Sweet Smell Of Success The

DVD Special Features:
Original Theatrical Trailer
Interactive Menu Screens
Chapter Selections
Subtitles: French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish
Soundtrack: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian
Subtitles for the Hearing Impaired: English,
A classic from the late 1950s, The Sweet Smell of Success looks at the string-pulling behind-the-scenes action between desperate press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) and the ultimate power broker in that long-ago showbiz Manhattan, gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster).
Written by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets (who based the Hunsecker character on the similarly brutal and power-mad Walter Winchell), the film follows Falco’s attempts to promote a client through Hunsecker’s column–until he is forced to make a deal with the devil and help Hunsecker ruin a jazz musician who has the nerve to date Hunsecker’s sister.
Shooting on location, mostly at night, director Alexander MacKendrick and cinematographer James Wong Howe capture this New York demi-monde in silky black and white, in which neon and shadows share a scarily symbiotic relationship–a near-match for the poisonous give-and-take between the edgy Curtis and the dismissive Lancaster. –Marshall Fine,