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The Complete Works Ep. 113: Tom Cruise – THE COLOR OF MONEY (1986)

·34 min·2 clips

A software company took the name of its video game from Tom Cruise's answer in the pool hall: "Doom."

1. The Complete Works, a Filmbook podcast, devotes Episode 113 to Tom Cruise's 1986 film The Color of Money, which runs about an hour and 59 minutes. 2. Host Doug Hance is working through Tom Cruise's filmography, and here he covers a film starring Paul Newman as Fast Eddie and Cruise as Vincent, directed by Martin Scorsese. 3. Hance's thesis is that the film, while "not an exciting film" because it is about pool, is underrated and "holds up remarkably well" against better-known 1980s titles. 4. He explains that the film arrives 25 years after The Hustler (1961), picking up Eddie as a successful salesman in a Cadillac who spots a talented kid playing pool in a bar. 5. He highlights how Eddie approaches Vincent's older, tougher girlfriend Carmen to make Vincent jealous and undermine his confidence, and he links that energy to Scorsese's earlier Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. 6. He names a weakness, a formula of "old versus new" with Eddie as the old pro and Vincent as the talented youngster, and says some scenes felt like "I've seen this set up before." 7. He credits Newman, who won the Best Actor Oscar, and Helen Shaver as Eddie's bartender girlfriend, and says Scorsese kept Cruise's rising star power from overshadowing the veteran. 8. He compares the film to All the Right Moves, The Hustler, Wall Street, Goodfellas and Rain Man, and rates it a 7 out of 10 while noting it received 10 Oscar nominations, including Richard Price's adapted screenplay. 9. He lists a budget of about $14.5 million, a U.S. and Canada gross of just over $52 million, a $6.3 million opening weekend on October 19, 1986, and trivia such as the Doom name origin and Newman and Joanne Woodward becoming the first married couple to win Oscars. 10. Fans of Tom Cruise, Paul Newman and Scorsese's lesser-discussed work will find it useful.

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