Sweet Smell of Success

Sweet Smell of Success is a 1957 American film noir drama film directed by Alexander Mackendrick, starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, and Martin Milner, and written by Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman, and Mackendrick from the novelette by Lehman. The shadowy noir cinematography filmed on location in New York City was shot by James Wong Howe. The picture was produced by James Hill of Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions and released by United Artists. The supporting cast features Sam Levene, Barbara Nichols, Joe Frisco, Edith Atwater, David White and Emile Meyer. The musical score was arranged and conducted by Elmer Bernstein and the film also features jazz performances by the Chico Hamilton Quintet. Mary Grant designed the costumes.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) With so many problems entangling studios after World War II (i.e.: diminished audience, the Anti-Trust Law of 1948 and the debilitating witch hunt held by the HUAC), this would lead the way for smaller, independent films to emerge. Some of the most popular films around this era take risks and explore previously taboo subjects, and the people responsible for those works would create a road map for the better known “indies” of the 60s and 70s. Sweet Smell of Success is one of those films that never could've been done under the old studio system, as it showcases the dark side of journalism and the lies, manipulation and betrayal involved. Unlike in most films about journalism in the 1930s, there is cynicism and blistering satire, and there is marijuana, black and white comingling, and suggested incest.
 * 2) Ernest Lehman's series of short stories he wrote with gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker and publicity flack Sidney Falco, was loosely based on his life as a publicist, which was very unpleasant. The film specifically adapts the 1950 novelette Tell Me About It Tommorrow, later retitled The Sweet Smell of Success, where the duo planned to wreck Susie's (J.J.'s sister) marriage to jazz musician Steve Dallas. But at it's core, the story was about whether Falco would redeem himself or cave into the plan due to being desperate for success.
 * 3) The urban-jazzy, score by Elmer Bernstein enhances the swanky, pungent underworld maelstrom of nightclubs and restaurants and the rest of urban 1950s New York.
 * 4) Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis are both perfect as J.J. Hunsecker and Sidney Falco retrospectively to the point where it's difficult to picture the film without the two actors, one-upping each other with quick-paced blistering lines. The central duo's relationship is the heart of the film. Both stars played their unsympathetic roles against type - it was Lancaster's first villainous role as J.J. Hunsecker.
 * 5) It's basically the main duo's work that got the studio to step away from their buddy films, and make way for an anti-hero from the underside of post-war America: unbridled ambition and greed.
 * 6) The uncompromising and decadent film can also serve as an engrossing character study of morally ambiguous and questionable men in the artificial world of media power.
 * 7) Director Mackendrick and cinematographer James Wong Howe capture the pre-Beat Generation era. Wong Howe scouted all the locations for exterior dawn and twilight scenes and having adjusted his lenses to create the claustrophobic feeling that Mackendrick wanted. Preparation for the film’s look of gritty urban confinement gave the actors inspiration for the interior design of their characters.
 * 8) Curtis as Falco, full of desperate cunning and sweaty remorse is the high point of his career. He strains to show the toll Falco's ruthless behavior extracts. Underneath his deceit, there's a layer of decency. Hunsecker on the other hand is focused, relentless and completely insensitive to what others think of him.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) With Clifford Odets being given control over the film's screenplay he had cleaned up material ripe for censoring, rearranged various plot elements and added his trademark pointed dialogue. But in reshaping the story, he had also removed a lot of its ambiguity.
 * 2) Additional aspects the weaken the film are the fact that Susie Hunsecker and Steve Dallas -- the innocent, square lovers -- are the weak links among the cast, and the insistence that the two amoral leads received their comeuppance.