Sweet Smell of Success (1957) User Reviews

3 Good Reasons To Watch This Film

[ccthemovieman-1 · 9/10 · 24 June 2005]

There are three reasons that movie fans should check this film out, if you haven't seen it yet:

1 - Outstanding dialog. I can't recall a film in which I heard so many clever film-noir lines as this one. Almost everyone in the movie has a unique way of expressing their feelings. It makes the movie one that you want to go back and HEAR again. Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman wrote the screenplay and deserve special recognition as well as the people below.

2 - Fabulous acting, led by the two male leads: Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster. Curtis is the star of the film with many more lines than anyone else, and many consider this to be his greatest acting achievement. I have no quarrel with that. It's one of the finest acting jobs I've ever witnessed by anyone. It's that good.

Lancaster is memorable and plays to his strengths as a tough guy, not only with his physical presence but his tactless and cutting verbal assaults. He has the best and most brutal lines in the film.

The minor characters in here, from the cop to the comedian to the cigarette girl to the young romantic couple are all top-notch.

3 - The cinematography. A big name in the film business, James Wong Howe, more than lives up to his reputation. This is beautifully photographed and looks absolutely stunning on DVD. I have watched hundreds and hundreds of black-and-white films and this ranks with the best of them. He captured nighttime New York City as well as anybody ever has done.

"Well," you might ask, "if this movie is so great, why haven't I heard more about it?"

Maybe because it never did well at the box office. It wasn't promoted a lot, from what I heard, and the storyline is not a pleasant one. Basically, this is about two immoral people who smear a nice guy so that it will ruin the romance between he and Lancaster's sister.

Lancaster plays an absolutely ruthless newspaper columnist who makes and breaks careers and Curtis plays his slimy press-agent who will do anything to please his powerful boss, including doing the worst of his dirty work.

Furrther details of the film can be read by many of the other fine reviewers here on this website, so no need to go into that.

I am not one who generally likes films that feature mostly nasty people but this was done so well that it fascinates me every time. A final tip of the hat to director Alexander Mackendrick. Why he wasn't given more films to direct is a mystery to me. Highly-recommended.

It's a putrid smell after all

[blanche-2 · 9/10 · 6 October 2007]

Tony Curtis learns the hard way about the "Sweet Smell of Success" in this 1957 film that stars Burt Lancaster, Sam Levene, Susan Harrison, and Barbara Nichols. In the pre-Internet days when the newspaper was king, the columnists ruled - Winchell, Ed Sullivan, Cholly Knickerbocker, Radie Harris, and let's not forget Hedda and Louella! But the King was Winchell, and while I don't think the Burt Lancaster character of J.J. Hunsecker is modeled on him, the power and control the man wielded certainly is.

Tony Curtis plays one of his best roles as Sidney Falco, a low-ranking press agent who is dependent on people like Hunsecker to mention his clients in their daily columns. But Sidney is on the outs with Hunsecker, a very bad place to be. Hunsecker has ordered Sidney to break up his sister Susan's relationship with a jazz musician, Steve (Martin Milner), and Susan is still seeing him. Sidney comes up with a plan to tear the two apart which probably would have worked, but when Steve stands up to J.J., Hunsecker is out for blood. He demands the plan be taken one step further and dangles an attractive carrot in front of Sidney to make it happen.

Done in black and white with most of the action taking place at night and often on the streets of Times Square, "The Sweet Smell of Success" has an atmosphere of slime and grit. The handsome Lancaster and Curtis are not particularly well photographed - it's not meant to be a glamorous picture. The dialogue is fast, to the point, and witty and the performances are breathtaking. Lancaster underplays the twisted Hunsecker so that his contempt for the people he writes about - and his sick attraction to his sister - can be clearly shown. He could have played it more along the lines of Curtis' Sidney - an obvious, manipulative rat - but it wouldn't have been as right as Lancaster's tightly-controlled J.J.

Curtis was born to play Sidney - an attractive, fast-talking man with no morals who plays both ends against the middle. He's a New York character, ideal for a New York guy like Curtis who grew up on the streets. Sidney is totally outrageous - he invites a cigarette girl to his apartment and then pimps her out to a columnist so he can get an item in his column; he tries blackmailing another columnist, but that backfires. It doesn't stop him from trying again.

The two victims of these piranhas are Susan and Steve, a young couple deeply in love who want to be married. Their simple story is told against a backdrop of scandal, revenge, manipulation and blackmail. Their situation makes the actions of J.J. and Sidney even seedier and more cruel than they already are.

"Sweet Smell of Success" has become a cult classic and was actually mounted at one point as a Broadway musical. Like "Nightmare Alley," it probably was too grim for audiences back then. Is anything too grim for audiences of today? Doubtful.

A dark drama/noir masterpiece that is often overlooked

[FilmOtaku · 9/10 · 28 December 2003]

Make no mistake – you will not walk away from Sweet Smell of Success feeling uplifted and carefree. It is a dark, gritty tale of deception and the desperate strive for survival in New York City. It also happens to be one of my all-time favorite films.

*Spoilers within*

Burt Lancaster plays J.J. Hunsecker, a powerful gossip columnist whose emulation of Walter Winchell was so thinly veiled that Winchell himself tried to stop the film's release. Hunsecker is so powerful that underling press agents like Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) will push aside any scruples or morals they may have in order to do him favors just to get a favorable mention for their clients in Hunsecker's column. In Falco's case, he must try to break up the relationship between Hunsecker's young sister Susan and up-and-coming jazz musician Steve Dallas, as Dallas is not `worthy' in Hunsecker's eyes. It becomes quickly apparent that due to an almost incestuous fascination with his sister, no one will be worthy of her, something that Susan has to come to terms with and finally resign herself to. In his pursuits, Falco finds himself compromising any moral fiber he may have had left, and no one escapes undamaged.

