Mackendrick and Odets
March 01, 2011
In 1969, director Alexander Mackendrick retired from the film industry and became founding dean of the film school at the newly established California Institute of the Arts. Passionately interested Read more »
- United States
- 1957
- 96 minutes
- Black and White
- 1.66:1
- English
- Spine #555
SYNOPSIS: In the swift, cynical Sweet Smell of Success, directed by Alexander Mackendrick, Burt Lancaster stars as the vicious Broadway gossip columnist J. J. Hunsecker, and Tony Curtis as Sidney Falco, the unprincipled press agent Hunsecker ropes into smearing the up-and-coming jazz musician romancing his beloved sister. Featuring deliciously unsavory dialogue, in an acid, brilliantly structured script by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, and noirish neon cityscapes from Oscar-winning cinematographer James Wong Howe, Sweet Smell of Success is a cracklingly cruel dispatch from the kill-or-be-killed wilds of 1950s Manhattan.
Cast & CreditsOpen
Cast
| J. J. Hunsecker | Burt Lancaster |
| Sidney Falco | Tony Curtis |
| Susan Hunsecker | Susan Harrison |
| Steve Dallas | Marty Milner |
| Sally | Jeff Donnell |
| Frank D’Angelo | Sam Levene |
| Herbie Temple | Joe Frisco |
| Rita | Barbara Nichols |
| Harry Kello | Emile Meyer |
| Mary | Edith Atwater |
| The Chico Hamilton Quintet | The Chico Hamilton Quintet |
| Otis Elwell | David White |
| Leo Bartha | Lawrence Dobkin |
| Mrs. Bartha | Lurene Tuttle |
| Mildred Tam | Queenie Smith |
| Linda | Autumn Russell |
| Manny Davis | Jay Adler |
| Al Evans | Lewis Charles |
Credits
| Director | Alexander Mackendrick |
| Producer | James Hill |
| Music scored and conducted by | Elmer Bernstein |
| Photographed by | James Wong Howe |
| Screenplay | Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman |
| From the novelette by | Ernest Lehman |
| Art director | Edward Carrere |
| Editorial supervision | Alan Crosland Jr. |
| Songs | Chico Hamilton and Fred Katz |
| Production manager | Richard McWhorter |
| Assistant director | Richard Maybery |
| Costumes designed by | Mary Grant |
| Set decorator | Edward Boyle |
| Makeup | Robert Schiffer |
| Effects editor | Robert Carlisle |
| Music editor | Lloyd Young |
| Sound recording | Jack Solomon |
Disc Features
- Exclusive new digital restoration from the original 35 mm camera negative (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
- New audio commentary featuring film scholar James Naremore
- Mackendrick: The Man Who Walked Away, a 1986 documentary featuring interviews with director Alexander Mackendrick, actor Burt Lancaster, producer James Hill, and others
- James Wong Howe: Cinematographer, a 1973 documentary about the Oscar-winning director of photography, featuring lighting tutorials with Howe
- New video interview with film critic and historian Neal Gabler (Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity) about legendary columnist Walter Winchell, inspiration for the character J. J. Hunsecker
- New video interview with filmmaker James Mangold about Mackendrick, his instructor and mentor
- Original theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Gary Giddins, notes about the film and two short stories introducing its characters by screenwriter Ernest Lehman, and an excerpt about Clifford Odets from Mackendrick’s book On Film-making, introduced by the book’s editor, Paul Cronin
From the CurrentView the Current »
Film Essays
Sweet Smell of Success: The Fantastic Falco
By February 22, 2011
It wasn’t intended. No one could have predicted it. But Sweet Smell of Success turned out to be a terminus where several movie genres and subgenres converged and curdled, producing Read more »
Photo Galleries
Videos
On Five
A Visit to James Mangold’s Office
By December 13, 2010
If you’ve read Faber & Faber’s 1998 publication of the Sweet Smell of Success screenplay, you already know from the book’s afterword that director James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted; Read more »
Clippings
Checking in with Chico
February 25, 2011
Sweet Smell of Success has a lot of boldfaced names associated with it: Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Alexander Mackendrick, Ernest Lehman, Clifford Odets, James Wong Howe. Maybe it’s because of Read more »
Press Notes
Press Notes: Best of 2011
January 13, 2012
It’s the time of year when the list makers do their heavy lifting, looking back over the preceding twelve months and deciding what was best and brightest. We’re happy to report that some of our Read more »
Press Notes: Sweet Smell of Success
February 25, 2011
The reviews are in, and here’s the scoop: Sweet Smell of Success is a caustic can’t-miss. Graham Fuller, writing for the Arts Desk, calls this “late-classic-period noir” a “timeless masterpiece” Read more »
