The Exorcist deserved Best Picture Oscar.

If you think the Exorcist is just a horror film then you really missed the point. It's much deeper than that but so many people just see a horror film. It's about losing faith and being lost in oneself and the desire for redemption. The horror is mostly secondary to the real central theme which is Father Karris' crisis.

If a movie year can have a split personality, 1973 was that year -- with "The Sting" and "The Exorcist" opening very close together at Christmastime(back then, Christmas, and not summer, was reserved for the blockbusters). Both films opened huge, stayed huge, and racked up huge blockbuster grosses...well into 1974. They were "the dynamic duo of 1973."

When Elizabeth Taylor opened the "Best Picture" envelope at the Oscars for 1973(in 1974) , she looked at the paper in her hand and said "I'm so glad...The Sting."

I've always felt that "I'm so glad" was a statement from Old Hollywood about how little a lot of them liked The Exorcist...after all, it had all that X passing as R profanity coming from the mouth of a pre-teen girl, along with green pea soup vomit. Many directors had turned The Exorcist down before William Friedkin -- a very nasty human being -- said yes.

The Sting was tougher than it looked -- a movie about crooks (con men who prey on people) taking on other crooks(gangsters) with such described side events as one gangster "getting an ice pick in the eye."

But The Sting felt "classic" -- a work of polished Hollywood craftsmanship, a great script, great ragtime music(that became a surprise radio song hit), unique and filled with surprises right up to the twist ending. Plus a re-teaming of two of the biggest, classiest and most handsome leading men in Hollywood.

William Peter Blatty, the author(book) and screenwriter(movie) of The Exorcist, ungraciously said on the very night of the Oscar aftermath, that his movie deserved to win over The Sting. Who knows?

I don't know...but I personally THINK..The Sting is and was better. More fun. Much better plotted and better written. With better stars.

I still see The Exorcist as a kind of child abuse -- with a side trip into medical horrors before coming back for the religious climax --and director William Friedkin also literally broke the back of star Ellen Burstyn forcing her to do a dangerous stunt.

What's interesting about this discussion is that it underlines what a spectacular coincidence came down in 1973...two massive blockbusters coming out around the same time (December of 1973; back then, Christmas-time, not summer is when the blockbusters came out) ; BOTH competing for the honor of "highest grossing film of all time"; and EACH totally unique and different , not just from each other but from all other movies out at the time.

I WILL compare that to this modern age in which the blockbusters of a given year are almost all superhero movies , and usually involving the same superheroes over the decades(Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Iron Man).

And this: The Exorcist and The Sting hit in late 1973, but continued on through 1974 as movies people went to AND as movies which each had a "weird" hit single on "the radio"(then, the place where ALL songs started.) For "The Sting" it was Scott Joplin's turn of the century ragtime tinker-tune "The Entertainer." For "The Exorcist," it was the odd melody of "Tubular Bells." BOTH songs had the distinction of bringing memories of the movie back as you drove in your car.

Quite a year. Quite a pair. They don't make 'em like that anymore -- not at the same time!

I think I saw The Sting in the theater way back then and I'm sure I liked it fine.
But I caught it on TV at a much later date and thought it was a little corny and unconvincing as compared to Butch Cassidy.
Same director (George Roy Hill) but with very different tones, imo.
The Sting seemed to be made just for the fun of it.

I've seen it recently for the first time. It's light entertainment. I don't think it's outstanding.

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True enough, but I will come to its defense a bit to say that "way back then," it was a light entertainment that still paced The Exorcist for a "super gross" (back then, US domestic counted more than international) -- edging up towards $100 million, i think. Or maybe 80 million.

How did it manage to do THAT?

Well, reuniting Newman and Redford was part of it -- Butch Cassidy had been the Number One box office hit of 1969, so everybody wanted to see Paul and Bob again...and Redford was now a much bigger star(a bit bigger than Newman.)

But Redford and Newman had picked something historic: a really great, unique SCRIPT. Co-Producer Julia Philiips wrote that studio exec Don Simpson got to read the screenplay early for The Sting and said to her "this is the best screenplay I've ever read." Phillips wrote, "and it was the best screenplay I ever WOULD read in decades of reading them."

The Sting was meant to be a "movie for one star only." Hooker was the lead. Nicholson turned the project down (he thought it would be a big hit, but not for his "energies"), Redford took the role and -- with his Butch director George Roy Hill in charge of the movie, Newman asked to read the script and wanted in. They decided that the "supporting role" of Gondorff(intended for Peter Boyle) could be beefed up and given to Newman. And...voila!

Several things made the script unique.

First was the subject matter. I may be wrong, but I believe the concept of "a sting" was unknown in 1973. Now one reads about "FBI stings" and its a given term. But people were curious - "The Sting?" What's a sting?

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