So long Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis was part of that generation of actors that included Paul Newman and Jack Lemmon. And so it’s sad to read that he has died. I only read a couple of months ago his book on the making of that iconic cult film, ‘Some Like It Hot’… A kinda gossipy but fascinating insight on the making of the film and his relationship with that other iconic star, Marilyn Monroe.

Curtis made many films but the one for me which is utterly outstanding is ‘The Sweet Smell of Success’…. Sidney Falco and especially as he’s cast against type. The film with its witty, acerbic, slang-filled caustic and wise cracking dialogue fused with the cinematographic heightened chiaroscuro that gives dramatic tension and effect (classic film noir), along with a jazz fuelled soundtrack. And directed by Alexander Mackendrick (he of The Ladykillers). The film exposes the underbelly of media and police corruption, gossip columnists like JJ Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) control, make/break the lives from actors to politicians, his ‘gossip is gospel’ to the millions of readers. Power that he wields aided and abetted by his apprentice, Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis). Just how far will Sidney go to impress/please his master? And how far will this Faustian pact go with the media style Mephistopheles at the helm?

The best way to sum this film up is by film critic, Pauline Kael, who described the film as ‘a sweet slice of perversity, a study of dollar and power worship’….

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