Friday, April 14, 2000

Drama digs deep into world of gossip columnist

"I love this dirty town," columnist J.J. Hunsecker says in the opening scene of "Sweet Smell of Success," the searing black and white 1957 drama based on evil gossip-journo Walter Winchell. Hunsecker, played with snarling perfection by Burt Lancaster, traffics in dirt - slinging mud at his enemies in the items he writes in his New York City newspaper column.
   Like Winchell did for decades, Hunsecker wields tremendous power. In the screenplay by playwright Clifford Odets (based on a story by Ernest Lehman), he's the king of beasts, roaring around the concrete jungle of Manhattan in a monstrous overcoat.
   The jackal at Hunsecker's heels is Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), an ambitious press agent trying to make a name for himself and his B-actor clients by getting their names mentioned in Hunsecker's column.
   When the film opens, Hunsecker has banished the oily Falco, refusing to take his calls or plant his items in print. Desperate to get back in the columnist's graces, Falco agrees to a scheme to break up the romance between Hunsecker's waify sister Susan (Susan Harrison) and a jazz musician named Steve Dallas (Martin Milner). The ploy: Plant a story in a rival column (thus throwing suspicion off Hunsecker) that Dallas is a commie who indulges in some reefer madness, career killers in the We Like Ike era.
   (The smear tactic is similar to something Winchell once pulled, writing nasty things about his own daughter's fiancé.)
   The film keeps the focus on the fascinating relationship between Hunsecker and Falco. Falco becomes Hunsecker's willing flunky and there are subtle hints that the journalist, who also has a weirdly incestuous bond with his sister, may be just a tiny bit attracted to the pretty younger man.
   Lancaster plays it all a bit over the top, letting his eyes linger on the achingly handsome Curtis. "I'd like to take a bite out of you," Hunsecker tells Falco. "You're a cookie full of arsenic."
   The snappy dialogue - which rat-a-tats like a Gene Krupa solo - has made "Sweet Smell of Success" a reference point for how men such as Hunsecker and Falco communicated in the '50s. (Remember the character in "Diner" who was so obsessed by the movie that he rattled off whole speeches from it?)
   There's all sorts of new interest in this movie. Vanity Fair recently featured a long retrospective, with photos, about its impact. MGM announced last week that John Cusack ("High Fidelity") will produce and star in a remake. A Broadway musical version is also in the works, with a score by Marvin Hamlisch and book by John Guare.
   But the original is worth studying. It's Curtis' best work on the big screen. Lancaster is solid as the heartless Hunsecker (great name for a gossipmonger).
   James Wong Howe's cinematography captures New York in winter in stark black and white, giving the film an authentic, nearly documentary, look.
   "Sweet Smell of Success" is unrated, but contains no profanity, nudity or sexual situations.
   Media Critic Elaine Liner can be reached at 886-3688 or by e-mail at linere@caller.com.
  
  
  

 
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