Sweet Smell of Success
1957 Directed by Alexander Mackendrick
Synopsis
This is the story of J.J. - But not the way he wants it told
Sweet Smell of Success is a Film Noir from American director Alexander Mackendrick. This drama tells the defamation of a media mogul against a jazz musician who wants to marry his sister.
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So deliciously nasty. It's a film noir where gangsters are replaced by sleazy journalists and guns are replaced by lies and corruption. Press agent Sidney Falco is blackmailed by powerful newspaper columnist J.J. Hunsecker to ruin his sister's relationship with a musician he finds unworthy. Tony Curtis plays Falco and Burt Lancaster plays Hunsecker. Curtis, in a breakthrough performance, is a dirty rat of a character who has mastered the art of deception. Lancaster controls every scene he is present in with a domineering presence and his disapproval is fittingly described by Falco as a "death sentence." Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman's script (based on a novella by Lehman) is a work of satiric gold, featuring razor-sharp tongue-in-cheek dialogue. A…
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It's that good.
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Bravo Alexander Mackendrick, Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis for making a movie where the two main characters are despicable scumbags so memorable.
Sidney Falco (Curtis) is a press agent who is trying to win back the favour of ruthless journalist J.J. Hunsecker (Lancaster) by breaking up the relationship of a guitarist and Hunsecker's sister and the resulting fallout that follows. The story is morally ambiguous throughout and doesn't hide away at presenting these low-lives as they truly are - Falco, a shady and pathetic individual, will stoop very low to influence people and get what he wants and Hunsecker will use his column and power over a corrupt police official to destroy anyone that crosses him.
Often when the leading…
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One of the most quotable screenplays of all time. Combine that with Tony Curtis at his slimy/scheming (though not entirely blackhearted maybe) best and Lancaster doing his best arrogant villain and you already have the makings of a great talker.
Luckily you've also got James Wong Howe, the master of light and shadow, as DP so it looks beautiful. Brilliant location shooting and nighttime moments, lit seemingly only by headlights and streetlights. I like that it manages to find a bit of hope and redemption (maybe) in the end while still giving everyone their commeuppance and retaining its cynical side.
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It's all a perverse show and we'd rather be covered in the mud than anywhere else in the world.
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Here is a film that I have been meaning to see for quite some time now, and on its fifty-fifth year in existence I have finally become acquainted with its mastery.
Alexander Mackendrick's film features crackling dialogue, pristine black-and-white cinematography that roams through the streets of Manhattan, and two of the most scathing & cold-blooded lead characters the American cinema has ever created. The two men at the forefront of the film are played flawlessly by Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. Curtis in particular shines as the sleazy Sidney Falco, a press agent so desperate for a big break that he succumbs to the deviant plot by powerful columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Lancaster) to destroy his sister's relationship with a jazz musician.…
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Bravo Alexander Mackendrick, Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis for making a movie where the two main characters are despicable scumbags so memorable.
Sidney Falco (Curtis) is a press agent who is trying to win back the favour of ruthless journalist J.J. Hunsecker (Lancaster) by breaking up the relationship of a guitarist and Hunsecker's sister and the resulting fallout that follows. The story is morally ambiguous throughout and doesn't hide away at presenting these low-lives as they truly are - Falco, a shady and pathetic individual, will stoop very low to influence people and get what he wants and Hunsecker will use his column and power over a corrupt police official to destroy anyone that crosses him.
Often when the leading…
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95. (Down from 99, because goddamn it it ain't perfect but I want it to be.)
Try to cross the street without being accosted by shadows; try to breathe; how can anyone love this grimy place? You gotta be strong, you gotta own it--or else you gotta be weak and own that too. Here's a man: J.J. Hunsecker, he lives in those shadows and slings words like pistol bullets, he conquers with his eyes but you can't see them, his newspaper truck shaded by the nightlife evinces more humanity than he. Here's not so much a man: Sidney Falco, he writhes through the streets and dodges the ricochets, he throws sardine knives, he drops roofies in the drinks he buys…
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"The cats in the bag and the bags in the river". Brilliant performances (Tony Curtis best), Stunning script with wish-I-had-said-that rapid fire dialogue, wonderful cinematography by the great James Wong Howe.
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Though the big sticker on the DVD sells "Sweet smell of success" as 'cinematic history', the film is - after almost 60 years - surprisingly accurate and contemporary in dealing with the relentlessness of gossip columnists and despair and blind ambition in showbizz. A movie to be rewatched and marveled at at least once every 10 years.
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I think Tony Curtis is even better than Lancaster in this bleak noir-ish film.
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50s Manhattan is a world so grotesque that our smooth faced protagonist spends the entire film chasing love, but only to destroy it. Words are power, and no-one is as commanding as the acid-tongued J. J. Hunsecker.
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Isn't 'Sweet Smell of Success' brilliant? An endlessly quotable, razor sharp vision of the dog eating the dog. I love the fact that Hunsecker appears to have a thing for his sister - which, coupled with his powerful and abusive rhetoric, makes him seem an almost cartoonish monster. I couldn't begin to list my favorite lines - but it made me glad that Alexander MacKendrick directed it. The director of British comedies like 'The Ladykillers' not only nails that noir edge, melding the time period with the circumstances, seamlessly, but he has a knack for making the verbal acid which spews from Lancaster's mouth seem so sharp as to be witty and admirable. MacKendrick allows the delivery of these lines to almost anticipate a punchline while, in fact, seeming to flow as rapidly as a screwball comedy's dialogue might.
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First off, this film features the most degrading and offensive depiction of women I’ve seen in some time. Most of them freely admit to being “brainless” and others stand up and passionately defend their cheating husbands. The level of misogyny is shocking. One of the few prominent female characters in the film (also characterized as a brainless blonde) exists only to be traded off as a sexual object in exchange for a business favor. When the woman in question initially refuses to prostitute herself, Tony Curtis suggests she “not be dumb.”
Misogyny aside, there’s no denying that this film’s screenplay is smartly written. The dialogue is quick-witted and the plotting is complex. The film also makes good use of some…
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Tony Curtis is brilliant as the sleazy publicist in this classic Noir.