Sweet Smell of Success
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Movie Reviews of Sweet Smell of Success
Movie Review: Interesting....
Summary: 4 Stars
Never seen this before I watched this DVD. Odd start to the film with having no idea what the role of Tony Curtis was. But after you watch for awhile everything becomes explained. The film is good as I think it reflects very well the late 50's. Great camera work. Good transfer. The ending is a surprise...so no spolers here!Movie Review: Sweet Smell of Sucess
Summary: 4 Stars
Tony Curtis was a real sleeze bag in this one. Burt Lancastor did a great performance, but the film has its dead spots in my opinion. It ends abrubtly, but with poetic justice.
Give it a shot. You'll be most impressed with Burt Lancastor's character, a real cold cookie with an obsession.
Movie Review: This Movie Needs to Settle Its Score
Summary: 3 Stars
This is often cited as being a near-classic film, but I was a little disappointed when I viewed it again.
Tony Curtis does turn in a brilliant performance as a desperate, toadying press agent whose last-gasp career depends on getting his clients' names into the papers. But Burt Lancaster as New York's ruling gossip columnist seems improbably over the top in villainy. Although his portrayal may have been loosely based on the reputed ruthlessness of real-life columnist Walter Winchell, no such talk-of-the-town writer could be quite so overtly red in tooth and claw. Most gossip columnists had to maintain at least a glad-handing, amiable façade in order to encourage scoops and rumors to come their way. They had to at least appear to be more about human interest than about their own lust for power.
But the main problem with this picture isn't any one-dimensional character study. The main problem here is the score. The blaring music drowns out the actors. It rakes down New York's skyscraper canyons. It tells us what to think, what to feel at every turn, rather than letting us react to the movie on our own terms. That sort of intrusive score might have been the style in movies of the period. And this score's volume may have been additionally turned up to reflect the clash of wills, the brutal power plays taking place on the screen. But I just wanted the movie to be over in order to get away from those deafening, raw crescendos.
If the film could be re-mastered with a more muted score, maybe viewers could appreciate its performances more, and find the greatness in its themes.
Movie Review: "Don't do anything I wouldn't do. That gives you a lot of leeway."
Summary: 3 Stars
Alexander Mackendrick's "Sweet Smell of Success" is one nasty little film. When it finally ends after 96 minutes, you will be running for the shower to wash off the stench left behind by its two main characters.
J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) is a powerful New York gossip columnist whose words can make or break careers. When he finds himself with a problem on his hands, he seeks out publicity agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) to do some dirty work for him. Hunsecker is not enamored of the jazz musician who is romancing his younger sister, Susan (Susan Harrison), so he tells Falco to break up the romance. Desperate to remain in Hunsecker's good graces, Falco agrees to carry out the task. However, matters do not go smoothly as Susan decides to stand up to her brother's meddling.
There is essentially nothing redeeming about Hunsecker and Falco. Watching them scheme makes you realize the cutthroat maneuvering and vicious backstabbing that is so common today is not a recent development. Men deluded by their power and men desperate for success have never shied away from treating others cruelly in order to further their aims. This was true in the Fifties when this film was made and it is true today. Lancaster and Curtis are outstanding in their roles with the latter's performance being especially impressive. Those familiar only with Curtis' more lighthearted works will be stunned at the tenacity and viciousness of his Sidney Falco. While it is difficult to watch, "Sweet Smell of Success" is nonetheless fascinating due to its insight into the darker aspects of human nature.
Movie Review: �Conjugate me a verb�
Summary: 3 Stars
MY RATING-7.3Ive seen this some days ago, and i must say at first i wasnt very interested in those quick and cynical dialogues between Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster, but then I realised the story was deliciously evil and I kept myself stick to the screen.
What a screenplay! It was made by North By Northwests Ernest Lehman and it gives us an accurate view of corruption and use of blackmail in the press. Curtis is excellent as the cookie full of arsenic as well as Lancaster in an ususual villain role as the obsessive caring brother and reputed press writer. My favorite line between the two is when Curtis says No, J.J not even by a full column-- and then stops.
Attention also to the excelent cinematography b/w that films the city as well as the nice jazzy score by Elmer Bernstein.