Sweet Smell Of Success (Book) BOOK, 1957

In 1957 the world was changing. The Atom Bomb, the ‘teenager’, action painting resounded in the American imagination. In Hollywood the moral complexity and liberal sex... more >

In 1957 the world was changing. The Atom Bomb, the ‘teenager’, action painting resounded in the American imagination. In Hollywood the moral complexity and liberal sexual mores of the European art film left their mark on the studio picture. Mainstream films like The Man with the Golden Arm, Vertigo and The Apartment dared to treat themes of bodily and spiritual corruption as issues of everyday life.

The Sweet Smell of Success revolves around gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker’s attempt to destroy his sister’s musician boyfriend whilst press agent Sidney Falco grovels at his side. Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman’s Runyonesque banter is both as slick as the rainswept streets of midtown Manhattan and as suggestive as a Bergman chamber piece. Pulsing to Elmer Bernstein’s staccato jazz score, Mackendrick’s fresco of the New York media jungle remains one of the most fluent portraits of postwar America ever rendered by a European.

< less

View all 20 of Richard Armstrong’s reviews