Tag: Burt Lancaster

Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – A Movie Review

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(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to recommendation section at the bottom to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

“Sweet Smell of Success” was produced by Burt Lancaster’s independent production company and starred Lancaster as J.J. Hunsecker a New York City newspaper entertainment columnist whose influence allows him to make and break careers of entertainers, politicians and anyone who displeases him.  Tony Curtis plays Sidney Falco; a cynical and morally bankrupt press agent who depends on Hunsecker’s largesse to survive in the shark infested waters of New York City’s entertainment industry.

Falco is being punished by Hunsecker because he hasn’t been able to break up a love affair between Hunsecker’s sister Susan and a jazz musician named Steve Dallas (played by Martin Milner).  And most of the plot revolves around Falco and Hunsecker’s efforts to smear Dallas’s name and/or have him arrested for marijuana possession.

Hunsecker’s influence with a brutal NYPD police detective named Kello eventually leads to Dallas being arrested on a trumped up marijuana possession charge, assaulted by Kello and hospitalized.  Near the end of the movie Susan rebels at the plot that her brother and Falco concocted against Dallas and she tells Falco that Hunsecker will blame him after she commits suicide by jumping out the window of her Manhattan penthouse.  Falco stops her from jumping but when Hunsecker walks in on them and sees his sister in her underwear with Falco he believes her when she says that Falco had attempted to sexually assault her.  He slaps Falco several times.  At that point Falco reveals to Susan that it was Hunsecker who hired Kello to beat Dallas.  As revenge Hunsecker calls Kello and reports that Falco framed Dallas and he should be arrested for this offense.  But Susan finally rebels against her brother and walks out of their apartment to join Dallas.  When Falco tries to flee the apartment, he is met on the street by Kello who beats him mercilessly and drags him away to jail.

Recommendation

This is one hell of a strange movie.  Lancaster and Curtis spend the whole movie bantering back and forth at each other with a rapid-fire dialog composed of some kind of 1950’s beatnik/hipster patois, or at least what someone in Hollywood thought beatnik/hipster patois should sound like.  It’s truly bizarre.  Such lines as:

”I’d hate to take a bite outta you. You’re a cookie full of arsenic.”

“You’re blind, Mr. Magoo. This is the crossroads for me. I won’t get Kello. Not for a lifetime pass to the Polo Grounds. Not if you serve me Cleopatra on a plate.”

“You’re dead son. Get buried.”

“Sidney, this syrup you’re giving out with… you pour over waffles, not J. J. Hunsecker.”

And as you could imagine this is an incredibly downbeat movie.  Almost none of the characters are admirable or even likable.  The ending is something of a redemption for Susan but hardly worth the ordeal of swimming through J.J’s and Falco’s cesspool.  I can’t recommend this movie to most people.

I’ll confess that about once a year I want to watch this movie, sort of as a joke.  Maybe I just kind of like Falco saying, “You’re blind, Mr. Magoo.”  And there are many people who admire this movie for its gritty portrayal of something or other.  I’ll leave it to the individual to decide.

Sorry Wrong Number (1948) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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“Sorry Wrong Number” is a film noir that starred Barbara Stanwyck as Leona Stevenson and Burt Lancaster as her husband Henry.  They have trapped themselves in a relationship that will doom both of them.  He is a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks and she is the daughter of James Cotterell, a very wealthy owner of a pharmaceutical company in Chicago.  Henry’s life as Leona’s husband consists of working as a flunky for her father and begging for spending money from his demanding and neurotic wife.  When he tries to break away and get a job outside of her father’s company Cotterell puts out the word on the street that no one will hire without losing his business.  When Henry perseveres to break away Leona has an attack that her father tells him is a dangerous heart condition that could kill her at any time that she becomes excited.

So, Henry is trapped for good and all so he decides to take advantage of his position in the company by setting up a scheme with a chemist named Waldo Evans to steal extremely valuable drug intermediates and sell them to a gangster named Morano.  But he tries to double-cross Morano but when he catches on the gangster tells him that he wants Leona’s life insurance payoff.  Apparently, Leona’s doctor has told her she’ll only last a few more days.  So, Henry agrees to pay off on the policy within a month.  But they go to New York City so that Leona can consult with a heart specialist.  And the specialist finds that Leona’s heart is fine, it’s a psychosomatic illness.  So Morano is going to have Leona killed but in the meantime the police are closing in on Morano, Evans and Henry.

