Did THE STING plagiarize Harry Lime?

[Le Chiffre]

Ever hear the "Lives of Harry Lime" episode called HORSE PLAY? Amazingly like THE STING, with a fake betting parlor constructed by Harry’s associates, a horse mistakenly bet to “win” instead of “place”, and a staged shooting with fake blood afterwards. But this episode predates it by 20 years!

https://archive.org/details/TheLivesOfHarryLime

[Jedediah Leland]

I suspect it's more that they were likely based on the same source material.

"The Sting" is based on David Maurer's 1940 book "The Big Con", which is a how-to guide for confidence tricksters, outlining all the various tricks of the trade. (Interestingly enough, the same book inspired Bruce Geller to create "Mission: Impossible".)

Given Welles's penchant for pulp literature and crime literature, and given that "The Big Con" was a bestseller in the 1940s, I think it's quite likely he'll have come across a copy by 1951. And more to the point, given most of the Harry Lime radio scripts were written by professional crime writers from the States...well, they're likely to have read "The Big Con", too.

Anyway, well-spotted on the plot resemblance!

[Le Chiffre]

Thanks Jedediah. I wonder if the writers of AMERICAN HUSTLE, which I saw a couple of days ago and enjoyed a lot, referred to Mr. Maurer's book as well.