I’d seen Alexander Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success only once before receiving Criterion’s immaculate Blu-ray release of the once ignored now revered late ’50s film noir. This is a nasty story of two loathsome characters who deserve everything they get and then some. It’s one of those films that makes you feel dirty while watching it as you bask in the deplorable behavior on screen and Criterion has delivered a beautiful achromatic picture for the drama to play out on.
Centering on the powerful New York gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker (played like a dictator by Burt Lancaster) and Sidney Falco, a weaselly press agent played by Tony Curtis, Sweet Smell of Success is remembered as much for its content and performances as it is for the fact it didn’t earn a single Oscar nomination. This is a film long desired by cinephiles to come to the Criterion Collection and boy have they delivered a package to possess. We’ll work our way from the outside in.
First off the single disc comes packaged in a cardboard digipak with stellar artwork from Sean Phillips of which he described his approach saying, “Stylistically, this film is kind of noir-but-not quite–very little specifically criminal happens, no one ever pulls a gun or anything, but the overall tone of moral decay and the use of shadow and light all fit the noir pattern. So noir-y kinds of shadows are definitely appropriate, but we wouldn’t want to go overboard in suggesting that kind of thing, if that makes sense… which is why I thought something painted, ideally with a nod toward some mid-century illustration styles, would be a good fit.”
Phillips also designed the menu system and the 56-page illustrated booklet made to mimic the inside of a newspaper. The booklet contains essays by Gary Giddins and Paul Cronin, two short stories introducing the films characters by screenwriter Ernest Lehman as well as an excerpt from Mackendrick’s “On Film-Making”. As with most any Criterion title the work done here is stunning and offers up an easy answer to anyone that would ever wonder why people would rather buy their movie collection than rely solely on digital, On Demand copies. You can get a complete behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Phillips’s artwork for this title as well as some alternate designs right here.
The supplemental features are equally impressive beginning with film scholar James Naremore’s audio commentary. This is followed by a 45 minute 1986 documentary on Mackendrick, a 1973 documentary with Oscar-winning cinematographer James Wong Howe and then a brand new 25-minute interview with James Mangold (director of Walk the Line and 3:10 to Yuma) discussing his relationship with Mackendrick after first meeting him as his professor at the California Institute of the Arts.
My favorite feature though was “Gabler on Winchell”, a brand new, nearly 30-minute discussion with film historian Neal Gabler discussing the film’s true inspiration, columnist Walter Winchell. The life of Winchell served as the source material for Ernest Lehman’s novella of which the film is based and the stories that are told are surprisingly more despicable than those in the film.
I’ve watched the film three times since it arrived, once with the commentary and two other times just to soak it all in. It’s a film that gets better the more you watch it and you don’t even need to have your eyes on the screen to soak up the dialogue such as Hunsecker’s dismissal of Falco early on, “You’re dead, son. Get yourself buried.” Or if your interested in knowing just how dirty this pair is take Falco’s late line, “It’s a new wrinkle, to tell the truth. I never thought I’d make a killing on some guy’s integrity.”
Falco kisses the ground Hunsecker walks on just to get his clients mentioned in his syndicated column. Hunsecker wields this power like a billy club, pummeling those in need until they’re willing to do his bidding. When Falco promises Hunsecker he’ll bust up Hunsecker’s sister’s relationship with a night club jazz musician and things don’t work out as planned both will have to improvise to the point all manner of morals and ethics are destroyed.
It’s no surprise Criterion has once again done well in choosing a film that deserved such a treatment, which will become increasingly obvious as you dig deeper into the special features and the more you watch the film. I’d love for more movies like this to be made nowadays, but it’s never easy to get the right words, the right director and the right actor to bring such a dirty little feature to life. Hollywood images these days are a hard thing to balance and making a film about a pair of nasty characters is always a risk, and if it flops it could be even worse. Nope, the only way you’re going to see a movie of this sort these days is on home video so you may as well start right here.
