Sweet Smell Of Success

Sweet Smell of Success (1957) directed by Alexander Mackendrick and starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis has been revealed to be a sort of forgotten masterpiece to me on viewing. I was not familiar with it until I saw references to it in the Criterion library in the last couple of years (this edition was released in 2010). It contains many appealing elements of film that I find attractive: it has great dialogue, not to mention a top rate screenplay, a film noir sensibility, it is shot on location in Manhattan, boasts impressive cinematography, and stand out performances from the two leads Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. The screenplay was originally written by Ernest Lehman based on two short stories he wrote about his experiences as a press agent in New York and was punched up by Clifford Odets. (These are included in a booklet with an essay by critic Gary Giddins, notes about the film and the two short stories introducing its characters by screenwriter Ernest Lehman, and an excerpt about Clifford Odets from Mackendrick’s book On Film-making, introduced by the book’s editor, Paul Cronin). I believe this must be one of the first films to try and film on location-I was really impressed by James Wong Howe's cinematography. (There is a documentary called James Wong Howe: Cinematographer, a 1973 documentary about the Oscar-winning director of photography, featuring lighting tutorials with Howe included on the extras disk). lancaster plays the mostly unsympathetic or unlikeable journalist J.J. Hunsecker (a sort of approximation of real-life columnist Walter Winchell). I can see references to this film in the Coen Brothers film The Hudsucker Proxy. At any rate, it was a pleasure to discover this film. Other Criterion extras include: audio commentary featuring film scholar James Naremore, a documentary, Mackendrick: The Man Who Walked Away, a 1986 documentary featuring interviews with director Alexander Mackendrick, actor Burt Lancaster, producer James Hill, and others, video interview with film critic and historian Neal Gabler (Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity) about legendary columnist Walter Winchell, inspiration for the character J. J. Hunsecker, a video interview with filmmaker James Mangold about Mackendrick, his instructor and mentor, and an  original theatrical trailer. This is highly recommended for cinemafiles.