The Cinematheque

“A cookie full of arsenic; a delicious and dangerous tour of journalism’s dark underbelly … Its pleasures are almost obscenely abundant.”

A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“I love this dirty town.” Noir goes Broadway—and gets real nasty—in the sensationally scabrous Sweet Smell of Success, directed with impressive panache by Ealing comedy expert Alexander Mackendrick in his American debut. Tony Curtis is Sidney Falco, a slimy, sycophantic New York press agent willing to do anything to ingratiate himself with J.J. Hunsecker, a highly influential, monstrously manipulative gossip columnist played by Burt Lancaster. When Hunsecker asks Falco to destroy the reputation of the clean-cut jazz musician dating Hunsecker’s sister, he concocts a vicious scheme to smear the innocent man. What unfolds is a gloriously perverse, spiritedly cynical slice-of-sleaze in which power, corruption, and lies are the order of the day. Rendered in striking high-contrast cinematography by James Wong Howe, featuring wickedly pungent dialogue by Clifford Odets, and set to a superior jazz score by Elmer Bernstein.

“The film is a masterpiece, intelligent Hollywood cinema at its best.”

Philip French, The Observer

“The film’s rank cynicism surrounding the journalism community can only be matched by cinematographer James Wong Howe’s deep blacks and blinding whites … Every element gives heat to the drama until it boils over—then adds more.”

Zach Lewis, Brooklyn Magazine