Falco is a press agent. Celebrities hire him to get their names into gossip columns saying witty things they don't actually say (Woody Allen first got his start in comedy writing hundreds of jokes a day for a press agent). Falco talks the talk, but it's clear he is a bum, desperate to climb up "the golden ladder" and obtain the stature of the most influential gossip columnist of all, J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster). The only problem is, Hunsecker asked Falco to do a favor he has failed to perform; breaking up the union between Hunsecker's younger sister Susan (Susan Harrison) and Falco's cousin, Steve Dallas (Martin Milner), a rising jazz guitarist. When the couple remain together, Hunsecker stops printing Falco's items in his column, effectively destroying his livelihood.

Hunsecker is some sort of god (or perhaps a devil) who seems to know every single person on the face of the earth in intimate detail. He calls waiters and doormen by name. He has several dirty policemen at his beck and call, and trolls through the black and white streets of 1950s New York declaring, "I love this dirty city." And why shouldn't he? He fits right in.

As Falco prepares a new plan to destroy his cousin's relationship, the film circles the interactions of Falco and Hunsecker as they alternately bicker and compliment one another. Lancaster has an incredible presence on screen; shot almost entirely from below, wearing thick authoritarian glasses, he exudes power and control with every line. Coming from other characters, the snappy dialogue by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman (from his own novelette) would sound laughable. But if anyone could ever pull off a line like "I'd hate to take a bite out of you. You're a cookie full of arsenic, J.J. Hunsecker." His pen (or rather, his typewriter) isn't mightier than a sword; it's mightier than a tank.

Interestingly, though the film features no gangsters or guns, it is known as a sort of film noir. The main characters are both wretched and unlikable (though never unwatchable) and the heroes, if there are any in this film, are the bland lovers Susan and Dallas. Director Alexander Mackendrick doesn't try to redeem or soften his characters, and the result is a fascinating duel of wills. In a less adventurous movie, Falco would have lost his way after some tragic event in the past, a death of a spouse for example, and through his interaction with Hunsecker, realize his moral depravity, and repent by the film's end. Here, there is no protagonist, just two great antagonists.

Even though it is a dialogue-driven movie, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS swings like the great jazz music that floats through the backgrounds of the bars and clubs Falco visits. The black and white cinematography of New York is superb, and the performances are top-notch. This film is getting some notoriety of late thanks to its reincarnation as a big Broadway musical starring John Lithgow (Tony winner for the role of Hunsecker). The show got dismal reviews and will be closed by the time you read this, a few short months after it opened. But the original film is still powerful almost forty-five years since Falco and Hunsecker first started sparring. Who knew a cookie laced with arsenic could taste so good?