Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

"My right hand hasn't seen my left hand in 30 years." JJ Hunsecker

Hold on to your hat! Sweet Smell of Success is as hard hitting a look at life as you are likely to see in movieland. The thing about this film that sets it apart is that it is orchestrated like a fine piece of music. It has the perfect rhythm, tone, and harmony to keep your interest throughout the relatively short running time of 96 minutes. Sweet Smell of Success pulsates with the life of the trash heap that is Broadway with a couple of parasites magnified under the microscope of director Alexander Mackendrick's camera.

The two parasites are a big rat and a small rat, played with aplomb by Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. Lancaster as "JJ Hunsecker" is a Walter Winchell-type columnist, able to make or break careers, while Tony Curtis is a seedy press agent, "Sidney Falco," who digs up the dirt for the big shot's gossip columns.

To understand the thrust of the story, it might be helpful to consider the career of columnist Walter Winchell, far more powerful in his day than anybody in the media today.

If you remember the movie Citizen Kane the whole idea of the power of the press (like Winchell had) was attacked, with disastrous results for director/star Orson Welles. The newspaper was everything in those days and Winchell was a power broker who ruthlessly pressed his advantages. A word from him or lack of a word could have earth shaking effects for the subject of his poison pen. And anybody who wanted to be somebody had to go through Winchell and play HIS game. The metaphor "to walk on eggs" might well have been written for people dealing with Winchell.

Burt Lancaster plays just such a character as Winchell, and Tony Curtis plays one of his small fry stool pigeons who needs to get his clients mentioned in the column to earn his fees. The interesting thing is noticing the mutual disgust yet need that each obviously has for the other. Lancaster is the golden ladder for Curtis to climb while Curtis is the bootlicker and inferior hanger-on (and dangerous rival) that validates Lancaster's position. The fact that the world these two inhabit includes Broadway, 21, and Toots Shor's rather than the dung pile they deserve makes the story doubly fascinating (and disgusting).

The story revolves around Lancaster's attempt to forestall his younger sister's romance with a jazz player. He uses Curtis as a catspaw to effect the smearing of the musician, through a rival reporter's column; but you should see the movie yourself...

Lancaster's relationship with his sister is unhealthy and smacks of incest, like the subplot in Scarface, but it is not emphasized. What is emphasized is the snake-like maneuverings of the two sleaze balls intertwined in their intricate game of life and death - for other people.

The filming is by award-winning cinematographer James Wong Howe and is a delightful look at the bright lights of Broadway fifty years ago. For a New Yorker or Broadway aficionado, that makes this movie a "must" for their collection on that point alone.

Dialog from the Clifford Odets script is biting, sarcastic, and quotable. You will undoubtedly pick up a few gems for your party banter if you watch this. Finally, this movie is brilliantly scored by Elmer Bernstein, one of the finest composers ever to work in the movie industry. He shows he really knows his way around dramatic jazz with his scintillating work here. Any part of this production could have won an Academy Award, except that the unattractive subject matter torpedoed any chances of recognition in the repressive Eisenhower years. Today Sweet Smell of Success has rightfully grown into its deserved reputation as a classic.

The MGM DVD is presented in 1.66:1 theatrical format, runs 96 minutes, and is in squeaky clean black and white. Very highly recommended.

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Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening