...t remains a milestone tribute to its canny British director Alexander Mackendrick.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 6, 2024

Even a three-course meal consisting of lobster bisque, a medium-rare steak, and creme brulee doesn’t come close to matching the exquisite, juicy taste of the dialogue slung around in this riveting drama written by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 10, 2024

Curtis is like oil and oil...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 18, 2024

There is nothing redeeming and respectable about its cruel and shameless lead characters. But in terms of wickedly smart and thoroughly compelling filmmaking, “Sweet Smell” is top of the line.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 25, 2022

Inside the cinema, so superbly is the thing done, one's skin crawls with credulous horror. The acting is first-rate, in particular Tony Curtis's performance as the lizard who scurries at the crocodile's call.

| Aug 9, 2022

Its sophistication, underscored by the subtle rhythms of progressive jazz, its frank acceptance of immoral motivations, and its sheer melodramatic excitement give it a fascinating surface that far nobler films lack.

| Mar 30, 2022

Sweet Smell of Success replaces shootouts with verbal ricochets, affirming, both on and offscreen, that when the words are dagger-sharp, the pen remains mightier than the sword.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 18, 2022

Despite some shrill overstatements that remind one that Clifford Odets had a hand in the screenplay, the film is a highly successful product of what might be called the "New York School" of filmmaking.

| Nov 17, 2021

A movie that could have been made yesterday. The corruption that he portrays is still so rampant and perhaps it is worse because now these types of characters do not have the power they had.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 18, 2021

That Clifford Odets co-wrote the screenplay explains the film's continued ability to fascinate, but not why it was made into a current musical.

| Jun 15, 2021

The subject matter is incredibly mature, despite being shrouded by 1957-appropriate insinuation rather than graphic depiction.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Aug 23, 2020

It's a tough tale about utterly amoral people. I thought the ending rather weak bet for most of the footage the film packs plenty of punch.

| Aug 10, 2020

It is beautifully shot in gleaming black and white (James Wong Howe) and written in a lucid, over-exposed one o'clock in the morning style by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman.

| Mar 31, 2020

... the razor-sharp wit of the script and the engaging lead performances will keep audiences coming back to Mackendrick's classic satire.

| Feb 13, 2020

... one of the most lacerating and vicious visions of the predatory urban world in the American cinema, and one accomplished without a single murder, gunshot or pulled knife.

| Mar 2, 2018

New York never looked as thrillingly sordid as it does in this scabrous masterpiece.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 9, 2015

[VIDEO ESSAY] Here lies the defective foundation of the American Dream as viewed from an implicitly American viewpoint - Bert Lancaster's company produced the film.

| Original Score: A | Dec 2, 2013

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 17, 2011

A meandering drama about the lure of success and the ignominious aggression of defeat.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 15, 2011

It all begins with the title. The irony aside, its lightness and alliteration suggest the last breaths of one of the film's victims.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 7, 2011