Columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) is the gossip mogul of Manhattan who can make or break careers with the swing of his pen. Desperate to stay in his good books is press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), a sleazy sycophant who executes Hunsecker’s shadowy endeavours. Falco finds himself deeper down the drain of moral bankruptcy when Hunsecker’s latest assignment is a vicious smear campaign aimed at destroying the budding romance between his younger sister and a rising jazz musician.

In Sweet Smell of Success, an ever-timely tale of corruption, ambition, and the corrosive power of media is brought to life by James Wong Howe with some of his best black-and-white cinematography. Hired by Lancaster after their collaboration on The Rose Tattoo (1955), for which he won his first Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Howe captured gritty Manhattan on location with brutal, high-contrast glare. He was also one of the first cinematographers to utilize deep focus, mapping the characters’ power dynamics by presenting their layered blocking in sharp view; paired with lowkey lighting and tracking shots in bustling streets and jazz clubs, his lens capture the frenetic and menacing energy of the city, overrun with souls lost in the game of power.

The screening will be followed by a talk with Richard Peña, Emeritus Professor of Film and Media Studies at Columbia University, moderated by Chanel Kong, M+ Curator of Moving Image. The talk will be held in English.

Alexander Mackendrick (1912–1993, United States) was an American-born Scottish film director and screenwriter. Mackendrick directed nine feature films between 1949 and 1967, including The Maggie (1954) and The Ladykillers (1955). In the late 1960s, he retired from filmmaking to become a founding dean and professor at the Film/ Video Department of California Institute of the Arts.

Mackendrick began his career in television commercials before transitioning to post-production editing and directing films, most notably for Ealing Studios. His work for The Man in the White Suit (1951) earned him an Oscar nomination for ‘Best Screenplay’. In 1957, Mackendrick directed Sweet Smell of Success, which was a critical and commercial success. The film’s lead actor, Tony Curtis, won a Bambi awards for Best Actor—International, and received nominations for BAFTA and Laurel Awards.