The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, September 16-22
The Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Directed by Alexander Mackendrick
With some of the most acidic sets of dialogue in film history, Sweet Smell of Success paints Manhattan as the island God forgot. Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis lend talent at the height of their success by playing columnist and press agent respectively, both self-interested to the point of myopia and both willing to break any moral fiber to get a good story. The film’s rank cynicism surrounding the journalism community can only be matched by cinematographer James Wong Howe’s deep blacks and blinding whites, which keep each serpentine character in its shadow until their time to strike. Every element gives heat to the drama until it boils over—then adds more. Zach Lewis (September 18, 7pm at MoMA’s “See It Big! New York in Film”)
