Great movies- The Sweet smell of success
Feb. 1st, 2009 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blue_lotus13I probably wouldn't have watched 1957's The Sweet Smell of Success if I hadn't done this project, and that would have been a major shame. This movie was witty, biting, dark and creepy, which means I absolutely LOVED it.
Tony Curtis plays a press agent. I had never heard of the concept of press agents before, so I had to look up a definition in the dictionary. Press agents were basically very aggressive publicity hounds who tried their hardest to get their news items to the gossip columnists. At the start of the film, Curtis' character, Sidney Falco, is having trouble getting his gossip into JJ Hunsecker's (Burt Lancaster's) column because he backed out on a promise- to break up Hunsecker's sister and her current jazz playing beau. I won't go into the plot, but it's basically a story about power, backstabbing, blackmailing and weird set ups. It's quite brilliant and cutting, actually.
The film looks gritty and New York appears dingy and dark. At one point, Lancaster exclaims, "I love this dirty town."
The film's best known line is "I'd hate to take a bite out of you! You're a cookie filled with arsenic."
I loved this one, and it was made even better by the fact that it appeared on Turner Classic Movies Oscar university list.
Tony Curtis plays a press agent. I had never heard of the concept of press agents before, so I had to look up a definition in the dictionary. Press agents were basically very aggressive publicity hounds who tried their hardest to get their news items to the gossip columnists. At the start of the film, Curtis' character, Sidney Falco, is having trouble getting his gossip into JJ Hunsecker's (Burt Lancaster's) column because he backed out on a promise- to break up Hunsecker's sister and her current jazz playing beau. I won't go into the plot, but it's basically a story about power, backstabbing, blackmailing and weird set ups. It's quite brilliant and cutting, actually.
The film looks gritty and New York appears dingy and dark. At one point, Lancaster exclaims, "I love this dirty town."
The film's best known line is "I'd hate to take a bite out of you! You're a cookie filled with arsenic."
I loved this one, and it was made even better by the fact that it appeared on Turner Classic Movies Oscar university list.
