I've never seen that particular point mentioned by anyone but Mamet. But a confidence game starts when the con man gives you his trust. GROSS: In the movie we just saw - in "House Of Games," Joe Mantegna, when he's teaching Lindsay Crouse about cons, he says, people think a confidence game is when you give the con man your trust. GROSS: Now, you not only know a lot about cards, you know a lot about the history of con games. TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: Please welcome a man you don't want to play cards with - Ricky Jay. JAY: (As George) Pushy, Jim, pushy - you don't know what pushy is. MANTEGNA: (As Mike) I'll give it to you when I get to it. MANTEGNA: (As Mike) OK, OK, OK, give me a moment, will you? JAY: (As George) And if you think I'm leaving here without that check, you're out of your mind. LINDSAY CROUSE: (As Margaret) I have gathered that. RICKY JAY: (As George) Does that beat trips where you come from? Give me the money. JOE MANTEGNA: (As Mike) What the are you going with a flush? But Mantegna has just lost a lot of money in this game, and he's accusing Ricky Jay of cheating him. Her guide is a con man played by Joe Mantegna. They kicked off the evening with a clip from the film "House Of Games." Lindsay Crouse plays a psychologist who's being introduced to the underworld of con men. Let's start with an onstage conversation recorded in 1998 at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco at an event co-sponsored by FRESH AIR and City Arts & Lectures of San Francisco. Terry Gross did a number of interviews with Ricky Jay over the years. They were the subject of his book, "Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women." And he played strange and sinister characters onscreen - a con man in David Mamet's film "House Of Games," the camera man who shoots the porno films in "Boogie Nights" and a card shark on HBO's "Deadwood." He was also a scholar of con games and of the human oddities and exotic performers who worked the freak shows and traveling carnivals. He made cards disappear and reappear and move to different places in ways that are just impossible. When he worked with a deck of cards, it's as though he lived in a different dimension than we do, where the laws of physics have been altered. On today's show, we're going to remember the master magician Ricky Jay, who had been known as the greatest living sleight of hand artist. I'm David Bianculli, editor of the website TV Worth Watching, sitting in for Terry Gross.
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