New York. Press agent Sidney Falco is in trouble. He promises various clients publicity in the popular newspaper column by the influential J.J. Hunsucker, but the latter does not mention them in his articles. This serves as a pressure because Hunsucker wants Falco to separate Hunsucker's sister Susan (19) from her boyfriend Steve Dallas, a jazz guitarist. Falco is unable to wreck their love relationship, until he persuades another columnist to write a slanderous article about Dallas being a Communist and a marijuana addict, so the latter is fired. But Falso then persuades Hunsucker to feign helping Dallas and getting his job back, since Dallas is angry that Hunsucker is obssessed with his sister Susan and insults him, causing Susan to leave Dallas. When Hunsucker frames Dallas for marijuana possession and has him beaten up by a corrupt cop, Kello, a suicidal Susan almost jumps from her apartment balcony, but is stopped by Falco. She tricks Falco into admitting that Hunsucker orchestrated all the problems for Dallas, and then leaves her brother.
"The Sweet Smell of Success" is the most frightening depiction of the horrors of dominance, selfishness and corruption of absolute power that is not a political thriller. Instead, all these themes are presented through a story about a famous columnist, J.J. Hunsucker (a chilling Burt Lancester) who uses his influence to pressure and coerce others into doing his bidding, but the movie is only ostensibly about the yellow journalism. Even though he is only a newspaper columnist, J.J. Hunsucker acts allegorically practically as a dictator, using propaganda to present all his evil as something good in front of his sister Susan (with his incestuous infatuation serving as a warning for a lack of criteria for suspicious types gaining such power) whereas the corrupt cop Kello almost symbolically works as his "secret police". The movie has a really slow start and needs around 40 minutes until its set up is ignited, but once it does, it is kind of like a slow marathon runner who is accelerating faster and faster, since every new 20 minutes are more engaging than the previous ones, until the electrifying finale that engages the viewers to the fullest. Tony Curtis is excellent as the tragic press agent Falco, who feels insignificant as Hunsucker's lackey. The dialogues are sharp and bitter. In one sequence in a restaurant, when Hunsucker says "We're friends, Harvey, we go as far back as when you were a fresh kid Congressman, don't we?", Senator Harvey cannot but feel intimidated: "Why does everything you say sound like a threat?" In another moment, when Falco is upbeat and phones him, Hunsucker sardonically answers the call with: "You sound happy, Sidney. Why should you be happy when I am not?" One of the most intense sequences is when Hunsucker and Falco scheme to separate Dallas from Susan, have him fired, but feign that Hunsucker offers to help him get his job back, but prolong the deal and talk to try to force Dallas into rejecting the offer in front of Susan due to his integrity. The movie is a dark and cynical portrait of human vice, a black pearl about how a person who has some form of influence over others often uses it to exploit it for his own interests.
Grade:+++
No comments:
Post a Comment