Sweet Smell of Success *****

In my right hand, I'm holding a beautiful martini with two ripe green olives resting at the bottom of the glass. An absolutely perfect shake - no bruising at all. This will probably be the first of several I will have over the course of our next movie, so if we get a little incoherent at the end, that would be why.

What's the reason for celebrating, you might ask? Because we're going back to 1950s Manhattan, the home of the 21, Toots Shor's, the Copacabana, Jack Dempsey's and the Stork Club. The time and the place where all men were debonair and wore fedoras, all women were elegant and wore gowns and all hat check girls went home with me. Today, we're reviewing The Sweet Smell of Success. How do the kids say it today...boo yah?

This one came out after my untimely passing, so I didn't get a chance to see it until I got up here which took some string pulling and deal making to even get past the pearly gates, so I actually missed the first run as well. But it was worth the wait.

The film starts with a kick ass wailing jazz theme by Elmer Bernstein. I could tell you the basic story, it's not too complicated, but it doesn't do this flick justice. Alex Mackendrick was the director, but he really never did anything thing of note before or after this, so considering his pedigree, I have to guess legendary screenwriter Ernie Lehman had influence here. Cliff Odets is a co-writer, but this is not really his style, so it's tough to see his contribution. At least that's what I thought at first, but after taking everything into consideration, this is a Cliff Odets operation. There's an old saying about picking fights with guys who buy ink by the barrel. Orson Welles once decided to pick a fight with newspaper titan William Randolph Hearst and he ended up making fish stick commercials. Even though Ernie Lehman, an up-and-comer at the time, wrote the original novella, there's a big difference between a novella and a feature-length film. Lehman wanted nothing to do with this stick of dynamite. The only guy that would burn both sides of a bridge that he was standing on would either have to be insane or dead already. Odets was probably both. When the Communist Witch Hunt started, the famed playwrite Odets was public enemy number one and there weren't enough rocks for his former friends to crawl out from under. They came from everywhere trying to find more room on his back to shove another shiv. Kazan stabbed him, then ran him over in his Corvette, then backed up.

Sweet Smell of Success, the movie, was written by an angry, bitter man, who had no fear. Sweet Smell of Success was written by Cliff Odets.

Either way the dialogue here is just marvelous. I make it a point to fit a few of the quotes from this movie into regular conversation everyday. Try it, it's fun. Right before a big meeting with your boss, tell you co-worker to "watch me run the 50 yard-dash with my legs cut off." Or when you wife asks you to take out the garbage, tell her that "the cat's in the bag and the bag's in the river." How 'bout after your kid comes in late and starts pleading for mercy, you say "you're dead son. Get yourself buried." The possibilities are endless.

But I digress. Back to our feature. Between the writing, the beautiful camera work by noted noir DP James Wong Howe (the streets look like it's rained though the whole movie), and the acting - oh what acting. Like Double Indemnity, the acting here is a little top heavy with Lancaster doing phenomenal work and Curtis even better, but it's written that way. These two are virtually in every scene - Lancaster storming threw frames and Curtis slithering around them - and they drive the picture.

The story line is pretty simple. Sidney Falco (Curtis) is a press agent who makes his living feeding stuff to the heavyweight gossip columnist in New York, J.J. Hunsecker (Lancaster). But when the movie starts, times are tough for Sidney because he is frozen out of the Hunsecker column. Why is not clear in the beginning of the picture, but later on it's learned that Hunsecker asked Falco to break his sister's engagement and Falco botched it. Hunsecker's got a little incest thing going on here. It's understandable. She's damn cute. Can't even taste the gin in this one.

Well, anyway, Falco follows Hunsecker around, begs for forgiveness and tries to hustle up business on his own, but none of this works, so he begs Hunsecker for one last shot to break off the relationship. Hunsecker agrees on one condition. He doesn't want to just end the relationship now, he wants to destroy the punk. See, earlier on in the movie, during another one of Falco's breakup attempts, not only did it fail, but the punk (I don't remember who played him and I don't care. He was boring as hell and quite as ass to boot) mouthed off to J.J. in public. That isn't done, so now the punk gets the death penalty and Hunsecker offers Falco his column during J.J.'s vacation if he can get this horrible plan done. Falco agrees. Go rent it and find out of rest for yourself.

The plot doesn't mean much here. This one is made in the Wilder and Hawks style where the story is just and excuse to have great looking scenes with memorable dialogue between engaging characters and you get that in spades here. I can't think of too many throwaway scenes. The only potential problems are when Curtis or Lancaster run up against one of the lesser actors (like what'shisname), but to solve that Tony and Burt just roll over them like tar. End of problem.

I am biased here, because I am a Tony Curtis guy. I know he's become a characture of himself with that towering gray pompadour and the huge gut, but his stuff in the '50s was just great. Between this and The Defiant Ones and Sparticus and The Great Race and Some Like it Hot, he was just feeling it for a good seven or eight years there. This is his best movie. He steals every scene that isn't nailed down here and he's in most of the scenes. Just great work. I get emotional after...what is this?...seven martinis. I'm starting to remember those good old days when I could walked down Broadway, hold out my cigarette and yell "match me" and four weaselly little press agents like Falco would come running, matches in hand. It was beautiful.

Overall, nothing today compares to this movie. So if you can't decide whether to rent this or Failure to Launch, do a public service and get spade or neutered, so at least you can't reproduce.