episode 2
sweet smell of success
two of my favorite
actors in the same picture, and it's a doozy. burt lancaster and tony curtis both
give career performances in this big harsh menacing movie about entertainment culture in
post world war 2 new york city. every character in this film (minus just a few) is
pretty much deplorable. no one is innocent. no one is honest. everyone
is desperate. everyone sells anyone else out for anything at all.
tony curtis plays a publicist named sidney, a very
seedy, but very efficient publicist. his biggest problem (aside from his utter lack
of humanity) is that the gossip columnist j.j. hunsecker (burt lancaster), a very very
powerful man that usually helps sidney with his publicity by (what else?) publishing bits
for him in his column, is mad at sidney. it turns out that j.j.s little sister is in
love with a jazz guitar player, and j.j. is not pleased about it, and wanted sidney to end
their relationship. but sidney didn't get it done quickly enough.
this is a wonderful movie about terrible people doing
terrible things. there is no redemption, very little hope, and the only characters
that one feels any real sympathy for are powerless in the face of all the layers of
manipulation around them, and ultimately destroyed. the dialogue is cutting and
true, and the whole film, from the new york scenery, the pacing and the acting to the
fantastic booming big jazz score (the soundtrack alone is well worth the price of a
rental) give a feeling of dread, and claustrophobia and hopelessness.
an interesting side note: a friend of mine told me that the
coen brothers wrote the film 'barton fink' with the screenwriter for 'sweet smell of
success' in mind. apparently it was his only big project. he was some new york socialist
intellectual author who somehow got persuaded to write for hollywood. whether true
or not, it is certainly a much much harsher view of humanity than nearly any other film of
the period.
"i'd hate to take a
bite out of you sidney. you're a cookie full of arsenic." |
