Set in 1936, it involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss (Robert Shaw). The film was directed by George Roy Hill,[ who had previously directed Newman and Redford in the Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). The screenplay, written by David S. Ward, was inspired by real-life cons perpetrated by brothers Fred and Charley Gondorff and documented by David Maurer in his 1940 book The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man.
