Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Photofest.
(Alexander Mackendrick, US 1957, 96 min., 35mm)
"I'd hate to take a bite out of you. You're a cookie full of arsenic." This is one of numerous memorable lines in a brilliant American cult picture that is, with Touch of Evil, the last of the great films noir, and among the sharpest, most uncompromisingly dark Manhattan street movies—specifically of the old Times Square district—ever made. The setup is simple: J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), a powerful, Walter Winchell-like newspaper/TV gossip columnist, has a latent incestuous obsession with his younger sister. When she becomes serious about a jazz musician (Martin Milner), J. J. gets ambitious press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) to spread dirt on the fellow to destroy him.