Sweet Smell of Success is indeed a dark film and morally bereft, but it is so compelling and thought-provoking that it is hard to imagine any viewer, love or hate the film, not able to come away from it without at least a few questions in mind: How far would you go for fame? What would you do to survive? The majority of the main characters has the morals of an alley cat, and is as unconcerned with doing anything for survival. Ironically, one of the few people to exhibit any modicum of pride and conviction is the one who ends up getting slandered and unjustly punished.

The backdrop for this film is the vibrant, busy and exuberant New York City, usually at night. Every social scene is crowded; every outdoor shot shows bustling streets. Wild, loud jazz music is the soundtrack the compliments the frenetic surroundings. The film is shot in crisp, sharp black and white, and any hint of color would have changed the film drastically for the worse. Lancaster plays Hunsecker as a level, even toned man which belies his hateful personality and only makes him more sinister. Curtis' Falco is like the yipping and bouncing dog in the old cartoons, and delivers his lines with a machine gun-like staccato, but his eyes are dead and bleak, and the only emotion he can convey that approaches regret is nothing more than fleeting until `survival mode' visibly kicks in.

Sweet Smell of Success is a certified classic, but it is easy to see why it is not more popular. The good guys don't win because there ARE no good guys. And every time the viewer thinks that something may not be realistic or that something is overblown, with even a second of reflection, one realizes that this IS real life, and it's hard to look at sometimes because it is not always pretty.

--Shelly

Burt Lancaster is scary!

[bregund · 28 December 2003]

Remember how scary Robert Mitchum was in Night of the Hunter? Or Darth Vader in the first Star Wars movie? Well Burt Lancaster as J.J. Hunsecker is right up there with them. With his clipped words, ice-cold gaze, rigid neck and steel-rimmed glasses, he looks like he's ready to break people in half with just the power of his voice. He drifts through the film like an unstoppable barge, commanding every scene with just the turn of his head. Seldom is there such a powerful screen presence.

Lancaster's performance alone is worth seeing this film, but the writing cracks like a whip. This is some of the best writing I've ever seen in any film, recalling the brilliant writing of All About Eve or Citizen Kane: "Come back Sidney, I want to chastise you some more", "turn around and look: is she still standing there?", "you're a cookie full of arsenic", "I see your brother's words coming out of your mouth like a ventriloquist's dummy", "I would never use an elephant gun to shoot a mosquito". Over and over, the witty dialogue slices through the scenes like a razor. You have to see this film to believe it.

Tony Curtis was never better as a sleazy PR guy as he pimps his secretary, slobbers at J.J.'s heels like an obsequious mutt, and colludes with the crooked cops to frame people. Within this maelstrom of cynicism and anger are two young lovers, driven apart by J.J.'s overbearing presence.

The photography is excellent, you can almost smell the wet NYC streets. Black and white never looked better.

This is an excellent film, and highly recommended. I wish they still made movies like this.

Brilliant Oppressive Film-Noir

[twm-2 · 10/10 · 2 March 2005]

**MILD SPOILERS** It is amazing the number of different ways a great film can weave its alluring web and pull you into its story. Of my 100 favorite films, this one's journey into that rarefied status is unique, based on but a single viewing. I saw "Sweet Smell of Success" when I was too young to really grasp the subterranean motivations of the characters who so vividly populate the film. I did not understand, for instance, why this powerful, loathsome gossip columnist, Burt Lancaster's JJ Hunsecker, who so clearly despised Tony Curtis' Sidney Falco (press agent), nonetheless tolerated his presence. There was much that I DID appreciate--the brilliant and daring acting of the two leads, the beautifully oppressive cinematography, and the scintillating dialogue--but after that single viewing, the film slowly faded from my consciousness. Twenty-five or 30 years later, I decided to make a list of my favorite movies, and came across the title of this film. Apparently, memories of seeing this production had been roiling around my unconscious all this time and now, triggered by the little blurb in the Leonard Maltin book, these half-forgotten images came bounding back into mind, now concatenated with a quarter century of life and movie-going experience. Honing my list over the next few months, and considering this film's merits, I more and more began to realize what a truly marvelous work this was. This was a study nonpareil of two creatures wholly wrapped up in themselves and their ambition, yet bound together in a mutual parasitism (the term symbiosis sounds much too nice to describe their relationship). I understood, finally, why JJ tolerated Falco's presence. He NEEDED Falco. It wasn't just that Falco would occasionally offer up tidbits that he could use in his column. It wasn't that the fawning Falco could be manipulated into performing certain . . . Uh, tasks that were too dirty for JJ to touch. No, as a ruthless power-monger, he needed the treacherous sycophant as a constant reminder and test of his superiority. Falco could be demeaned and ridiculed, but he also represented a danger, a challenge. Falco might seem a toady, but he was also a cobra waiting his chance to strike, and Hunsecker relished his role as sadistic snake charmer. Watching these two play at their oppressive games of perfidy, and dealing dirt, provide a fascinating character study perhaps the equal of the more famous examination of one Charles Foster Kane in an earlier film. There are many other characters in the movie, such as JJ's sister and her lover, and some are played with great aplomb, but they are all pawns in this disdainful dance between JJ and Falco, and it is their personalities that stay with you long after the lights come back on.

