THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS REVIEW

This month’s flick from the vault is “Sweet Smell of Success,” starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. I first saw it on the late show when I was about twelve. This is the film where I fell in love with New York City, Jazz, and the idea of having a telephone brought to my table.

Like New York, it’s beautiful, dark, dirty, and mercilessly ambitious. A fast-tempo ride of greed and desire, where everyone covets something just out of their reach, and will do anything to obtain it.

Curtis plays Sidney Falco, a sleazy press agent with a hand bitten manicure and oily locks. He’s a snake that slithers around town manipulating coat check girls while avoiding his pissed-off clients. Sydney’s in a pickle. He’s being shut out by the world’s biggest newspaper columnist J.J. Hunsecker and, unless he performs a dirty deed for J.J., he’s out for good.

Hunsecker is played to perfection by Burt Lancaster. In geek glasses and suit and tie his menacing glare and verbal gut shots make Hannibal Lecter seem like a disgruntled janitor. Hunsecker is loosely based on legendary columnist and radio personality Walter Winchell. This is back in 1957, when newspapers meant something. You know, those big papery things that old guys read at Starbucks.

The script by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman is hipster chic and east coast cool. It’s a human chess game where pawns, queens and rooks wander off the board and out of the box. The score by Elmer Bernstein is a locomotive fueled by horns and cymbals that complement the genius of James Wong Howe and his pristine black and white cinematography.

Director Alexander Mackendrick keeps it raw and on track. It’s subtle, but moves quickly. Put the remote down and pay attention. “Sweet Smell of Success” rises above and beyond the usual pedestrian slop you find at the flickers. It airs on Turner Classic Movies Wed. Aug 27th at 10:15 pm. E.S.T. Get hep. Dig?

Allan Havey