Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

 Alexander Mackendrick's "Sweet Smell of Success"

It is very bizarre to me that Alexander Mackendrick's 1957 film "Sweet Smell of Success" was a commercial and critical success upon its release. If you go look up retrospective analysis of the film now, you will see nothing but praise. And for good reason. In fact, many consider "Sweet Smell of Success" one of the greatest American films of the 1950s.

The film centers on Sidney Falco, a slick, up-and-coming press agent who does the bidding of popular journalist J.J. Hunsecker. Hunsecker is a media kingpin who is powerful in the entertainment world. Wanting Hunsecker to publish his clients, Falco agrees to help Hunsecker separate his little sister from her romance with a local jazz musician. Through blackmail, brides, extortion, and any other corrupt practice under the sun, Falco manages to enact Hunsecker's demands, even to the point of his own fallout.

The world of this local Manhattan scene that Mackendrick and scriptwriter Ernest Lehman creates is full of corruption, cynicism, skeeviness, and downright foul play. Everyone in this dog-eat-dog scenario is only out for their own interests and are willing to do what it takes to get ahead. Our protagonist years for success and is willing to completely corrupt his soul to achieve it. 

The film centers on the tight Manhattan district of entertainment, but it very well is analogous to the political sphere. This is especially true of the political area at the time of the film's release. This bribery, extortion, and circle of smearing seems to echo the utter distrust of government in 1950s McCarthyism. There is even a plot point in which Hunsecker smears his sister's boyfriend in the paper by calling him a marajuana-smoking Communist, which causes him to be fired from his gig. The cat and mouse of power maneuvering with Hunsecker in the middle creates an unflinching gaze at the American power system. 

All in all, I found "Sweet Smell of Success" to be a fantastic film. It has the darkness of a noir, the political entrenchment of a commentary film, the brilliant performance of Burt Lancaster as the powerful and sharp J.J. Hunsecker, and bleak outlook of contemporary America that only the best artists can capture. It was an enthralling film that I will continue to think about and ruminate on. I feel as though I've watched on the greatest achievements in dramatic American cinema of the 1950s.