Short Film Clips- Burt Lancaster’s Sweet Smell Of Success

Short Film Clips

Sweet Smell Of Success, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, 1957

Apparently 1950s Hollywood screenwriters when characterizing Broadway theater critics refused to touch them with anything less than a cattle prod, if that close (perhaps in  the inevitable “real” theater –“bubblegum” movies cultural clash this is where they got their revenge, so be it). At least that has been my recent film review experience after watching – All About Eve and it’s totally cynical critic Addison as he adds fuel to the fire of Anne Bancroft ‘s Eve take-no-prisoners- rise against watch out Bette Davis played superbly by George Saunders and the film under review .

In Sweet Smell Of Success we are confronted with the weasely Broadway critic and man- about- town J. J., played by Burt Lancaster, ably assisted by press flak Sydney Falco played to a groveling tee by Tony Curtis. Now on Broadway and in Hollywood , and we can add Washington politics and cable television mass media into the mix, information is power. And  J.J. has the information to be used like some god for good or evil, and mainly for evil. Although some wit, some long lost wit, once aired the thought that the only bad publicity was no publicity for those reaching for the stars that ain’t necessarily so.  As some minor characters, an  errant younger sister ‘s boyfriend, and as Brother Falco find out.  J.J. is the past master of the blind shot, the groin chop, the innuendo, the false fact that have today become common staple of reporting life.     

The story line here though is a little thin, mainly concerning J.J.’s overweening concern that his very much younger sister does not wind up with some ne’er- do- well. The tricks, manipulations, and downright skullduggery seem all too real to a modern audience who know that fame is fleeting and one better grab it by the neck, fast. The tricks(the old dope, boy, stashed in the pocket routine, for example ) played in this film set in 1950s Broadway, however, seem almost like kid’s stuff compared to the vicious action today. That, my friends, was something of a ‘golden age’ of gentile skullduggery by comparison.

A note on Tony Curtis who on the face of it seems in cinematic history to have been written of something of a ‘pretty’ boy, just another lure for the girl moviegoers. But then you think about the fine performance here against type and in Spartacus and in Some Like It Hot and one, including this reviewer, is compelled to start changing one’s opinion of the depth of Mr. Curtis’s talent.