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After working a lucrative confidence trick - inadvertently at the expense of influential racketeer Doyle Lonnegan - Luther Coleman is killed by Lonnegan's thugs and his younger partner, Johnny Hooker, seeks out Luther's former buddy in Chicago, Henry Gondorff, to learn the Big Time and hopefully to enlist his help in avenging Luther. Gondorff agrees to 'take' Lonnegan because of the money involved. Knowing that Lonnegan has a weakness for horses and poker, they construct a phony betting club in Chicago, and work a poker trick on a New York to Chicago train journey which results in Lonnegan losing a large sum of money to Gondorff. Pretending to be working against his partner Gondorff, Hooker then persuades Lonnegan that he can beat Gondorff's betting operation by getting results early with the aid of a friend in the telegraph office. Lonnegan, though interested, subjects the proposition to various tests; but thanks to the con men assembled by Gondorff, the betting club has a complete air of authenticity. Hooker meanwhile is being followed by the FBI; by Snyder, a crooked cop; and by the two men who killed Luther, as well as (unknown to him) by a man sent by Gondorff in case he falls into any traps. The big day arrives when Lonnegan is to place his huge bet and clean up at Gondorff's expense; and an elaborate charade lakes place during which Lonnegan thinks he sees Hooker and Gondorff killed during a raid by the FBI. But this too is a Gondorff ploy, and after the mystified Lonnegan has abandoned his money and been hustled away by the anxious Snyder, Gondorff and Hooker celebrate the biggest 'con' they have ever worked.

This, without doubt, is the most elaborate ‘heist' film to date, piling red herrings on top of each other in thick profusion and working up to an outrageously jokey and calculated finale. The tone, with the chummy relationship between Newman and Redford, is naturally reminiscent of Butch Cassidy, though lacking the applied feyness of that film. It is in fact a thoroughly old-fashioned, professional entertainment, a little overlong but sufficiently well written and played to carry an audience along in the best Hollywood sense. With one exception, Hill admirably controls his large cast of seasoned players and new faces (including some slatternly and dangerous ladies), with Redford, in particular, displaying a new sharpness and wit. Robert Shaw is the odd man out, making rather heavy weather of an admittedly ungrateful part. But the film's real pleasures are to be found in its sheer physical beauty: employing an ace team of veterans - cameraman Robert Surtees, designer Henry Bumstead, editor William Reynolds, costume designer Edith Head - Hill has produced the richest re-creation of a Thirties milieu to date. Surtees' lighting and movement (this and other recent work suggest that he is the greatest of the surviving Hollywood camera veterans) give almost every shot a central point of interest. The sleazy little back Streets, the stuffy hotel rooms and cafes are contrasted with the steely, grid-like outlines of the city towering above: the set decorations give a splendidly lived-in quality to the betting rooms and posh apartments; and the merging of settings and real locations is uncommonly smooth. If nothing else, the film marks a return to the kind of solid, peculiarly American type of film-making which seems to be the prerogative of the generation of technicians employed here.

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