Sweet Smell of Success
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Movie Reviews of Sweet Smell of Success
Movie Review: "AN APPLE MADE OF ARSENIC."
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the problems with studying in film school, being a movie buff and getting older is that at some point in ones' life a man ventures into the video store, peruses the shelves and reaches the conclusion that he has seen every movie worth seeing.
I thought I was getting there until a few years ago when I heard about and checked out "The Sweet Smell of Success". It was like that with "Chinatown", which I never saw until the 1990s and now consider one of the best films ever.
"Sweet Smell of Success" holds up totally even though it is black-white, set in 1957. Burt Lancaster is J.J., based on Walter Winchell, who was a leading accuser of Communists in the media.
Tony Curtis is a lackey publicist who lives on the whim of those who pay him to place items in various columns, which means he must grovel at the feet of clients and columnists. J.J. plays him like a fiddle. This has lines so vitriolic and perfect, Frank Manciewics in "All About Eve" is no more biting, and Bette Davis in "Eve" bites with the best of 'em.
Lancaster just fills the screen with irony and sardonic, hurtful wit. Curtis fends it off with skill, it is like a fencing match. Anybody who has any desire to study dialogue must watch and memorize this. Everything is tremendous; the acting, the directing, the score, the noir shadows of New York at night. The music is unreal, lots of horns, filling the room with its wailing sobs of a corrupt, naked city.
A love story between J.J.'s little sis and a musician (Martin Milner I think, who was in "Adam 12"), is the heart of the story. It is the one true, good thing, but J.J. is a monster. Perhaps Bob Towne had this in mind when he cast John Huston to be an incestuos father in "Chinatown". The inference, being the '50s, is much more subtle but it seems J.J. has the hots for sis and wants nobody to have her. He brands the musician a Commie, using sycophant secondary journalists to keep his own hands clean.
Any chance for this dark one to have a happy ending goes down the tubes when sis, as much to torment her bro, kills herself. Curtis is utterly ammoral. His picture appears in Webster's next to the word ammoral.
Many films have played off this theme. "Swimming With Sharks" (1996, Kevin Spacey, Frank Whaley) comes to mind. If this could be 20 stars I'd give it 20.
Movie Review: smart, sharp, thrilling, and made me shiver
Summary: 5 Stars
I watched this film several months ago, and still the characters stand out sharply in my mind. Tony Curtis plays Sid Falco marvelously, as a man whose mind is quick with an excuse, an accusation, a bit of flattery, whatever the occasion calls for; this is a small, slick man, swimming around the ankles of larger and more powerful men. He knows he's an unscrupulous guy, but wants to work his way up the food chain. Sometimes you think he cares about going too far in his pursuit of fame and wealth - Curtis gives Falco moments of blank pause, expressions of troubled calculation - but he goes ahead anyway with every dirty plot he thinks will serve him well. As the cold colossus J.J. Hunsecker, Burt Lancaster seriously gave me chills; he delivers a brilliant and well-controlled performance. He's sharp and clean, with his powerful stature, squared jaw, and steely glasses; his speech is quiet and precise, and even his little gestures seem to send ripples through the room. I also quite enjoyed Susan Harrison as his sister, Susan, who's winsome and worn down, but still firm enough to try and get out from under her older brother's thumb; I liked how even though she's nineteen, she's got old, tired eyes, an older spirit.
I loved the screaming bright lights and deep shadows of New York City, the energy that ran through the film in electric currents. I enjoyed peering into every bar and jazz club and seedy room that Sid Falco pops up in. I liked how Susan and her beau, a steady and honest jazz musician, seem to speak in clear, round tones while Falco's and Hunsecker's dialogue comes out in a sharp patter, full of quick sharp stabs and quiet turns of the knife. Amidst the poisonous words, the lies and slander, the jibes and jokes that lead to uneasy laughter, you wait and watch for someone with integrity to (hopefully) prevail. I loved how the film shows us the power of words (even just a few words) wielded effectively, whether for good or - in a lot of cases - for the purpose of destroying people.
