The Sweet Smell of Success
Alexander
Mackendrick, 1957, USA
Screenplay:
Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman
Coming from Ealing, Mackendrick went
to America and made this vehement attack on the noxious shwbiz gossip
journalism scene. Moving stateside, the wit is less satirical and more acidic.
Full of memorable put-downs and one-liners that are just desperate to punch you.
The pace is at an authoritative stride and you’d best keep up.
Elmer Bernsteins’s score keeps up the
jazz dizziness and cool, never overpowering the dialogue but always paralleling
the sense of characters constantly riffing. And with that heavy-hitting script and
actors at their best, with that agile camera following and gliding through
James Wong Howe’s wonderful black-and-white photography, it’s definitely a film
where everyone is at the top of their game.
The screenplay is by Ernest Lehman
and Clifford Odets from Lehman’s novel, and it’s a legendary script. It’s film
noir with the nihilism and wisecracks transported to column writers rather than
private dicks. And even if there is the implied gloss of the entertainment
industry and we’re visiting high end clubs and restaurants, we’re firmly in the
gutter and underbelly here. Tony Curtis practically sweats self-loathing as
Sidney Falco, the press agent trying to simultaneously suck up to and siphon
some power from columnist J.J. Hunsecker. Burt Lancaster as Hunsecker seems to
turn the very air around him to cruelty. And boy, Lancaster and Curtis know
just how to deliver those zingers. The former’s sleaziness and the latter’s
ever-present ominous threat are palpable essences. Falco avoids the
conscience-pricking of his secretary whilst Hunsecker connives to destroy his
sister’s romance (Susan Harrison) to the decency of a jazz musician (Martin
Milner). That’s the plot that barely hints at the poisonous flow of character
and scheming, the hints of the incestuous and moral vacuity. All for the sake
of personal weakness, cynicism and show business.
And of course, these men would never
think they might be beaten at their own game.
A cold classic.
2 comments:
One reviewer (not sure who, but it might have been Geoff Andrew) noted that it's a sort of black reflection of The Ladykillers', pitting a naively innocent woman against a team of evilly sophisticated men.
Among my favourite scenes is the one where Falco tries to blackmail an adulterous rival in the presence of the man's wife, only to be foiled by the man's apology and the wife's dignified acceptance. Must be in the top five Scenes No PR Man Could Possibly Understand.
Yeh, the gender wars is the true story here, surely. The film reeks of male toxicity, but the playing and the zingers are so damned entertaining and delightful. The difference is the men do it for sport and she does it for survival and freedom. The women carry a dignity absent from these men.
There's so many scenes that are exemplary. Not only the first time we see JJ at dinner ("Do you believe in the death penalty, senator?), but the scene where it's apparent that Falco is just a pimp, and the friction with the corrupt cop, etc, etc.
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