Everything about this movie seems to be nearly perfect (some have criticised the film for the relatively weak portrayal of the two hapless lovers, but a stronger emphasis on these two would only detract from the real focus--JJ and Sidney) even to the choice of names. JJ Hunsecker and Sidney Falco seem perfect monikers, by themselves conjuring up images of loathsome characters. Unfortunately, for the team that put together this masterpiece of film-noir, "Sweet Smell of Success" was no success, and critics and movie-goers alike left the theaters convinced that the "smell" generated by the film was far from sweet. Amazingly, this film not only failed to garner an Oscar, it failed to receive a single solitary nomination--not for Alexander Mackendrick's direction (this abject failure truncating his promising career), not for the incisive, endlessly quotable screenplay (Ernest Lehman & Clifford Odets), not Elmer Bernstein's wonderful score, nor the tremendous performances of Curtis and Lancaster--not even James Wong Howe's gritty cinematography, beautifully capturing the seamier side of New York City. Fortunately, history has stepped in to provide a more accurate critique of this once ignored masterpiece. I can hardly wait to see it a second time.

"You want information, ask for it like a man, instead of scratching for it like a dog."

[bkoganbing · 10/10 · 20 October 2005]

The fact that in 1957 this film was made at all is proof that Walter Winchell's decline was already setting in. Burt Lancaster's J.J. Hunsecker based on Winchell and very frightening accurately portrays the columnist and the power he wielded.

For those who are interested in how Winchell got to where he was J.J. Hunsecker I would recommend Neal Gabler's biography of him which came out a few years ago. Sweet Smell of Success is the story of a day in the life of this monster who everyone on the planet it seems is terrified of offending. Like Winchell at the Stork Club, Hunsecker holds court like some monarch at a nightclub where people are obsequiously asking for some recognition in his column.

One of these is Sidney Falco, press agent and bootlicking dog extraordinaire. Hunsecker is mad at him because he sent him on an errand to break up a romance his younger sister is having with a jazz musician he doesn't approve of. The film is essentially Falco's attempts to carry out his master's wishes.

Burt Lancaster had already received critical acclaim as an actor, but this was a breakthrough role for Tony Curtis as Sidney Falco. Up to then Curtis was the handsome romantic lead in many lightweight films for his home studio of Universal. Sidney Falco was a lot of things, but heroic wasn't one of them. Next year Tony Curtis would get an Oscar nomination for The Defiant Ones. How Lancaster and Curtis were ignored by the Academy for nominations is beyond me.

The young lovers are Susan Harrison and Martin Milner. This was probably Marty Milner's finest screen role. As Lancaster was also the producer he personally cast Milner in the part having worked with him on Gunfight at the OK Corral. Susan Harrison strangely enough never had much of a career after a promising debut. She ultimately wreaks a terrible vengeance on one of our protagonists.

One of the ironic lines in the film is Lancaster saying that he'd fold up if he had to exist on a press agent's tidbits. But ironically that's how Winchell/Hunsecker did exist. Winchell had no real skill as a reporter as Gabler's biography pointed out. When the tidbits stopped, he dried up and blew away.

Sweet Smell of Success was a commercial flop, movie audiences did not take to the offbeat casting of the leads nor to the gritty realistic story. Today the film is a deserved classic.

Cynical look at how power corrupts...brilliant performances...

[Doylenf · 8/10 · 3 December 2006]

BURT LANCASTER was at the height of his illustrious film career when he played J.J. Hunsecker, the Broadway gossip columnist who dipped his pen in poison to destroy careers. TONY CURTIS was a long way from the days when he was ridiculed for saying "Yonda is the castle of my fadder" in films like SON OF ALI BABA and THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH.

Here, Curtis is every bit up to the chore of playing the slavishly obedient but hateful publicity man who seems to be fawning over Lancaster, but really despises him. Two towering performances in a film with some of the sharpest exchanges of dialog ever heard.

The cruel side of show biz gets full and rich observation from screenwriter Clifford Odets from a novel by Ernest Lehman. The bright lights of Broadway play against the rainswept streets of Broadway and Times Square, a shadowy sort of film noir background for the brutal story being told.

The story abounds in quotable moments, such as when Lancaster tells Curtis, "You're a cookie full of arsenic." The jazz score background sets the appropriate mood for a story as cynical as this, and the twists and turns of the plot will keep you hooked until the uncertain ending. The main plot line has Lancaster opposed to his sister's suitor, a jazz musician (MARTIN MILNER) and his efforts to get this man out of his sister's life with the help of his obedient slave.

But mainly, this is a film worth savoring to watch the intense performances of Lancaster and Curtis. I doubt whether either of them has ever done better work. For Lancaster, it only cemented his reputation as a man already judged to be a fine actor in the right role. For Curtis, it made film critics take this "pretty boy from Brooklyn" seriously for the first time and was the first big milestone in his budding film career.

Cynicism, Sleaze & Blistering Dialogue

[seymourblack-1 · 8/10 · 25 November 2008]

The main characters in "Sweet Smell Of Success" are two of the most unpleasant, unprincipled and unsympathetic people imaginable. Both are utterly corrupt and would do whatever it takes to achieve their own perverse ends.

J J Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) is a gossip columnist who wields enormous power in New York and has the ability to make or break the careers of anyone who features in his articles. He plies his vicious trade without any concern for those whose lives he damages and frequently influences people to do his bidding by threatening to expose some unflattering or scandalous information about them. Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) is a press agent who makes his living by providing material for Hunsecker's column. When Hunsecker becomes unhappy about a relationship that has developed between his sister and a jazz guitarist, he orders Falco to do whatever's necessary to break them up. Hunsecker racks up the pressure on Falco by not accepting any of his contributions for the column until he succeeds in his mission.

