To me, this movie is perfection.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

"Sweet Smell Success": an olfactory alliteration littered with the foulest aspects of greed and ambition, how far ego can go, how dignity doesn't amount to a hill of Heinz beans and how ethics are no match for the green rectangle's appeal.This is a film made by a director whose named has faded into oblivion, Alexander McKendrick, it was poorly received by the audience but not the critics. As members of the Press, they could relate to the corners some unethical members of their professions cut... or were driven to. I'm no journalist but the film made me understand paparazzi, the pictures they take are just bargaining ships, nothing personal, only business.And in the film, the principal currency of this business consists of articles that can make or break people just like Twitter comments undo careers today. As smears, they become weapons with the newspapers as crime settings... the muscle is Sidney Falco and the mastermind is J.J. Hunsecker, the shady press agent and the egomaniac press columnist and national icon. The two men are as thick as thieves and form an unforgettable Faustian duo, they don't like each other, but Falco allows Hunsecker to see how high he climbed his way up and Hunsecker is the Sherpa who can take him to the same Everest of power, watching New York City as microcosm of the very America he just conquered. "I love that dirty town" says Hunsecker... ignoring that he's part of that very dirt, a furoncle stuck to New York City's body pulsating to the rhythm of sex, drugs and jazz.For the trivia, J.J. Hunsecker was named 35th villain in the AFI's Top 50 but Falco is the soulless soul of the story, only redeemed by the fact that he's not as bad as his mentor, which is not saying much. When we first meet him, his name isn't even painted on the door but taped on it, his office and room make one, he's to his profession what Lionel Hutz is to lawyers, a disgrace... but of the sympathetic type. Who can resist that smile? Tony Curtis wanted to prove he wasn't just a cutie pie and battled to get the role, I can't picture another actor as Sidney Falco (same judgment with the "bigger one"). I admit it, I appreciated his boundless ambition that kept him awake all the night on the lookout of any scoop, any tip to a scoop, any promise to a juicy reward. I liked his clean-cut image, his rapid fire repartee and his tactical genius combined with a total lack of scruples. As one of his employers told him "I wouldn't hire you if you weren't a liar"there are layers or liar. One who plays in another league is definitely Hunsecker, based on sulfuric columnist Walter Winchell... actually, that contextualization is irrelevant, we don't remember "Citizen Kane" for being a merely disguised pamphlet against William Randolph Hearst, do we? But it's interesting how a film meant to denounce sordidness of its time spoke statements about the excesses of power modern audiences could easily identify, especially in our social media time. Hunsekcer wants to crush a decent jazz player because he disapproves his union with his sister and Burt Lancaster plays him in the kind of smooth performance that doesn't give you the heart to despise him, maybe it's the signature grin, the catchy lines such as "You're dead. Get buried" or the little truths behind cruel thoughts... or maybe the glasses, but when you see Hunsecker, you kind of understand Falco. Hunsecker paved the way to all corrupt and charismatic executives such as Gordon Gekko or Buddy Ackerman and in his establishing scene, we're tempted to admire him. Seated at a fancy restaurant, the bespectacled muscular tycoon is verbally crucifying a manager and lecturing a senator when Falco joins him, earning himself an unforgiving description concluding with the film's most defining line "Match me, Sidney". The real pay-off of that moment isn't in Falco's refusal to light Hunsecker's cigarette, which of course is part of his "smiling street-urchin pal" act, but when later, both manage to break up the relationship and Hunsecker doesn't even have to ask Falco, the right-hand man complies as automatically as a living Zeppo. At that point, he's a match to Hunsecker, will it last? Later, Hunsecker admits "I'd hate to take a bite out of you, you're a cookie full of arsenic". How many 50s movies feature such hateful but eloquent protagonists, some blamed the bland performances of the romantic pair but they were merely pawns, the story is about the chess-master and the game. And the game is played in a short period of two nights where we see Falco moving his pieces, going as far as framing an innocent man, lying, pimping a poor woman and blackmailing an editor in front of his wife, with such ardor that he's immediately taught a lesson of decency, but no one can checkmate Falco because the real adversary is himself, as Hunsecker points out, "you're prisoner of your own fears and ambitions". Little did he know that he was also prisoner of his own ego. "Sweet Smell of Success" is a quotable masterpiece that feels as fresh as it was sixty years ago, proving that America didn't wait for the New Wave to reinvent itself and maybe that's why the film didn't meet with commercial success, it was ahead of its time... and forgive the hackneyed expression, severely underrated.Though it's quite a poetic irony that the film didn't meet with success because it provides a rather stinky image of success. Nonetheless, the film is a noir classic, modern in every sense of the word and certainly the best performances of both Curtis and Lancaster. Success stinks in the film but the films has a cinematic fragrance for the ages.

