Sweet Smell of Success (1957) on Netflix
Approved19571h 36mDramaFilm-Noir
J.J. Hunsecker's Broadway column decides who gets noticed in New York. He gives publicist Sidney Falco an errand: break up his sister Susan's romance with jazz guitarist Steve Dallas.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb8.0/1040,663 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes98%
Trailer
Plot summary
Sidney Falco is a press agent in Manhattan who depends on the mentions his clients receive in the newspapers. The one that counts most is the New York Globe column of J.J. Hunsecker, whose writing and radio broadcasts carry weight across the entertainment world. For five days running, Hunsecker has passed over Sidney's clients, because Sidney has not done the errand Hunsecker gave him. Susan Hunsecker, the columnist's 19-year-old sister, is seeing Steve Dallas, who plays jazz guitar and fronts a group at the Elysian Room. Steve's manager, Frank D'Angelo, is Sidney's uncle and has promised that the two will part. Sidney's living depends on Hunsecker's favor, and Hunsecker wants the romance finished.
Cast
- Paul Hornas The Chico Hamilton Quintet
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- To make Burt Lancaster's J.J. Hunsecker look blank, Alexander Mackendrick had him wear his own browline glasses and smeared a thin layer of vaseline on the lenses so Lancaster could not focus his eyes, giving him a perpetually empty gaze.
- Clifford Odets was expected to spend two or three weeks polishing the screenplay but took four months, with Mackendrick recalling that they started shooting with no final script at all while Odets rebuilt it "from stem to stern".
- Tony Curtis had to fight for the part of press agent Sidney Falco because his own studio, Universal, feared the role would ruin his career; tired of pretty-boy parts, Curtis got his way.
- Orson Welles was originally considered for the role of J.J. Hunsecker, but director Alexander Mackendrick wanted Hume Cronyn, feeling he closely resembled Walter Winchell, the columnist who inspired the character.
- Ernest Borgnine, under contract to Hecht-Hill-Lancaster since Marty, was offered a role but turned it down because it ran only seven pages, and his refusal got him suspended by the company.
- Cellist Fred Katz and drummer Chico Hamilton, who briefly appear in the film as themselves, wrote a score for it that was rejected in favor of Elmer Bernstein's.
- Ernest Lehman based his novelette on his own experiences as an assistant to Irving Hoffman, a New York press agent and columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, and Hoffman did not speak to him for a year and a half afterwards.
- Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, has cited the film as his favorite movie, and the first-season episode titles "Cat's in the Bag..." and "...And the Bag's in the River" are quotes from it.
