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Sweet Smell, which could have been offal, is raised to considerable dramatic heights by intense acting, taut direction (by Alexander Mackendrick), [and] superb camera work (by James Wong Howe).
Mackendrick's nighthawk landscape is compellingly, poetically bleak.
James Hill's production, locationed in Manhattan, captures the feel of Broadway and environs after dark.
A lean, mean amorality tale that still goes down like a cookie laced with arsenic.
The main incentive to see this movie is its witty, pungent and idiomatic dialogue, such as you never hear on the screen anymore in this age of special-effects illiteracy.
Its pleasures are almost obscenely abundant.
A meandering drama about the lure of success and the ignominious aggression of defeat.
It all begins with the title. The irony aside, its lightness and alliteration suggest the last breaths of one of the film's victims.
... one of the most lacerating and vicious visions of the predatory urban world in the American cinema...
Hyperbole doesn't come close to describing the importance and beauty of Criterion's essential Blu-ray release of Alexander Mackendrick's Sweet Smell of Success, a must-own for every film lover.
The film is a masterpiece, intelligent Hollywood cinema at its best.
Masterful direction and cinematography are shown off in this restored version, with Bernstein's apt jazzy score nailing all the right notes.
Engaging, at times vicious drama w/Lancaster as acidic gossip monger, Curtis fine as wimpy sidekick.
With some of the sharpest dialogue ever cut in Hollywood, only on the most superficial level is this a movie about gossip and publicity. We're talking show business. We're talking America. We're talking cast-iron classic.
The screen was rarely so dark or cruel.
A cruelly cynical take on the seamy side of New York City's swinging nightclub life.
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