What the Movies Have Taught Me About NYC, Chapter 4

[connielane]

What Sweet Smell of Success has taught me about NYC



Lesson Learned: When meeting a guy for a late-night rendezvous, if he shows up with another guy in tow, get the heck out of there. It's highly unlikely there's anything good in this for you.

It takes a lot to disturb me. My squick-meter has been broken so many times that it's probably beyond repair. But there is something deeply - DEEPLY - disturbing to me about Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) and his treatment of the cigarette girl Rita. All she knows is that she's meeting Falco at his apartment for a little somethin'-somethin'. But by the time Falco gets to her, he's already sold his soul half a dozen times in one night and has ended up trading his date with her for a date between her and a columnist that will get him something he needs. He's bribing a columnist with someone else's sexual capital so that said columnist will write a phony and incriminating article that will supposedly get him out of a bind. (Two guesses as to whether it ultimately does or not.) When Falco shows up at the door with Larry from Bewitched, Rita puts two and two together and is having none of it. But Falco is able to persuade her to get drunk and "do it for England" as it were. Just ewwwwwww.

This is one of the noiriest noir movies I've ever seen, even though it doesn't really follow the noir rules very closely. It's exceedingly dark and cynical. I can't help thinking of Henry Czerny's great line from Clear and Present Danger - "Gray! The world is gray, Jack!" It certainly is, and the world of this film is even more so. *wonders briefly if something can be "more" gray* Everyone has their shades, but the ones that stand out are Lancaster's J.J. Hunsecker, Sidney Falco, and the briefly seen columnist Leo Bartha. On the scale of evil to decent, Hunsecker is way down the evil end, but even he has a glimmer of decency (though that decency has been corrupted into something sinister as well). Sidney is closer to the middle but he's still on the evil end. He does some staggeringly dirty things, but you can see what it costs him to do them. And oddly enough the guy on the decent end of the spectrum is the one we're told at first is a complete scumbag who tried to take advantage of Rita. As it turns out, she took things more seriously than he intended, but it's still a delicate situation for a married man to be in. And it's rather impressive when he confesses to his wife the indiscretion that Falco wants to blackmail him with. Way to go, dude.


No Really, Here's the Real Lesson: Beware people with power. Most of them wouldn't be where they are without burying a few bodies over the years. You may think you're their friend, but they've got you right where they want you - in their next open grave.

Okay, that's me trying (lamely) to be Ernest Lehman. But it's a worthy lesson, I think. People get to be powerful people by not caring whether anyone else lives or dies. It's almost like what William Goldman said about movie stars - they don't have friends; they have assistants, hairdressers, managers, and agents. People who make them what they are, and if they didn't their relationship with the star would be over. J.J. Hunsecker is good at what he does - he's very shrewd, and he knows when he's being played. And when you're dead to him, there's very little to do about it. You can't get near him, he won't answer your calls, and he'll do everything he can short of murder to make you disappear. A lot of times us Falcos have to dance for the Hunseckers of this world to get what we want, and it's imperative for us to watch our step to avoid tripping over the pile of loose dirt and falling into the hole we've been digging for ourselves.

And now that I've taken the grave metaphor way too far, I'll call it a night. :P Sweet Smell of Success may be a 1950s story, but anyone who doesn't think the world still sometimes works like this is naïve. I know there are some J.J.s waiting for me in New York and that I'll probably have to find a way to deal with them if I want to get anywhere. I just hope that when it comes time for my colors to show that I turn out to be a Leo and not a Sidney Falco.