Movie Review: Holy Crap!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I always sort of put off seeing this even though I've heard good things about it. I think it was because Tony Curtis is in it and the only thing I've ever seen him do were really bad introductions to some Alfred Hitchcock DVDs. In those introductions, Curtis fumbled his lines (which were often filled with errors) and so I assumed he was the worst actor in the world. I should kick myself.
This movie is not only one of the best "noir" films I've seen but one of the best movies I've ever seen PERIOD.
It's included in the noir category despite it not being a crime drama at all. The reason for this is it's shadow-filled cinematography and its theme of corruption. According to this movie, human beings are bleak, cold-hearted creatures.
It's about a Broadway columnist (played by Burt Lancaster in one of his best roles) who manipulates everyone he comes in contact with. He is one of the vilest, cold-hearted bastards I've ever seen in a movie because he's just so real. This isn't a noir hit-man in a fedora hat. This guy could be real and I'm sure some of us have met or will meet someone like him. Tony Curtis plays a bastard publicity agent though you sort of feel bad for him even despite his faults. He's the "protagonist" and we are told the story through his eyes. There are a couple of characters who have integrity and are not so corrupted but they only count as victims of the manipulation.
The acting is top-notch. Both Lancaster and Curtis had me in awe throughout the whole movie. Usually movies about "show business" don't interest me all that much but this movie was fascinating. This is dark look at NYC life in the 1950s. I recommend it with every noir-loving bone in my body.
Movie Review: You Wont Believe It . . .
Summary: 5 Stars
There's no profanity. No blood. No guns, knives, or bombs. But the lack of these things doesn't keep `Sweet Smell of Success' from being one of the most wicked, hateful, spiteful, vicious, murderous portrayals of how people can act toward one another. Tony Curtis plays Sidney Falco, a two-bit New York press agent trying to reach for the big time. He's such a small time operator that his name is taped to his office door (which is also his apartment door). He makes promises he can't keep and ignores anyone who can't help him in stepping on others on his way to the top.
J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) is the King of Gossip. His newspaper column is read by 60 million people a day. He is truly the master of all he surveys, making and breaking celebrities with the stroke of his typewriter. He can see right through you and cut you to pieces in the time it takes you to light his cigarette. Yet you light it anyway. That's how powerful he is.
Falco is little more than a minor annoyance to Hunsecker, until the day that Falco learns that Hunsecker's sister is engaged to a musician that Hunsecker hates. Falco sees his opportunity to get in good with Hunsecker by wrecking the musician's career. That's when the sparks start to fly and they never stop until the end of the film.
Ernest Lehman's script is sharp, biting, and relentless. Curtis has never been better. And Lancaster, who has had many great roles in his brilliant career, is perfection. `Sweet Smell of Success' is just as powerful today as it was in 1957. Tough, gritty, hard-hitting...without any four-letter words. Can anyone make `em like this anymore? Not hardly.
1 hour 36 minutes
Movie Review: An Autopsy of "Success" in Manhattan
Summary: 5 Stars
This is among the nastiest of films about a world which few of us ever experience: The highly competitive world of publicity-seekers in Manhattan. At its center is J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), a character reputedly based on gossip columnist Walter Winchell who attacked the film viciously when it was first released in 1957. Ernest Lehman wrote the short story ("Tell Me About Tomorrow") on which he based his screenplay. Hunsecker has a constant need for material to include in his newspaper column. He is fed by ambitious and (when necessary) unscrupulous publicists such as Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) who earn their living and sustain their influence by placing items in Hunsecker's columns. There are several sub plots which include a romantic relationship between Hunsecker's beloved daughter Susan (Susan Harrison) and Steve Dallas (Martin Milner), a young jazz musician of whom her highly-protective (if not psychotic) father thoroughly disapproves. Lancaster is brilliant as Hunsecker but so is Curtis as Falco, fawning over the columnist who can make him or break him at any time. Or have his personal thug Harry Kelso (Emile Meyer) do so. How interesting that Alexander MacKendrick (renowned for his direction of Alec Guinness in two masterpieces of nuanced comedy, The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers) agreed to direct this film. The cinematography by James Wong Howe is first-rate. As indicated in this film, the "Great White Way" can also be dark and dangerous for those who do not understand how and why the "sweet smell of success" can so quickly become the stench of failure...if not of their own decomposition.