Sweet Smell of Success

Movies to See Right Now

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WILD TALES
WILD TALES

Okay, here’s the first Must See of 2015 – the hilariously dark Argentine comedy Wild Tales,  a series of individual stories about revenge fantasies becoming actualized.  The Russian Leviathan, which I’m gonna see tonight, has been universally praised.  Both Wild Tales and Leviathan were nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Picture Oscar.

If you can make it to Cinequest, there are some great movie choices. Here is my extensive Cinequest coverage.

Other choices in theaters and elsewhere:

  • Clint Eastwood’s thoughtful and compelling American Sniper, with harrowing action and a career-best performance from Bradley Cooper.
  • The cinematically important and very funny (and, of course. Oscar-winning) Birdman.
  • And the movie that is better than all of these: Boyhood. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Here are some great choices for movies coming up on TV this week – all on Turner Classic Movies on March 8.

  • Billy Wilder’s 1957 Sweet Smell of Success contains Tony Curtis’ most subtly acted role.  Curtis is a Broadway press agent who is completely at the mercy of Burt Lancaster’s sadistically nasty columnist.  Many of us have experienced being vulnerable to the caprice of an extremely mean person – Curtis perfectly captures the dread and humiliation of being in that position.
  • To Kill a Mockingbird, with the iconic character of Atticus Finch and its great courtroom scene.
  • If you like your film noir tawdry, then Gun Crazy (1950) is for you.  Peggy Cummins plays a prototypical Bad Girl who takes her newlywed hubby on a crime spree.

Coming up on TV: Sweet Smell of Success

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Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster in Sweet Smell of Success

Billy Wilder’s 1957 Sweet Smell of Success contains Tony Curtis’ most subtly acted role.  Curtis is a Broadway press agent who is completely at the mercy of Burt Lancaster’s sadistically nasty columnist.  Many of us have experienced being vulnerable to the caprice of an extremely mean person – Curtis perfectly captures the dread and humiliation of being in that position.  Plays December 6 on TCM.

The best Tony Curtis movies

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Tony Curtis has died.  He was a very handsome and sexy guy, and the first half of his career was at the tail end of Hollywood’s Studio Era.  As a result, he played the pretty boy leads in lots of mediocre action movies.  He and first wife Janet Leigh (parents of Jamie Lee Curtis) made up one of Hollywood’s most glamorous couples ever.

But Tony Curtis could act if he got the right role, and he made at least three great movies.  The fact that these movies come from three very different genres (screwball comedy, contemporary drama, sword-and-sandal epic) is a testament to his ability.

Some Like It Hot (1959):  This Billy Wilder masterpiece is my pick for the best comedy of all time.  Seriously – the best comedy ever.  And it still works today.  Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon play most of the movie in drag (and Tony is kind of cute).  Curtis must continue the ruse although next to Marilyn Monroe is at her most delectable.  Curtis then dons a yachting cap and does a dead-on Cary Grant impression as the heir to an industrial fortune.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957):  This has Curtis’ most subtly acted role as a Broadway press agent who is completely at the mercy of Burt Lancaster’s sadistically nasty columnist.  Many of us have experienced being vulnerable to the caprice of an extremely mean person – Curtis perfectly captures the dread and humiliation of being in that position.

Spartacus (1960):  Once in a while, a grand epic is a really good movie , and Spartacus qualifies.  Curtis plays a slave who is hit on by Laurence Olivier’s Roman patrician in a scene of BARELY implicit homosexuality.  “Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?”, Olivier leers from the bath.  It was a gutsy scene for a studio actor at the end of the 50s.