Hunsecker's power and threatening manner preclude him from having any genuine or meaningful relationships with other people. He is unconcerned about this but has an unnaturally close relationship with his sister, who on various occasions, he describes as being all that he's got.

In his efforts to get a smear about the guitarist published, Falco threatens to blackmail one columnist by telling his wife about one of his indiscretions with a cigarette girl and also provides another columnist with an inducement to print the story by getting his girlfriend to prostitute herself. He later plants marijuana in the guitarist's pocket and tips off a corrupt police officer who has the guitarist arrested.

Hunsecker thrives on the amount of power and control that he is able to use and it's ironic that he has such a hard time using his power successfully in the area of his life which is most personal and important to him.

"Sweet Smell Of Success" is expertly directed by Alexander Mackendrick and the story and it's characters are considerably more original in nature than those found in the vast majority of movies. The dialogue is impressively incisive throughout and some of the remarks made by Hunsecker are delivered with great panache. When he says "I love this dirty town", the comment exemplifies what he's all about and also highlights the source of his power. His remarks that Falco is a "cookie full of arsenic" and "lives in moral twilight" are typical quick-fire put-downs. These and his "40 faces speech" could seem pretentious and contrived if uttered by some characters but sound perfectly credible when said by Hunsecker, who is clearly very literate and well practised in coining such bitter and brutal insults. Lancaster and Curtis both contribute exceptional performances which must rank among the greatest achieved in their illustrious careers.

Nifty black and white drama

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 7 November 2003]

SPOILERS....

What a bunch of skuzzbags. There is hardly a non-greedy guy in the movie, although the three women are all okay.

But here we have Burt Lancaster as the all-powerful columnist J. J. Hunsacker (read "Walter Winchell") and Tony Curtis as the slimy press agent Sidney Falco and Emil Meyer as the brutal and corrupt cop, supported by one columnist who cheats on his wife with a cigarette girl and another columnist who simply does the cigarette girl without cheating on any wife because he has none to cheat on. These are people who treat virtue with scant reverence.

There's a loud jazzy score to back up this energetic night-time flick. (There is no such thing as daylight here.) And Clifford Odets has lent his usual stamp to the script. Nobody says anything as simple as, "I don't believe you." They are made to say, "That fish is four days old. I won't buy it." And the sweating laugh-a-minute cop is given to misusing big words -- "Rectify me something, Sidney, did J. J. really say I was fat?" Even when the cop uses the word correctly it still SOUNDS wrong -- "Ha ha! Come back, Sidney, I want to CHASTISE you." The dialog is also studded with everyday phrases that are repeated as if part of a litany -- "credit where credit is due." And, "indulge me on this," and, "correct me if I'm wrong." The best of this dialog is given to the evildoers, meaning every guy except Curtis's uncle (Sam Levene, underused in my opinion) and Martin Milner as an innocent young jazz guitarist afloat in this sea of sharks. "You twist words around," he says, addressing another actor, not Odets. This movie is, by the way, some considerable distance from the director's (Alexander MacKendrick) usual stomping ground. (Cf., "Tight Little Island.")

Burt Lancaster gives a quiet, barely restrained performance as the gossip columnist and TV personality who tells presidents what to do. He's so tense with ego, power, anger, and an incestuous jealousy of any attention paid to his sister that he gives the impression of a boil about to burst. But he rarely loses it. Instead, if he shows any semblance of emotion at all, it's usually pleasure in the exercise of power accompanied by a reptilian, almost alligator-like smile of beneficence. It's a good performance, and so is Tony Curtis's. Nattily dressed in black suits, his hair flawlessly groomed, his expression alternating between a phony bonhomie and greasy anxiety, he seems always to be in motion, darting rather than walking, and talking almost always, usually lying. Barbara Nichols as the careless and exploited cigarette girl plays Barbara Nichols. I have no idea what she was like in person but on screen she's never been anyone else. And as someone once remarked about the adolescent AnnMargaret -- "Everything she does comes across as dirty." Martin Milner looks right but mumbles his way through the part without much conviction. Burt's sister is a washout.

What a splendid photographer James Wong Howe was. His blacks are really black, his highlights seem to glisten, and when Lancaster's mogul stands on his balcony staring down at his domain from on high, the streets of New York look like rivulets of glittering silver poured from a beaker. Compare this with the subtle, crisp grays of his Texas ranch in "Hud."

The movie gives us a glimpse of the sizzling New York City night life of the 1950s. It may have looked corrupt at the time but from our present perspective it was an age of innocence. Well-dressed people walk alone down deserted streets at night. You want to try that in today's New York? Maybe the greatest change since then is suggested by the puissance in the hands of a newspaper columnist -- a guy who writes words that people must then read. Read? Who gets their news from newspapers nowadays? Who would be shocked by the revelations Lancaster and his colleagues in gossip come up with -- an unknown musician who is said to have smoked marijuana and is fired because of the slur? Today it would lead to hemorrhage-inducing mirth.

So it might have been rotten then, true, but there are times when it seems to me that it would be nice to listen to the hoof beats of yesteryear and travel back in time to a period when people still read and when one of the worst lies you might run into in the news was that a musician did some grass.

