Review of Sweet Smell of Success (1957) by Michael H — 10 Apr 2013

If there's an aroma to Ealing veteran Alexander Mackendrick's first American picture, it's funky and pungent; anything but sweet. This cracking media-based drama - famed for its pacey, witty and cutting street vernacular - is at its best when depicting the sparring between its two powerhouse leads.

Lancaster's media mogul JJ Hunsecker is a rare, remarkable screen monster: whip-smart, savage, colossally repressed and unhealthily obsessed with his younger sister. The producer/star perhaps reveals some of the darker, disturbed side of his personality in the role, and it is a jolt to see the beaming, toothy grin of 'The Crimson Pirate' and such jollity giving way to such a sideways, sarcastic sneer.

Curtis as perpetually scheming press agent Sidney Falco matches Lancaster blow-for-blow, in a performance that saw a shift away from the pretty-boy roles he was becoming fed up with. His Falco - though overlooked in this context - re-configures the notions of screen cool; Brando or Dean, for instance, never played the kind of fast-talking street hepcat that Curtis plays with such malevolent relish here.

Marty Milner (wooden) and Susan Harrison (vacant) fare less well as the young couple at the centre of the domestic story fuelling JJ's ire, but the supporting cast is well rounded and full of interesting characters to populate the nightscape - each one ready with a sharp one-liner.

Elmer Bernstein provides a jazzy score, and the nocturnal Manhattan backdrop is at once as tawdry and alluring as Curtis makes his Falco character. Mackendrick's direction is first rate (as is James Wong Howe's cinematography) in capturing the sleazy mood, setting and characters, but is often overlooked in favour of the snappy, memorable dialogue.

For the most part, 'Sweet Smell of Success' is matchless stuff.