When Scott Joplin Made the Top 40: Fifty Years of The Sting

As the year speeds to an end and we focus on holiday gaiety, I am reminded of a Christmas day anniversary that deserves acknowledgment. The release of George Roy Hill’s The Sting occurred on December 25, 1973, 50 years ago. Anticipating this column, I began to collect impressions about the film from ragtime friends at the same time I took a fresh look at one of my all-time favorite movies. My first startling revelation was that many in the ragtime community had not even been born in 1973. As a result, many of my younger friends had only watched the video in recent years and several had not seen the film at all. I had the same reaction in my teaching years when I looked out at my class of 18- to 30-year-olds in the late 1980s and realized they had not experienced President Kennedy’s assassination. It was quite different from working with students who remembered the event. The release of the classic movie could not have come at a better time for the inaugural Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival that was held July 25-28, 1974. The use of Joplin’s compositions for the picture’s score awakened interest in his music and in his Sedalia story. The idea to use Joplin’s music was George Roy Hill’s inspiration and he chose Marvin Hamlisch to adapt the music for the film. I distinctly remember watching the Academy Awards TV program on April 2, 1974. The Sting had earned ten nominations