Classic

[MatBrewster · 10/10 · 3 May 2005]

This is the kind of film that could coin an expression like "They don't make 'em like that anymore," except that people have been using that line for every piece of crap that was made more than two years ago. Go ahead and say it to yourself, and I'll say that David Mamet's Glengarry, Glen Ross comes close. Both feature snarling, biting dialog. Both have irredeemable characters that will do anything for success. Mamet's characters are mostly down-and-outers who are scrapping at each other to find some sampling of their former successes. In Sweet Smell of Success there are successful characters and losers, both of which need each other to survive. It is a tale of a successful columnist and his need for a low life press agent. It is a bitter, bleak story of power, success and the desire to have more. Burt Lancaster plays JJ Hunsecker, a powerful, successful columnist who is at the top of his game. He gets what he wants, when he wants it with no questions asked. He can make or break celebrities with a quick blurb in his column. He dines with politicians and gets any girl he wants. Tony Curtis is Sidney Falco, a low rent press agent who needs Lancaster's blurbs for his clients to keep in business. Problem is, Hunsecker has cut Falco out of his columns because Falco hasn't delivered on a deal they made. Though Hunsecker can garner the love and admiration of anyone he chooses, the one woman he cannot win over is his own sister. As he repeatedly says throughout the film, she's all he has. Problem is she is in love with a jazz singer, and they plan to marry. Hunsecker can't bear the thought of losing his sister, so he forces Falco to get rid of the boy by any means necessary. The film is relentless. From beginning to end it never stops its pounding. There is never a breath of kindness. The two characters with some redeeming characteristics Hunsecker's sister, Susan (Susan Harrison) and her boyfriend, Steve Dallas (Martin Milner), are so overshadowed by the continual foul play by Hunsecker and Falco that they come away with a foul stench. Tony Curtis pulls a performance that reminded me of his turn as the Boston Strangler. It is not difficult to see his Falco turning to murder if it helped him succeed. Though as the strangler, he seems to have found some remorse for his actions, where Falco is irredeemable to the very end. There is a seen in the middle of the picture where Falco pulls a trick to convince a mid level performer to make Falco his press agent. At this point Falco needs all the clients he can get. Later the performer comes to Falco, ready to sign him as his agent. Falco, now feeling some signs of success brushes the performer off without a second thought. It is a telling scene of just how heartless and uncaring Falco has become. Where has Burt Lancaster been all my life? Sadly enough, the only film I can remember watching him in is the 1986 toss-off comedy Tough Guys. His performance here is nothing short of astonishing. He is the king of his castle, never stepping off his high throne, treating everyone as servants. Even his shows of affection for Susan are grotesque and menacing. This is a story that his hard to watch. It is brutal, and menacing with nary a redeeming aspect. But it is a film that must be watched. The craftsmanship of the filmmakers and the performances of the actors elevate it above so many others. It is nearly a morality tale of the horrors that befall humanities greed.

Meh

[begob · 6/10 · 25 May 2020]

After his gossip-columnist master cuts off his means of living, a press agent is forced into the dirty deed of splitting up his master's sister and her fiancee.

The intro to this is full of promise, with neon-lit Manhattan beaming in black & white while a jazzy Elmer Bernstein score sweeps us around a hectic night in Times Square. The sense of location and period is really strong - sleazy and vibrant.

Sadly, the characterisation is a let-down. The press agent's situation doesn't make sense: he operates out of an office with a bedroom in back, yet he has a secretary, yet he's down to his last cent, yet he has the trust of a powerful man, yet he can't cover the simplest jobs, yet he's got everything it takes to succeed in a dirty business. Confusing. And he starts off sleazy, carries on being sleazy, and gets a bit of cheap redemption in the end. He is the main character, so everything flows from that, and it's all a bit off.

The other problem is the highly mannered dialogue - hard bitten, sometimes obscure, never believable. The actors do deliver it well - but I ain't buying it, see? The columnist is an interesting character, but the lovers are pretty plain, and in the end we just get a jerky old melodrama with nothing true about it.

The one part I did enjoy was the subplot with the stage comedian, where the hero's nerve and trickery shone through. So, although impressed with the atmospherics, I was left cold by the rest of the story.

My guess is this movie's reputation really rests on the surprise of Lancaster's performance. Overall: big production built on a flawed screenplay.

Ps. I've read the screenwriter was drafted in very late, and ended up ripping fresh pages out of his typewriter on shooting days. Lancaster was not happy.

Sinister and terrifying

[Jim A · 10/10 · 19 March 2004]

After reading Neal Gabler's biography of columnnist Walter Winchell, I watched this again with new eyes. Lancaster captures not the mannerisms or speech patterns of Winchell, but the sense of menace and terror the man held over anybody who wanted to be somebody in New York or the entertainment business. J.J. Hunsecker reminds me of a glowing radioactive ball of plutonium, terrible in its simple existence. He can make or break you with a single word, and everyone knows he can and will without a single look back. The film captures perfectly the smoky nightclub world of 21 and the Stork Club along with the grubby little burrow belonging to Sidney Falco, press agent and repellent social climber. Great movie and by far, Curtis's best performance.

The constant backbiting and bitterness wears one down quickly...

