Cinema Survey 17

Sweet Smell of Success: I watched this for the first time in about six years a couple of weeks ago, on Christmas Eve. For whatever reason, the movie left me cold back then, but now I can see what’s obvious: this one of the great American films; not just of the 1950s, but all of Classic Hollywood, all of the 20th century, one of the best in the history of the medium. So few films then, now, or anywhere in between are this smart, sharp, and sure of themselves; so few scripts even approach the electricity of the work of Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman here, and it must be said that director Alexander Mackendrick, who debuted with this masterpiece and flamed out within a decade (ending his film career, as he began, with Tony Curtis, in the underrated and oft-mocked farce Don’t Make Waves, with Sharon Tate in her screen debut) does a superb job.

Everyone’s in the stratosphere in Sweet Smell of Success, operating at the height of their craft for 97 air-tight minutes. Curtis is Sidney Falco, muckraking press agent (a redundancy) in league with gossip columnist J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster); although the movie has a plot that follows Hunsecker’s beloved baby sister and her very “hep” but honorable boyfriend Steve Dallas (Martin Milner) and Hunsecker’s efforts to keep them apart, it’s really all about the dialogue and the world of backrooms and private tables where powerful men make the world turn, and all the grease and sinew that goes into it. Perhaps the best scene in the movie is Lancaster’s introduction, when he levels a pompous Senator (David White) and his righthand man and woman with one line: “Everyone who’s ‘hep’ in here knows that he’s carting her around for you. You could be President someday. I’d be more careful if I were you.”

Properly humiliated, the Senator’s put in his place; suitably buffed, Lancaster walks out with Curtis. Lancaster, under his breath and shaking his head: “President…”

Sweet Smell of Success was an independent production, one of Lancaster, James Hill, and Harold Hecht’s early collaborations as Hecht-Hill-Lancaster. The actor had to reprimand Mackendrick for wasting days, imploring the volatile and inexperienced theater director to follow through on his complex camera movements and make his days. There’s a great documentary on the Criterion release of the movie called Mackendrick: The Man Who Walked Away. Lancaster, Curtis, and Mackendrick talk about the troubled production, and the rest of Mackendrick’s brief but tumultuous career. It’s a miracle Sweet Smell of Success wasn’t sabotaged by this guy. James Wong Howe makes it one of the best looking black and white movies ever made, certainly the best that Manhattan ever looked or felt in the movies of the 1950s. And every performance is note perfect—otherwise, the dialogue would come off as arch and over-written. Somehow, it’s natural and justified, a hyperreal profile of who gets iced and who comes out on top in the machinations of the media.

I saw Sweet Smell of Success at the Charles on the night of January 6, during a break in the snowstorm we’re still under. I thought it was over when I made it to the theater, but emerged in the most snow this city has seen since at least 2018. The bustling crowds of the revival series as of late didn’t materialize, but there were at least 30 people there—in other words, a typical revival before 2020. Even in whiteout conditions, with roads no one should be driving on, people came out to see Sweet Smell of Success, a movie made nearly 70 years ago and still never properly appreciated. There are still signs of life when the lights go down.

—Follow Nicky Otis Smith on Twitter and Instagram: @nickyotissmith