The Movie vs The Book - SPOILERS, if you plan on reading the book

I recently re-watched this film and decided to get a copy of the book to see how the two would compare.

Not much of a comparison. The movie, which is okay in its own right, bears no resemblance to the book. Scorese used the title, the name of the character, Eddie Felson, and that's about it. In the book, there is no Vincent or his girlfriend Carmen; there is no stake-horsing by Eddie. It's just Eddie at fifty and washed up, trying to get back into the game, starting with exhibitions with Minnesota Fats, which Fats wins, every one. Then after Fats dies suddenly in the middle of the exhibition tour, Eddie decides to go into tournament play, eight ball and nine ball, for which he is ill-equipped, with his game still way off. By then he has a girlfriend, Arabella, who has her own life, but decides to travel around with Eddie to the various tournaments, with Eddie doubting himself all the way, but slowly getting better. Finally, there's the climatic scene of Eddie against the best nine ball hotshot in the game. Long story short, Eddie comes all the way back to what he was. He wins, and he and Arabella, go happily off into the sunset, figuratively speaking.

So, maybe Scorese read the book, which was given to him by Paul Newman, and thought, "this would bomb as a movie." So he decided to simply rewrite everything about it. He did an okay job, but The Hustler was better, more focused, just a better movie, which Scorese had nothing to do with.