Alexander Mackendrick's "Sweet Smell of Success" is a movie about journalists that is unlike anything that I've ever seen before and when it comes to the journalism industry it is even more shocking than Sidney Lumet's "Network" (1976) which was released 19 years after this movie came out in 1957. Burt Lancaster stars as JJ Hunsecker a very powerful columnist for the New York Globe and who has lots of readers to his name, asks a young press agent named Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) to break up the relationship between Hunsecker's little sister Susie (Susan Harrison) and a jazz musician named Steve Dallas (Martin Milner) while Falco tries to go even further as to framing him as a dope smoker. The film isn't a typical film noir with a private eye investigating a murder though it does have the ingredients of one. This is a movie that is truly flawless thanks to the extremely intense screenplay written by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, the glorious black and white cinematography by James Wong Howe, Mackendrick's direction, and all of the performances especially from Lancaster and Curtis stand out from all the rest and each of them give some of the best work of their respective careers and are truly Oscar level work that was snubbed that year. In his review of this movie Roger Ebert wrote that the relationship between the Lancaster and Curtis characters was like "two junkyard dogs". of which there is no better way for me to describe it. Burt Lancaster is one of my all time favorite macho men in the movies along with John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, James Stewart, Clark Gable, Liam Neeson, Harrison Ford and many others. This film is also one of the best noirs that I've ever seen and not only is it a masterpiece, it is also one of the ten best films of 1957.

Tony Curtis plays the slimy, self-loathing ambitious press agent Sidney Falco, who feeds gossip to the all powerful New York columnist, radio & TV media powerhouse – modeled after Walter Winchell – J.J. Hunsecker (AFI's #35 villain), played ruthlessly by Burt Lancaster.Hunsecker treats Falco, and virtually everyone else he encounters including a Senator who is beholden to him, like "a poodle" that will "jump through flaming rings" for him, or so says Hunsecker's weak and vulnerable younger sister Susan (played by Susan Harrison); of course, Falco will.The columnist, who wields his power confidently, fearlessly, is particularly upset with Falco for not doing him a favor by breaking up his sister's love for a young, up-and-coming musician named Steve Dallas (Martin Milner). Hence, he's cut off the publicity man's ability to continue to make his living by selling access to his powerful associate's column.Hunsecker justifies his actions because his warped mind has enabled him to believe that he is the lifeblood of the 60 million people who read his column, and that what he does is somehow patriotic (when he's really a scoundrel). But J.J.'s weakness is his sister; he acts like a father-figure and believes himself to be her protector because she's really all he's got. He tries to (surreptitiously, through Falco) control her life by crushing anyone (like Dallas) that comes between them and threatens to bring about the lonely, miserable life he'd have without her.Falco avoids his own secretary (Jeff Donnell) because she reflects the conscious and self respect that he should have, but doesn't. Sam Levene plays the musician's agent; Emile Meyer plays a meat-fisted cop who owes Hunsecker a favor. Barbara Nichols plays a pathetic cigarette girl whose misguided love Falco uses to advantage for his own sordid purposes.Directed by Alexander Mackendrick, who'd received his only Oscar recognition for co-writing The Man in the White Suit (1951), the drama was written by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman. The film was somehow completely and inexplicably snubbed – especially its lead acting and James Wong Howe's gritty B&W cinematography – by the Academy, though it was added to the National Film Registry in 1993.

This film, directed by Mackendrick, takes place in New York City. But not just your everyday New York City; he uses the streets, the alley ways, places outside that have very little witness to potential crime occurrences, offices where shady deals are made, back rooms where private discussion happen that eventually come to light. Love is shattered, deals to make sure it happens for good are agreed upon by none other than the sweet innocent Suzy's brother who doesn't want to ever part with her. He wants to keep her in his life and be close with her because she's all he's got in terms of family, and he's willing to destroy the true love her sister had been lucky enough to find while still under his wing. So in order to do that, he makes deals with Falco, a publicist. J.J, Suzy's brother, is an extremely powerful newspaper writer who could destroy you with the dial of a few numbers or with a few lines off of his typewriter. Just as he was powerful with his influence, he was intimidating in his demeanor. He ran the show. But to his sister, and only to her, he was a bit of a softie. Which was very sweet to see. But in this sweetness and the brotherly-sisterly love he has for her, he poisoned their relationship with deceit, strong-armed Falco and the corrupt police force and anyone else writing in New York City at the time, and to what end?