Midnight Oil:Movies and More

“ Sweet Smell of Success” (1957) IMDb starring Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster reveals a side of life in the big city that is anything but sweet and sunshiney. Lancaster’s unsavory character, J.J. Hunsecker, is said to be based on real life New York columnist, Walter Winchell. Throughout the film, Lancaster and Curtis as the sycophantic Sydney Falco perform a dangerous dance reminiscent of the mating ritual of the black widow spider. The machinations of the corrupt columnist and equally despicable publicist are accompanied by the cool jazz numbers of the Chico Hamilton Quintet and the rapid-fire dialogue of screenplay writers Lehman and Odets. This kind of film-noir might not be everyone’s cup of tea making it worth staying up for the late show, but I sure thought it was a film worth seeing again. It was just as smooth and searing hot on the way down this time around.

View the SNAM preview of “ Sweet Smell of Success”(1957)

<<Back to Midnight Oil main journal

>>On to "Who's Directing Your Life?"

Catch the video trailer of "the cat in the bag scene" for “Sweet Smell of Success”