There is a lot of period lingo in 1957’s Sweet Smell of Success, including this description, offered by a cop (Emile Meyer) about sleazy press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curits): “The boy with the ice cream face.” I don’t know what that means exactly, but somehow it perfectly captures the dripping insincerity and sticky desperation behind every one of Falco’s expressions. Trading favors for favors for favors—some for his clients, others for himself—Falco spends a couple of nights flitting among Manhattan jazz and supper clubs, mostly making promises he can’t keep or never plans to. Curtis is in his element as the detestable Sidney—he’s like oil and oil—but half of the film is also devoted to a slightly miscast Burt Lancaster as J.J. Hunsecker, an intellectual newspaper columnist whose daily items can change the fortunes of politicians and musicians alike. Stern and severe, Lancaster is a bit stiff (though he does have a nice moment where he also describes Falco’s face). Meanwhile, Hunsecker’s preoccupation with getting Falco to start a smear campaign against the jazz musician (Martin Milner) in love with Hunsecker’s sister (Susan Harrison) is a strange hook on which to hang much of the movie’s plot. (Hunsecker’s creepy obsession with his own sister seems pulled from some other, more lurid melodrama.) Director Alexander Mackendrick (The Ladykillers) is at his best guiding us through the endless rhythms (the jazz score is by Elmer Bernstein) and neon lights (the gloriously seedy, black-and-white cinematography is by James Wong Howe) of this nocturnal cityscape, rather than selling us on its oddly uninvolving story.
(1/18/2024)
