Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 95: Wed Apr 5

Sweet Smell of Success (Mackendrick, 1957): Prince Charles Cinema, 6.30pm


This 35mm screening is part of the Cinematic Jukebox season at the Prince Charles Cinema, You can find the full details here.

Time Out review:
A film noir from the Ealing funny man? But Mackendrick's involvement with cosy British humour was always less innocent than it looked: remember the anti-social wit of The Man in the White Suit, or the cruel cynicism of The Ladykillers? Sweet Smell of Success was the director's American debut, a rat trap of a film in which a vicious NY gossip hustler (Curtis) grovels for his 'Mr Big' (Lancaster), a monster newspaper columnist who is incestuously obsessed with destroying his kid sister's romance... and a figure as evil and memorable as Orson Welles in The Third Man or Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter. The dark streets gleam with the sweat of fear; Elmer Bernstein's limpid jazz score (courtesy of Chico Hamilton) whispers corruption in the Big City. The screen was rarely so dark or cruel.
Chris Auty

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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