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 9 February 2008]

Critically-lauded but (in its day) unsuccessful adaptation of Ernest Lehman's short story about a New York press-agent supplying gossip to a powerful newspaper columnist, unwisely getting involved in the man's fragile relationship with his gullible sister. Brittle, cynical film isn't juicy or enjoyable, just one-note sour. James Wong Howe's cinematography is vivid and Tony Curtis gives an excellent performance as Sidney Falco (he and co-star Burt Lancaster also served as co-producers), but the screenplay (by Clifford Odets!) offers no let-up from the sleaze, and without a reprieve it loses touch with its audience. Ostensibly aimed at the urban-based intelligentsia, yet it is more melodramatic than sophisticated. ** from ****

Sleazy Story Of Wretched Excess

[telegonus · 3/10 · 23 April 2001]

This film is way over the top in every department, with only a few redeeming features, notably its photography, plus a few good actors in small roles, especially Sam Levene and Emile Meyer. The story concerns a soulless press-agent who seeks to curry favor with a powerful, corrupt Walter Winchell-like gossip columnist. Every twist and turn of the plot is telegraphed well in advance, and the machinations of the various players are out of a Victorian melodrama. What makes the movie wretched is that it, or rather those responsible for it, are so damned pleased with themselves. The atmosphere is fifties-edgy; everyone seems to be either on speed or caffeine overload. Most of the people speak to each other in little arias, expressing either self-interest, a contempt for others, or both, these always underlined by a sense of moral irony inconsistent with the characters in question. The movie is like a tabloid, always ripping the lid off this or that, telling us either what we already know or don't care to find out about various hot topics of the time. As a character study it doesn't work because the bad guy is so amoral that he is a monster pure and simple. We never get to know him because there's only one thing about him that matters, his willingness to destroy and humiliate those who won't do his bidding. If he has friends or a personal life they are not shown. He does not seem like a human being and Burt Lancaster plays him as not like a human being. Tony Curtis, as the toady of the moment, is more credible, but all we learn about him is how ambitious he is and how much he wants to be like his idol and chief torturer. No one else, not even Lancaster's (much) younger sister, really matters. In comparison one can imagine the Nazi high command as vastly more charming and magnanimous than the characters in this picture. The film barrels along at about 200 mph and is certainly never boring, but it isn't moving, either. New York at night never looked more menacing. Nor is it ever, for an instant, attractive, as it is strangely unseductive, and overall disgusting, like a bad piece of corned beef stuck in the back of the throat. In the end the picture itself seems sleazier than those people whose souls, or lack thereof, it is purporting to expose, and it left a bad taste.

Oh yes.

[phiggins · 11 March 2002]

"I love this dirty town". "Match me, Sidney". "Maybe I left my sense of humour in my other suit". Great dialogue. Great script, great cinematography, great acting, great music. Christ, what do you want, blood? From the first moment we see Burt Lancaster as the impossibly sinister J.J., we know we're in for a cracking time. There he is, sitting at the restaurant table, wearing those strangely scary glasses, his face expressionless (perhaps he's smiling, just a little bit), talking to Sidney without even looking at him, firing the dialogue like bullets. When the action seeps into the New York streets, oozing menace, there's J.J. - master of all he surveys, twisting cops round his little finger, snarling and seething like some desperate animal. And there is something animal about this film: its characters writhe and twist in the lights and the shadows - demented, tortured creatures, all of them trying to maintain some semblance of normality, all of them aware, deep down, how corrupt and helpless they are. The symbols of goodness - J.J.'s sister and her boyfriend - are weak, pathetic, hopeless, unable to keep up with the neverending twists and turns of this awful labyrinth of manipulation and cruelty. Curtis and Lancaster were never better, and it's awesome to see them play such grotesque yet believable roles. How do people get like this? Where do they go from here? Perhaps it's best not to think about it, and just wallow in the brilliant nastiness of it all, before maybe going home and getting in the shower for a long, long time.

The sharpest ever dissection of the lure of fame.

[PrinceMishkin · 10/10 · 24 January 1999]

There are many unbeatable things about this splendid film, but more than anything else there is the dialogue - dialogue as sharp as the suits and as bleak as the slate grey cinematography. Lancaster and Curtis have never been better and the American fim industry never produced a more enjoyably bitter film.

sweet smell of lie

[esteban1747 · 8/10 · 21 February 2006]

Press freedom is one of the best thing in any democratic society but it may sometimes produce/bring lies used for the advantage of powerful groups and/or circles. That is why this film was called in some Latin American countries "A Damn Lie". The excellent plot shows how someone arrogant, selfish, good writing and talking as J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) was able to use various factors in the society he did his work in order to destroy any enemy, any adversary or any person whom he did not like at all. An example was the boy friend of his sister Susan, a working young man, devoted to music and strongly in love with Susan, completely discredited by JJ. Certainly JJ was a kind of a sick man, unable to accept any reason from any other person. He was born to have adversaries and not friends. To do all his work JJ needed snakes (not persons) as Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), who behaved worse than a reptile, always praising JJ although he in fact hated him and creating the intrigues whenever there were necessary. Very good film and probably a lesson, the acting was also excellent, particularly of Lancaster as a tough columnist JJ and Tony Curtis as a low ethic man.

Like bathing in a sewer...

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 6 May 2011]

For most of his career, Tony Curtis played rather light-weight roles. This is not a criticism--just an observation of the types of parts he played in movies. Here in "Sweet Smell of Success", however, he breaks with this and portrays a meaty and incredibly unlikable guy. The strength of this performance served to do something VERY difficult--to upstage Burt Lancaster--an actor who usually dominates the screen.

