The Sting is a 1973 caper film set in September 1936 an revolving around a complicated plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss (Robert Shaw). The story, created by screenwriter David S. Ward, was inspired by some real-life con games perpetrated by the brothers Fred and Charley Gondorf and documented by David W. Maurer in his book The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man. The movie was directed by George Roy Hill, who also directed Newman and Redford in the classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The title phrase refers to the moment when a con artist finishes the "play" and takes the mark's money. (Today the name is mostly used in the context of law enforcement sting operations.) If the con game is successful, the mark does not realize he has been "taken" (cheated), at least not until the con men are long gone.