Directed by:
Alexander MackendrickCinematography:
James Wong HoweComposer:
Elmer BernsteinCast:
Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner, Jeff Donnell, Sam Levene, Joe Frisco, Barbara Nichols, Emile Meyer, Lawrence Dobkin, John Fiedler (more)Plots(1)
In the swift, cynical Sweet Smell of Success, directed by Alexander Mackendrick, Burt Lancaster stars as the vicious Broadway gossip columnist J. J. Hunsecker, and Tony Curtis as Sidney Falco, the unprincipled press agent Hunsecker ropes into smearing the up-and-coming jazz musician romancing his beloved sister. Featuring deliciously unsavory dialogue, in an acid, brilliantly structured script by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, and noirish neon cityscapes from Oscar-winning cinematographer James Wong Howe, Sweet Smell of Success is a cracklingly cruel dispatch from the kill-or-be-killed wilds of 1950s Manhattan. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (2)
A cruel film with cruel characters. It's as if there isn't a single character who is truly kind. And if there is one, they will be crushed by the company of the others. Burt Lancaster in the role of J.J. Hunsecker is unbeatable and literally gives you chills, and he actually speaks quite calmly most of the time. But it’s what he says that gives me chills. A very chilling film that references the great era of film noir classics.
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"The cat's in the bag and the bag's in the river..." The tabloid manager only lets foreign tongues moisten his heels as long as they’re useful. And the ambitious worker in the field? He’ll soon find out who’s in the bag with the cat. Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis are both phenomenal. While Curtis rides the same "positive" wave as in The Boston Strangler and often speaks only from behind the shoulder of his mentor in a sycophantic position, Lancaster plays an amoral puppet master who, despite ruthlessly burning everyone around him, evokes sympathy in the final scene with his fingers on the door. After all, both characters deserve contempt with a touch of disdain. It’s a maelstrom of cynicism that might not sweep everyone away, but it timelessly depicts the danger of these currents.
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Gallery (85)
Photo © United Artists
![Sweet Smell of Success - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/161/000/161000847_4bd167.jpg)
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