Curtis plays a press agent--a very slimy and weak one who will do ANYTHING to make a buck and get into the good graces of people who can help him. In particularly, he hopes to get a cold and nasty columnist (Lancaster) to work with him--at any cost. Lancaster's character seems as if it's based on Walter Winchell--a real life columnist who used to wield tons of power but who, according to most accounts, was a vicious and power-hungry jerk. Watching Lancaster's character so coldly and callously manipulate those around him was great--almost as captivating as the depths to which Curtis would go to debase himself. They made a very compelling and slimy team--hateful but something you just can't stop watching. As for the rest of the cast, they do a fine job but they are way off in the background--it is a Curtis-Lancaster film and they dominate the picture.

So why did I give the film a 10 Well, first, it's very original and gusty--very different from the nice image of stars and those who make them. You see an ugly side--like watching people bathing in a sewer. And it's unforgettable and relies solely on excellent writing, acting and direction. Sets and plot devices are irrelevant--just darn fine work by the priniciples involved.

So why didn't it win anything at Oscar time or get nominated?! Well, first, I think it was a film that slowly caught on and many people also just didn't know what to think of this anti-Hollywood and anti-Broadway film. Second, 1958 was an amazingly good year in films and all but one of the Best Picture nominees were amazing films. Whether or not they were better or worse than "Sweet Smell of Success" is debatable but they almost all were terrific films--"Bridge on the Rive Kwai", "12 Angry Men", "Sayonara" and "Witness for the Prosecution" were all up for the big award (how "Peyton Place", a very glossy soap opera, got nominated is beyond me). However, neither Curtis nor Lancaster even got nominated..and that is inexplicable.the

One of the best films Hollywood has ever produced.

[mattspringett76 · 9/10 · 3 August 2007]

From the opening credits to the climatic ending, the scintillating dialogue and the magnetic performances from both Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis this is Hollywood at its cerebral best. The king of the thinking mans cinema. Has better dialogue ever been written, the meetings between all the different characters that inhabit this world of shadows and intrigue, constantly draw the viewers attention to this masterpiece. When the so called film buffs compile there lists of the "best" films and so on, this should always be talked of in the top five and yet though recognised more as the years go by this is still a highly overlooked film. That Marlon Brando, De niro, Nicholson and the like should be recognised so often in said lists when Burt Lancaster in this film and in so many others has equalled or surpassed there best performances is a real scandal. Perhaps because this film strikes at the very heart of the establishment and shows the media and press up for the unscrupulous scum they are that this is one those fellows would like to forget. It is always difficult to look the truth of oneself in the mirror and this is one mirror the media should look very closely at. A masterpiece from Lancaster, who's courage never failed when making films and was always ready to tackle the kind of film making that lesser men would not have dared to, not to mention casting himself in a "bad guy" role that defied his heroic, handsome leading man status. Let us not forget that this is the same man who through out his life was never afraid to speak out on subjects that were important to him, a life long liberal and contemptuous of anyone who excepted limitation. I love this film and both Lancaster and the picture were far ahead of their time.

A Classic despite its warts.

[ksdilauri · 7/10 · 15 June 2019]

If, like me, you've missed seeing "Sweet Smell of Success" for one reason or another, you may want to check it out. As the many reviews have stated, it is a standout. Some have compared its subject matter---an unflattering look at the underbelly of the New York celebrity scene---to "All About Eve". That's true regarding the high quality of the writing, direction, cinematography, and the two lead performances....but unlike the highly rewatchable "Eve"--where the witty dialogue supplies occasional moments of relief to offset the theatrics--"Sweet Smell" is a relentless downer, and I had a hard time buying the sister's wimpy dependence on her dictatorial brother. I'm glad I saw it, but once is enough. You may feel otherwise--do give it a watch, if only to see the work of Curtis and Lancaster.

Gripping and powerful, amazing cast and dialog

[nkaronis1 · 10/10 · 30 March 2002]

This film really brings an air of nostalgia when you compare it to current productions. There are no special effects or noisy music, but nevertheless you are riveted to your chair form beginning to end thanks to a wonderful cast, dialogue, direction and very nice Jazz music. Burt Lancaster gives again an unbelievable performance and Tony Curtis is perfect in the role of the ambitious small time thug that cannot get rid of his own contradictions. I only wish the studios would stop focusing on the teen market today and get inspired by films like this one.

J.J : I Love This Dirty Town!

[sol-kay · 7/10 · 9 May 2004]

****SPOILERS**** Realistic movie about a powerful and ruthless New York city gossip columnist J.J Hunsecker, Burt Lancaster, and how he treats people who dare to sand in his way. With Tony Curtis giving the best acting performance of his career as the sleazy and manipulating Sidney Falco a local publicist who's very existence depends on J.J giving print to the people who he represents in his column.

Falco being iced out of the J.J Hunsecker gossip column, which is the death penalty in the newspaper world for a publicist, because of him failing to break up the relationship between J.J's kid sister Susie, Susan Harrison, with the up and coming popular guitar player Steve Dallas, Martin Milner, of the Chico Hamilton Quintet.

Trying to get back into the good graces of J.J Falco gives a competing gossip columnist Otis Elwell, David White, a hot story to print about Steve being a pot smoker as well as card carrying commie! This can not only ruin Steve's but the Chico Hamilton Quintet's careers.

Even though J.J could have done a much more effective job of destroying Steve he and Falco manipulated Ewell to do their dirty work in order not to have Susie suspect that it was her brother who is breaking up their relationship as well as their future marriage. When J.J with the connivance of Falco invited Steve and his manager Frank D'Angelo, Sam Levene, and Susie to the TV studio where J.J, with Falco in attendance, all hell breaks loose. J.J is to talk about the the rights of Americans not to be trampled on with false and unsubstantiated accusations, like what J.J was doing to Steve. This is for J.J to show those in the audience as well as the shows some 60 million TV viewers how he took the high road in the Steve Dallas case of "Guilt by Gossip". Steve seeing through J.J's and Falco's scam and at the same time having too much pride and dignity to play along with their squalid game let J.J have it, verbally. This shakes up the normally cool as a cucumber J.J to the point where he really lost his cool and embarrassed himself in front of every one there.

