Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – A. Mackendrick

With a wicked script from Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman (working separately), this is one of the bitterest of all noirs with a completely lacerating view of human nature.  Tony Curtis is Sidney Falco, a press agent taking money from clients seeking to get their names into notorious columnist J. J. Hunsecker’s copy; he’ll do anything to suck up to Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) and he isn’t against betraying those who put their trust in him.  You would feel pity for him but he’s a snake with no moral compass.  Lancaster may be worse, lording it over New York City, using his power to humiliate (in print or in person), seemingly without any concern for human feelings or dignity.  He claims to have his younger sister’s welfare at heart but the plot shows him to be using Falco to break up her relationship with an up-and-coming jazz guitarist (and Falco goes along with it, perhaps feigning dismay).  They almost push her to suicide.  As dark as it is, the film snap, crackles, and pops with incredible lines (“I’d hate to take a bite out of you -- you’re a cookie full of arsenic!”, “You’ve got more twists than a barrel of pretzels!”, “That’s fish four days old – I won’t buy it!” and so on).  There’s also a jazz score from Elmer Bernstein and incredible NYC at night cinematography from James Wong Howe.  It is worth the trip but you can’t help leaving with a bitter taste in your mouth from how weak, self-interested, and mean we humans can be.