MovieChat Forums > The Sting (1973) Discussion > SPOYLAS -- the wire?

SPOYLAS -- the wire?

posted 9 years ago by whiskeyTango-06
7 replies | jump to latest

when the convincing examples are played-out for doyle -- even his the visit to the WU office -- who is feeding the beneficiary data to "the con"?

i mean, if they are actually past-posting in order to trick the mick, why not just stick with the trick, for several-a-click, and make banana-McMillions?

plot hole or am i an idiot (either will do)?

[–] jdcopp 9 years ago

What you have to understand is "The Wire" was not an invention of the screenwriter but an actual con used by con men in the US from in the early part of the 20th century (1900 to 1935) in the US and more than several marks were stung by it.

It's described in "The Professional Thief" by Chic Conwell and Edwin H Sutherland published in 1937 by the University of Chicago Press. Sutherland was a sociology professor at the University of Chicago.

[–] SidekickinWhiteFury 9 years ago

They couldn't make money that way because they weren't really past posting, they were just pretending to past post, and they convinced Doyle that they got the results before the winners were sent out on the wire by having an inside man at Western Union. They had no inside man.
When their man was doing the call, the race was already over, but he made it seem like he was doing it live. By reading the race call from the ticker tape. They weren't holding up the winners, as much as they were delaying the rebroadcast of the race.

[–] Thirdover4 8 years ago

Actually the character of Gondorf was based on a real Fred Gondorf in NY who pulled the same con, almost identically to the way it was played in the movie, but for only $8,000, and he got caught and he went to jail. The funny thing is he, he told the Mark that his brother was the inside Western Union man, and he took him to a real Western Union office and gave him a tour of the place, poking into offices and pretending to know people, and pulled it off.

[–] strntz 9 years ago

plot hole or am i an idiot (either will do)?

Neither. It was explained in a post above what they were doing, but I'd just like to add that if Doyle or his henchmen/thugs had done some research, they would have found out that the races in question were already run and the results made public and known by all, not just by the "inside guy" at Western Union.

The sting was that they convinced Doyle that they were holding up the results to the phony betting parlor, when actually anyone could have found out the race results before.

Is very bad to steal Jobu's rum. Is very bad.

[–] movieghoul 9 years ago

It would not have been easy for Doyle to discover that. In the 1930s, he could hardly have googled the race results to see when the race was completed.

[–] strntz 9 years ago

It would not have been easy for Doyle to discover that. In the 1930s, he could hardly have googled the race results to see when the race was completed.

OMG!! Here is my original answer and then below is what I thought of right before I pushed the submit button:

Easy? No.

And I realize that hindsight is always 20/20, but if he had the slightest inkling that he was being scammed, he could have had his two goons visit one parlor each; one at Gondorff's and another at any other parlor. Compare result times of a specific race with a watch. Even in the 1930s, watches were extraordinarily accurate.

Here is what I just thought of:

I was wrong about this! Hooker told Lonergan that he *was* past-posting the results. What I forgot was the scam wasn't the past posting, it was simply the miscommunication between Twist and Lonergan at the phony parlor.

So... if Lonergan had suspected he was being scammed, he would have done some more checking on Gondorff's parlor. The only time they were operating was during the 15 minutes that Lonergan was actually there.

Is very bad to steal Jobu's rum. Is very bad.

[–] 9 years ago

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