Furious J.J, after that spectacle, not only wanted to destroy Steve's career but also his life! He then had Falco plant a pack of joints in Steve's coat at the nightclub where he was preforming and then tipping off the brutal and vicious Lt. Harry Kello, Emile Meyers, to not only arrest him but work him over.

Susie who agreed to break up with Steve after J.J browbeat her into submission at the TV studios and left her with an emotional breakdown heard the news about what happened to Steve. Going to the hospital Susie found out at that Syeve may not pull out of his coma from the beating that Kello gave him. Later as Falco came up to J.J's apartment, to give him the good news about Steve, that he pulled out of his coma but suffered permanent brain damage, he saved Susie's life as she tried to kill herself by jumping off the balcony.

J.J coming into the room and seeing his sister in a nightgown and in the arms of Falco, who was holding her in order for her not to jump out the window and kill herself, went wild. Slapping Falco around an outraged J.J then called the police and Lt. Kello to come over and arrest Falco for planting pot on Steve; which J.J himself had Falco do.

Falco running from the building is cornered by Lt.Kello and savagely beaten and arrested but Susie who knew that it was her brother J.J who was behind Steve's brutal beating, and everything else that was done to break Steve and her up, walks out on him as the movie ended.

Razor sharp black & white photography as well as dialog gave "Sweet Smell of Success" that real New York city look of the 1950's. The stunning on location filming makes the movie a must for those of us who appreciate the "Big Apple" as it was back then before it became a cheap imitation of what it is now. That's before the explosion of the real estate market in the mid 1970's made the city look like the nondescript and undistinguished town that it is today. Instead of the great Majestic Metropolis by the rivers, the Hudson an East, that it was back then.

Burt Lancaster takes a walk on the Dark Side

[DarthBill · 9/10 · 2 March 2007]

Burt Lancaster plays the evil newspaper man J.J. Hunsecker, Tony Curtis plays the ambitious upstart who caters to Hunsecker's favor, even going so far as to wreck the romance Hunsecker's sister is having with a young man who dared to defy Hunsecker's word. But as Hunsecker becomes more demanding, taking more than giving, Tony Curtis's loyalty to him begins to fade ever so slightly more. And in the end, Hunsecker's unhealthy grip on his sister, which smacks of incestuous undertones, could prove to be his undoing.

Lancaster proves impressively evil as the twisted Hunsecker, dominating every scene he's in with both his physical stature and wicked personality. Curtis is a good match to him as the henchman who ultimately turns against him.

Great jazzy score.

Good but too melodramatic

[pzanardo · 6/10 · 12 April 2005]

"Sweet smell of success" is a good film, with an interesting and rather unusual story, a steady pace, but somehow damaged by a melodramatic script. A main credit to the movie lies in the cinematography, with plenty of beautiful shots of a nocturnal New York. The screenplay is not wholly convincing, since it seems more suited to the stage than to cinema. I mean, all the characters are so ready and brilliant in their dialogs, exactly like in a stage-play. We may expect a sharp wit from Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), since to be witty is his job. But what about, say, the cigarette-girl? Or the straightforward wife of the non-corrupt journalist? Some lines, the like of "I love this dirty city", are dated, to say the least.

Hunsecker's morbid, psychotic love toward his sister is the crux of the film, but it remains somehow unexplained. My guess is that he is eager to preserve her virginity as the unique pure thing in a corrupt world... But who knows? Sometimes he seems to love his own power more than his sister. An interesting character, no doubt.

Tony Curtis shines in his trade-mark role of the good-looking cheater, sleazy and greedy womanizer. Here we have the drama-version of the character, and I liked it, although I prefer Tony's comedy-version in masterpieces like "Some like it hot" or "Operation petticoat". Actually, Sidney Falco is the most hateful character ever played by Curtis. Burt Lancaster is very good, although slightly over-the-top. All the cast makes a fine job.

Such an overwhelming power of the gossip columnist Hunsecker as shown in the movie seems unlikely, not only today but even in the late 1950s. The movie presents some more or less subtle political messages which, honestly, I didn't appreciate. And I was even more displeased discovering that Hunsecker's character was based on a real person (allegedly, at a time when he had already lost his power). Not very elegant stuff out of authors devoted to condemn in the movie writers stabbing people in the back...

I am not sure to like much "Sweet smell of success" (in fact, I don't like the title, either). However it is certainly an exciting and interesting movie, worth to be viewed.

Awful

[deexsocalygal · 2/10 · 20 March 2021]

I rented this because I like old black & white movies & this has high ratings. I kept watching this but not understanding so I would stop and start over from the beginning to rewatch it several times until I gave up. The dialog is 100mph and terribly hard to follow because they talk in little quips. The characters all seem to be evil people who talk to each other in fast little incomplete sentences constantly cutting each other down. Everyone is miserable in this movie and they all try to out do each other by being the best at saying the most degrading thing to the other and as fast as possible. But it was impossible for me to figure out why everyone hated each other and their jobs. It was like watching a movie on fast forward. Terribly depressing movie about angry people running around avoiding conversation and spouting out quick cut throat insults at each other. That's all I could figure out before I gave up.