• Film

Sweet Smell of Success

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Time Out says

A film noir from the Ealing funny man? But Mackendrick's involvement with cosy British humour was always less innocent than it looked: remember the anti-social wit of The Man in the White Suit, or the cruel cynicism of The Ladykillers? Sweet Smell of Success was the director's American debut, a rat trap of a film in which a vicious NY gossip hustler (Curtis) grovels for his 'Mr Big' (Lancaster), a monster newspaper columnist who is incestuously obsessed with destroying his kid sister's romance... and a figure as evil and memorable as Orson Welles in The Third Man or Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter. The dark streets gleam with the sweat of fear; Elmer Bernstein's limpid jazz score (courtesy of Chico Hamilton) whispers corruption in the Big City. The screen was rarely so dark or cruel.

Release Details

  • Rated:15
  • Duration:96 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director:Alexander Mackendrick
  • Screenwriter:Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman
  • Cast:
    • Emile Meyer
    • Susan Harrison
    • Burt Lancaster
    • Sam Levene
    • Martin Milner
    • Tony Curtis
    • Barbara Nichols
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