Screening: Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Susan Harrison, Sweet Smell of Success (1957) is a tale of corrupt journalism rumoured to be based on the real life Walter Winchell, a slanderous and libellous gossip columnist with mob connections from the 1930s through to the 1950s.

Determined to stop his sister Susan (Harrison) from marrying a jazz musician, ruthless and influential gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Lancaster) enlists Sidney Falco (Curtis) to sabotage the relationship. After several gambits fail, Hunsecker puts increasing pressure on Falco whose career is now at stake.

Despite a poor initial reception upon release it is now well regarded by critics. In 1993, the Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry.

Directed by Alexander Mackendrick.
Written by Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman.
Based on Sweet Smell of Success by Ernest Lehman.
Starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison
Cinematography James Wong Howe.
Edited by Alan Crosland Jr.
Running time: 96 minutes

Guest speaker
The film will be introduced and given context by Peter Rainey, an SMSA member and cinema enthusiast, who returns to an earlier passion for films as a Programme Director or a Queensland Cinema Group, now that he has retired after 40 years in the education profession.