... Fats had Eddie practically eating out of his hand).


So what does all this yammering amount to? Well, simply put, Eddie was a natural, the better pool player, perhaps the best... in my book anyway. The better man, however... the better hustler, _that_ night (and day), was undoubtedly Minnesota Fats.



FYI - I just watched the beginning sequence of pool playing last night, I didn't finish the film and I haven't seen it in its entirety in AGES. Thus any arguments directed at this post which are predicated on events further in the film will simply be ignored (well, not really... but try to keep in mind my statements are about the opening sequence; if your duty is to inform me on later events which help understand this scene, by all means feel free).