Memorable Con-Trick Movies

Last Sunday, while in Alamogordo NM, we went to the flicks, saw Focus, starring Will Smith and Margot Robbie. It's an entertaining story about confidence tricksters. Nice change from the current trends for mega-slam-bangers and Young-Adult-style dystopias.

Con games have long been a popular theme for movies, and books - in fact con games have been part of life too - though far less entertaining when they're for real! There's a little more about confidence tricksters in general partway down an archived post HERE.

My most memorable movies (or TV fare) with con-trick themes:

First memory surfacing is from the wonderful 1970s TV mini-series based on James Michener's long novel, Centennial. In part of the story, in late 19th century Colorado, Mervin Wendell (Anthony Zerbe), his wife Maude (Lois Nettleton), and young son Philip (Doug McKeon) arrive in Centennial. They appear to be itinerant actors but turn out to be charlatans and con-artists working their way across the new railroad towns a step ahead of the law. Their favorite con is called the "badger game".


An earlier movie (1966), not seen by me until later on has remained clearly in memory: Big Hand for the Little Lady - it stars Henry Fonda, Joanne Woodward, Jason Robards. The con involved here is part of another popular film theme - the card game.

Another -

The Skin Game (1971) with James Garner and Louis Gossett features a con game involving the slave trade. This sounds like a very unpleasant idea, yet in the hands of James Garner and Louis Gossett the film turned out to be one of my favourites of this genre.

Later on -

Primal Fear (1996) with Richard Gere and Edward Norton stayed in memory, mostly due to its ending - and Ed Norton's great acting. It's not a typical con trickster story, but comes within that broad category....as does


The Producers (1967) - an old Mel Brooks film seen very recently on Netflix. Not typically con-trickster fare but involves a memorable con-trick.

There are lots more, but those are the ones wedged securely in my own memory banks. Are any wedged in yours - including films, books and confidence tricks in general?

WEEKEND GRAB BAG ~~ CONFIDENCE

Confidence. From Latin root word fidere - to trust or have faith. Noun = fides. Secondary roots fid, fide, feal, feder. In modern English we see them, for example, in: confide, confidence, bona fide, federal, federation, confederate.

Confidences by Pierre Auguste Renoir

Astrologer C.E.O. Carter on self-confidence , from his Encyclopedia of Psychological Astrology:

Self-confidence is chiefly dependent upon a prominent Mars, although it may come from almost any planet if the same is strong in the ascendant or is the ruler of the horoscope. The Moon, Venus and Neptune are the least self-reliant, Neptune has much to do with inferiority complex.

A prominent but afflicted Mars causes too great self-confidence, especially is he is square the Sun without a strong Saturn as counteragent. In the former case there is often cocksureness and a tendency to take any risk, and often for a long time the native's adventuousness seems to justify itself. Aries prople very rarely lack self-reliance.........

Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.
— Truman Capote (Breakfast at Tiffany’s)

I have great faith in fools
- my friends call it self-confidence.
~ Edgar Allan Poe

Confidence tricksters, or con-artists are like magicians, it’s all about sleight of hand. They are confident, convincing and, beneath the surface, conniving. A con man approaches his mark with a mixture of colourful small talk and self-aggrandising, so that the mark will be taken in, will come to like him, and will find him impressive. In making himself seem important, the con man seems to flatter us with his attention. His patter is practised, rhetorically fluent and infectious. He rushes us from one impression – one piece of vague information – to another without ever pausing for breath. Before long he has us hooked, having made himself an influential presence in our lives. (See here).


Painting by Hieronymus Bosch - con-tricks have been around for a long time!



List of Top 10 Famous con men.

A while ago I had the bright-ish idea of doing a post, or several, on confidence tricksters and their astrology. Unsurprisingly, others have beaten me to it already. One interesting example: "Asteroid Bilk" by Alex Miller is at: http://www.daykeeperjournal.com/aarch09/0908aug/alex2.shtml

The great masses of the people...will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.
Adolf Hitler

The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most are those who try to tell them the truth.
H.L. Mencken

Stepping back into history, for the Romans, fides was an essential element in the character of a man of public affairs, and a necessary constituent element of all social and political transactions ('good faith'). Fides meant reliablilty, a sense of trust between two parties if a relationship between them was to exist. (See here)
In Roman religion, Fides was the goddess of trust. Her temple on the Capitol was where the Roman Senate signed and kept state treaties with foreign countries, and where Fides protected them. She is represented by a young woman crowned with an olive branch, with a cup or turtle, or a military ensign in hand. She wears a white veil or stola; her priests wore white cloths, showing her connection to the highest gods of Heaven, Jupiter and Dius Fidius. Her temple which can be dated to 254 B.C.E was near Jupiter's temple in the Capitol. (Wikipedia)

Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.

Franklin D. Roosevelt