When Scottish director Alexander Mackendrick came to Hollywood for his first film, he left no blarney stone unturned in sniffing out the perverse reality behind the fantasy world of Broadway. Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis turn out great performances in unlikely roles, Lancaster as the indomitable gossip columnist who requires the dirty low-down on his friends and enemies, Curtis as the ingratiating press agent who delivers it. Clifford Odets supplies vitriol to the script, and the film is generally hailed as a major success for the photography of James Wong Howe: "...Sweet Smell of Success, with its startling mixture of semi-documentary and high-gloss studio styles...makes full use of its New York locations in the approved 'realistic' manner then still developing. But Howe manages to relight the nighttime city and transform it from a documentarist's grim vision to an evocative, sensuous, tinsel town. 'I love this dirty town!' says Burt Lancaster as he steps into the New York night, and the town winks back with a million glittering lights, luminously seductive and malevolent. We can...feel for ourselves just what sort of strange fascination it has for the characters, how it compels their actions and governs their destinies." --Richard Koszarski, AFI (J.B.)