All this is learned during flashbacks in the movie during phone calls.  The whole movie for Leona is taking place in an expensive apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in a series of phone calls with the other characters.  In the opening scene Leona picks up the phone and thinks she’s hearing a crossed line with two other speakers and they are planning to murder a woman that night.  For the rest of the movie, she tries to get in touch with Henry to get his help.  Leona feels trapped in her bed because of her belief in a heart condition so she stays and becomes more and more hysterical as she calls from place to place looking for him.  And along the way she learns, bit by bit, about Henry’s criminal business.  But at the very end she finds out about the life insurance plot from Henry and he tells her the call she intercepted was about her own murder.  But it’s too late, just as Henry tells her to scream out the window for help the killer comes up the staircase and strangles her.  When Henry calls back to Leona the killer says “Sorry wrong number.”

This is a pretty clever set up for a movie.  Having the whole movie take place in a room gives it a claustrophobic feel.  The only problem is that Stanwyck tries so hard to make her character a neurotic shrew that it works too well.  Halfway through the movie I wanted to murder Stanwyck myself.  The rest of the movie was fine but every time Stanwyck started freaking out I felt like turning the movie off.  And when the killer finally strangled her, I felt very relieved and grateful.

I would only recommend this movie to anyone who isn’t put off by the description I’ve given.

Run Silent, Run Deep (1958) – A Movie Review

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This is a WWII submarine story.  A submarine commander P.J. Richardson, played by Clark Gable, survives the destruction of his submarine during operations against the Japanese in the Bungo Straits.  The Japanese destroyer responsible, called the Akikaze, had previously destroyed at least four submarines and Richardson is determined to have his revenge.  Richardson thinks he has figured out how to defeat the Akikaze and he convinces the navy to give him command of another submarine, the Nerka.  The Nerka’s executive officer, Lieutenant Jim Bledsoe, played by Burt Lancaster, has been disappointed in not being given the command, but he cooperates with Richardson and acts to convince the crew that the unorthodox and frustrating tactics that the commander puts them through are legitimate.

The commander brings the Nerka into the Bungo Straits and using his knowledge of the Japanese tactics he successfully engages a Japanese destroyer and destroys it.  But when he goes after the Akikaze the Japanese seem to know in advance of his presence and the Nerka is nearly destroyed, several men are killed and Richardson is badly injured.

But when Richardson orders Bledsoe to prepare for another attempt to destroy the Akikaze, he relieves Richardson of command based on medical disability and says that he will return the Nerka to base.  But Bledsoe changes his mind and attacks and destroys the Akikaze.  But during the attack Richardson realizes that the Akikaze was working with a Japanese submarine to destroy American submarines.  He alerts Bledsoe and the danger is averted and the Japanese sub is destroyed.  But Richardson dies of his injuries and the Nerka buries him at sea.

This is a fairly straight forward war movie.  But the principal actors Gable and Lancaster make it a very memorable film.  Some of the other actors do a good job.  Jack Warden is a veteran actor and is probably the standout among the supporting characters.  There is one amusing detail in the ship life.  The crew has a pin-up picture of a girl which they each pat on the butt before they go into battle.  This amusing and lifelike touch adds obvious interest for the natural audience of this movie.  Highly recommended.

The Professionals – A Movie Review

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Here’s a western made in 1966 that reflected the later anti-hero story line that Clint Eastwood mined so successfully in his spaghetti westerns.  The big names are Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin.  They are former mercenaries who have ridden with Pancho Villa but now are selling their services to a Texan (played by Ralph Bellamy) whose wife has been kidnapped by an old bandit ally of theirs.  This bandit, Jesus Raza, played by Jack Palance is over the border in Mexico with a small army of followers in a heavily defended camp.  Marvin adds two more men to his crew with Robert Ryan and Woody Strode.  Together they devise a scheme to disrupt the camp, rescue the woman and outwit and outfight Raza’s army.  Claudia Cardinale plays the kidnapped wife and in addition to being a capable actress she shows why she is remembered as one of the most attractive actresses of her time.  She is a fine-looking babe.

The script is tight and the dialog is apt with each of the main characters given the words that fit the part.  Marvin is the cool efficient tactician and leader.  Lancaster is the fearless daredevil who lightheartedly plunks dynamite at his enemies while firing off jokes and insults at everyone around him.  Ryan and Strode ably fulfill their parts but with less dialog.  And at the end of the main action Lancaster and Palance get to discuss life and love as they prepare for their strange duel.

The plot has a surprising twist and plenty of action and is in my opinion, one of the better westerns from its era.  Marvin and Lancaster have good chemistry and have been placed in a production that uses their particular talents to excellent effect.  If you’re a fan of the western genre this movie delivers the goods.  Highly recommended.