- J.J. Hunsecker. If you're somebody in this town, or if you ever hope to become somebody in this town, you'd better remember that name. For the first half hour of Sweet Smell of Success, the name Hunsecker hovers ominously in the air, hanging like the Sword of Damocles above the heads of politicians, performers, and press agents alike. If J.J. makes positive mention of you in his gossip column, you're on the road to success. If you find yourself sitting instead in his crosshairs, god help you.
- Ambitious and desperate men like Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) are J.J.'s bread and butter. As a small-time, down-on-his-luck press agent, Falco will do anything to get his clients into J.J.'s column. If you think he would hesitate to torpedo the engagement of J.J.'s sister Susie (Susan Harrison) to her jazz musician boyfriend Steve (Martin Milner), think again. If you think he wouldn't pimp out his friend and sometime lover Sally (Jeff Donnell), a cigarette girl with a publicity problem, think again. There's a reason that nobody can go five words without describing Falco in distinctly canine terms. He gladly snaps up any scraps J.J. happens to let drop on the floor, and he even acts grateful to get them. "A press agent eats a columnist's dirt," he notes "and is expected to call it manna."
- And now we arrive at Hunsecker himself. Played brilliantly by a bespectacled Burt Lancaster, the acid-tongued J.J. Hunsecker is one of the most intimidating creations ever put on film. Never more than a few feet from a phone, we gather that J.J. spends most of his time entertaining audiences who long to bask in the presence of greatness, especially if doing so will improve their chances of getting in his column. When we first meet J.J. in the flesh, he's dining with a Senator and the usual hangers-on. Falco wasn't invited to dinner, so J.J. introduces him as "a man of 40 faces, not one. None too pretty, and all deceptive." This is eventually followed by one of the film's most memorable lines in which J.J. turns to Falco, holds out a cigarette, and demands "Match me." It comes so naturally that we infer this to be a regular ritual and, despite just having endured a stream of J.J.'s insults, Falco almost does it.
- Since the only way to get into good graces with J.J. is by breaking up Susie's engagement, Falco finally formulates a scheme to turn Steve's "integrity" against him. His complete lack of a moral center impresses even J.J., who famously labels Falco "a cookie full of arsenic." The final stage of the plan, however, is almost too much even for Falco. Realizing that he'll have to frame Steve to get him manhandled by some crooked cops, Falco protests to J.J., saying that "I swear to you on my mother's life I wouldn't do that. Not if you gave me a column would I do it..." But of course a column is exactly what he would get, and that's exactly why he does it.
- Alexander Mackendrick's bleak direction, a brilliant screenplay by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, and outstanding performances by Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis combine to easily make Sweet Smell of Success one of the great films noir. It is also one of the darkest and most cynical contributions to that genre, made even more disturbing by the fact that J.J. Hunsecker was serving as a proxy for real-life columnist Walter Winchell. There is probably no more telling moment in the film than when J.J. and Falco first step out of the posh 21 Club only to see a bum get tossed out of a bar and onto the sidewalk. J.J. drinks it all in and turns to Falco to admit: "I love this dirty town." Of course he loves it. It's a place where men like him wield their influence as a bludgeon while men like Falco "jump through burning hoops like a trained poodle." So what kind of success awaits such characters? By the film's end, J.J.'s weird, semi-incestuous relationship with his sister has soured, and the crooked cops are marching toward Falco, clubs in hand. Things smell alright, but not so sweet.
