This multiple-Academy-Award movie -- best picture, director and script to begin with -- is one of the great movies of the 1970s. It's not just that the entire production is filled with spot-on bits, from 1930s-style wipes, great performances from the leads and supporting players, and a cynical attitude that speaks to me. David S. Ward's script takes you down the rabbit hole, and debouches unexpectedly. It's that toughest of things to produce in a movie, a sense of the unreliable narrator a story where all the characters are giving performances, with the exception of Charles Durning and Robert Shaw. Everyone else is lying and knows it, and the audience knows it too. As a result this tale of how all the confidence men in Chicago are pulling game on Robert Shaw to get revenge for his having killed one of their own, Robert Earl Jones is filled with unexpected depths. I can and do watch it every year or so, and marvel at its perfection.
