ElMaruecan82
"Sweet Smell Success": an olfactory alliteration littered with the foulest aspects of greed and ambition, how far ego can go, how dignity doesn't amount to a hill of Heinz beans and how ethics are no match for the green rectangle's appeal.This is a film made by a director whose named has faded into oblivion, Alexander McKendrick, it was poorly received by the audience but not the critics. As members of the Press, they could relate to the corners some unethical members of their professions cut... or were driven to. I'm no journalist but the film made me understand paparazzi, the pictures they take are just bargaining ships, nothing personal, only business.And in the film, the principal currency of this business consists of articles that can make or break people just like Twitter comments undo careers today. As smears, they become weapons with the newspapers as crime settings... the muscle is Sidney Falco and the mastermind is J.J. Hunsecker, the shady press agent and the egomaniac press columnist and national icon. The two men are as thick as thieves and form an unforgettable Faustian duo, they don't like each other, but Falco allows Hunsecker to see how high he climbed his way up and Hunsecker is the Sherpa who can take him to the same Everest of power, watching New York City as microcosm of the very America he just conquered. "I love that dirty town" says Hunsecker... ignoring that he's part of that very dirt, a furoncle stuck to New York City's body pulsating to the rhythm of sex, drugs and jazz.For the trivia, J.J. Hunsecker was named 35th villain in the AFI's Top 50 but Falco is the soulless soul of the story, only redeemed by the fact that he's not as bad as his mentor, which is not saying much. When we first meet him, his name isn't even painted on the door but taped on it, his office and room make one, he's to his profession what Lionel Hutz is to lawyers, a disgrace... but of the sympathetic type. Who can resist that smile? Tony Curtis wanted to prove he wasn't just a cutie pie and battled to get the role, I can't picture another actor as Sidney Falco (same judgment with the "bigger one"). I admit it, I appreciated his boundless ambition that kept him awake all the night on the lookout of any scoop, any tip to a scoop, any promise to a juicy reward. I liked his clean-cut image, his rapid fire repartee and his tactical genius combined with a total lack of scruples. As one of his employers told him "I wouldn't hire you if you weren't a liar"there are layers or liar. One who plays in another league is definitely Hunsecker, based on sulfuric columnist Walter Winchell... actually, that contextualization is irrelevant, we don't remember "Citizen Kane" for being a merely disguised pamphlet against William Randolph Hearst, do we? But it's interesting how a film meant to denounce sordidness of its time spoke statements about the excesses of power modern audiences could easily identify, especially in our social media time. Hunsekcer wants to crush a decent jazz player because he disapproves his union with his sister and Burt Lancaster plays him in the kind of smooth performance that doesn't give you the heart to despise him, maybe it's the signature grin, the catchy lines such as "You're dead. Get buried" or the little truths behind cruel thoughts... or maybe the glasses, but when you see Hunsecker, you kind of understand Falco. Hunsecker paved the way to all corrupt and charismatic executives such as Gordon Gekko or Buddy Ackerman and in his establishing scene, we're tempted to admire him. Seated at a fancy restaurant, the bespectacled muscular tycoon is verbally crucifying a manager and lecturing a senator when Falco joins him, earning himself an unforgiving description concluding with the film's most defining line "Match me, Sidney". The real pay-off of that moment isn't in Falco's refusal to light Hunsecker's cigarette, which of course is part of his "smiling street-urchin pal" act, but when later, both manage to break up the relationship and Hunsecker doesn't even have to ask Falco, the right-hand man complies as automatically as a living Zeppo. At that point, he's a match to Hunsecker, will it last? Later, Hunsecker admits "I'd hate to take a bite out of you, you're a cookie full of arsenic". How many 50s movies feature such hateful but eloquent protagonists, some blamed the bland performances of the romantic pair but they were merely pawns, the story is about the chess-master and the game. And the game is played in a short period of two nights where we see Falco moving his pieces, going as far as framing an innocent man, lying, pimping a poor woman and blackmailing an editor in front of his wife, with such ardor that he's immediately taught a lesson of decency, but no one can checkmate Falco because the real adversary is himself, as Hunsecker points out, "you're prisoner of your own fears and ambitions". Little did he know that he was also prisoner of his own ego. "Sweet Smell of Success" is a quotable masterpiece that feels as fresh as it was sixty years ago, proving that America didn't wait for the New Wave to reinvent itself and maybe that's why the film didn't meet with commercial success, it was ahead of its time... and forgive the hackneyed expression, severely underrated.Though it's quite a poetic irony that the film didn't meet with success because it provides a rather stinky image of success. Nonetheless, the film is a noir classic, modern in every sense of the word and certainly the best performances of both Curtis and Lancaster. Success stinks in the film but the films has a cinematic fragrance for the ages.
christopher-underwood
What a sparklingly brilliant and horrible noirish movie this is. Even beneath the opening credits the film is bursting forth with crowds bustling, newspaper lorries gushing forth and neon reflecting onto the dark and wet pavements. The fast pace is maintained throughout and there is a slight problem at first in ascertaining what is going on because we find it so hard to accept that Tony Curtis is playing a bad man. Hardly any good men in this, though, as we see how the popular newspaper gossip writers go about their business and the pleasure they take with their snide insinuations and malicious digs. Curtis is fantastic playing against type and this is probably his finest work, Lancaster is similarly playing it more darkly and is so scary, with minimal movement and a steely glare. Much has been said about the seeming weakness of the young lovers and maybe Lancaster's sister could have been more of a wild child and her jazz friend more of a hip cat. But it is a minor moan when the picture before you glows and glistens in glorious b/w before exploding in the midst of its manipulative nastiness.
hazelpicture
This movie, to me, was all about language. Every character had something to say. They had a joke, a catch phrase, a little bit of information, etc. This well very well written for a movie produced by a Hollywood actor. Tony Curtis plays a very good character to easily hate. I enjoy characters that are easy to hate, and Tony Curtis plays the perfect weasel thats a bitch for someone more powerful than him. And there was the beautiful female, who was the fulcrum to the whole movie. She was the main headline for eighty percent of the characters that had an impact in the film. I would love to watch this movie with a bunch of Italian taxi drivers for some reason
