Yeah, but at the time, not only was it the Best Picture winner, but it was a blockbuster back when those didn't turn up every summer.
Put another way, what if "The King's Speech" had made as much money as "The Dark Knight"?
That's what The Sting was in 1973 going into 1974. The nation was filled with it -- the ragtime theme song was a RADIO hit, and I recall young guys doing the "nose fingering thing" to each other.
The Exorcist was the OTHER blockbuster of 1973, and it and The Sting opened with a coupla weeks each other at Christmas 1973.
The Best Picture vote at the time was seen as "Old Hollywood" trying to protect itself with the "old-fashioned" Sting versus the pretty damn sick "Exorcist." Also, egotistical director William Friedkin had just cleaned up two years earlier with The French Connection at the Oscars. A lot of folks didn't want to fete him again, so soon.
And so, when Elizabeth Taylor(Old Hollywood) opened the Best Picture envelope, she said "I'm so glad"...glad, no doubt, that The STing had beaten The Exorcist.
That said, "The Sting" is a classic...its script alone was unique -- nobody had heard of what a "sting" was...though now we all know. A great script(it won the Oscar and movie mogul Don Simpson said "this is the best script I have ever read" before the film was made), a great look, a great sound, and a re-teaming of two of the classiest male superstars in screen history.
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movieghoul
10 years ago
Agreed, ecarle. The difference between Sting and Exorcist is that Exorcist had lots of folks pent up to see it after reading the book, while Sting had little advance must see.
Also, Exorcist played exclusive runs for months with people waiting in line for hours, so it may have seemed like a bigger hit than Sting.
And William Peter Blatty may have been very offputting in TV interviews particularly on the subject of negative reviews for Exorcist which there were many of, which may have been grating to some Oscar voters.
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