Sweet Smell of Success
by Alexander Mackendrick
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Burt Lancaster, Jeff Donnell, Martin Milner, Susan Harrison, Tony CurtisDirector: Alexander Mackendrick
Producer: Burt Lancaster
Producer: Tony Curtis
Writer: Alexander Mackendrick
Producer: Harold Hecht
Producer: James Hill
Writer: Clifford Odets
Writer: Ernest Lehman
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-06-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Sweet Smell of Success
Movie Review: A truly great, no nonsense movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
The very first movies, relied upon exaggerated acting and the actors' good looks. Then, along came the 'talkies' - and voices assumed great importance. With the advent of 'talkies' came the necessity to tell a good story - cinematically. Today, the emphasis is all on 'special effects', 'shock value', 'sex, and foul language.
For a relatively brief period between the coming of talkies and the modern cinematographic masterpieces, there was a halcyon period where excellently acted and expertly directed films were made of exceptionally good stories - often based on first rate novels.
'The Sweet Smell of Success' is one such movie. The actors are highly competent, the acting is superb, the story is great and the direction is first rate. 'The Sweet Smell of Success' comes together exceptionally well and is a first rate movie in all respects.
I would recommend it to anyone who wishes first rate entertainment.
Summary of Sweet Smell of Success
A powerful film about a ruthless journalist and an unscrupulous press agent who'll do anything to achieve success, this fascinating, compelling story (The Hollywood Reporter) crackles with 'taut direction and whiplash dialogue (Time). Bristling with vivid performances by Curtis and Lancaster, this gutsy expos?(c) of big-city corruption is a timeless classic that cuts deep and sends a chilling message. It's late at night in the steamy, neon-lit streets of New York's Times Square, and everything's buzzing with nervous energy. But press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) is oblivious to the whirlwind of street vendors, call girls and con men bustling around him as he nervously waits for the early edition of The Globe. Whose career did gossip columnist J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) launch today...and whose did he destroy?A classic of the late 1950s, this film looks at the string-pulling behind-the-scenes action between desperate press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) and the ultimate power broker in that long-ago show-biz Manhattan: gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster). Written by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets (who based the Hunsecker character on the similarly brutal and power-mad Walter Winchell), the film follows Falco's attempts to promote a client through Hunsecker's column--until he is forced to make a deal with the devil and help Hunsecker ruin a jazz musician who has the nerve to date Hunsecker's sister. Director Alexander MacKendrick and cinematographer James Wong Howe, shooting on location mostly at night, capture this New York demimonde in silky black and white, in which neon and shadows share a scarily symbiotic relationship--a near-match for the poisonous give-and-take between the edgy Curtis and the dismissive Lancaster. --Marshall Fine
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