Kick-Back Friday: #7

Like its precedessor All About Eve, 1957's Sweet Smell of Success highlights the negative symbiosis between those who must have publicity and those who must craft it. The fact that Burt Lancaster delivers a historical performance as a Walter Winchell-like gossip columnist, J. J. Hudsucker, is no surprise. But who knew that Tony Curtis could hold his own as the slimy press agent Sidney Falco? The scenes between the two in Hudsucker's hangout, New York's 21 Club, are acting knockouts. Clifford Odets takes part of the screenwriting credit along with Ernest Lehman, who wrote the novella.