David Maurer sued for plagiarism, claiming the screenplay was based too heavily on his 1940 book The Big Con, about real-life con men Fred and Charley Gondorff. Universal quickly settled out of court for $300,000, irking David S. Ward, who had used many nonfiction books as research material. It didn't help that Universal had quoted excerpts from Maurer's book, properly attributed, In the souvenir booklet produced as part of the film's publicity materials. Soon after, Followay Productions claimed that since they'd bought exclusive adaptation rights to The Big Con back in 1952, any movie ripped off of that book was ripped off from them, too. (The case was thrown out because Followay failed to get the author to join it.) Paul Newman sued for a refund of California income taxes that he paid on his salary from the film, saying he should have been charged the out-of-state rate, not the resident's rate. (He won.) Newman and George Roy Hill later sued Universal for lost revenue from VHS sales on this film and Colpo secco (1977).

Film

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