Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Directed by Alexander Mackendrick. Starring Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner, Barbara Nichols, Sam Levene, Jeff Donnell, Emile Meyer, Joe Frisco, Edith Atwater.

Cutting, fiendishly cynical story of an ambitious and amoral press agent (Curtis) and his eagerness to get in the good graces of ruthless yet influential syndicated columnist J. J. Hunsecker (Lancaster)—netting his clients a little ink in Hunsecker’s column will keep him going, and there are no depths he won’t sink to in order to make that happen. It’s a career-best role for Tony, and he makes the most of it, savoring the unsavory of Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman’s script, packed with serrated blades of dialogue dipped in acid. The wintry after hours in The City That Never Sleeps is vividly captured in smoky black & white by James Wong Howe’s camera, and instinctively positions itself under the raptor-like poise of Lancaster’s illustrious poison pen while sinking down to Curtis’ level to weed out the grasping weasel. Hard-edged but sophisticated music combines Elmer Bernstein orchestration with jazz stylings from the Chico Hamilton Quintet. Based on a Lehman novelette (“Tell Me About It Tomorrow!”), and later turned into a musical in the early ‘00s.

90/100