The True Taste Of Success

Ernest Lehman just died. Because he wrote movies, rather than directed them, his name isn't well known outside Hollywood. He was one of the most successful screenwriters of our time, mostly through adaptations of stage hits (such as The King And I, West Side Story, The Sound Of Music, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf and Hello, Dolly!). But he'll be remembered for two great screenplays, one notable for action, the other for dialogue.

The action film is North By Northwest. The critics may give credit to Hitchcock, and the people may have turned out for Cary Grant, but the solid storytelling and brilliant set pieces that make this film a delight couldn't have happened without Lehman's typewriter.

Then there's Sweet Smell Of Success. I watch this whenever it's on TV because it has the coolest dialogue of any film ever. The story behind the film isn't bad, either.

In the 40s, Lehman worked as an assistant to a Broadway publicist. This was back before TV, when New York had a nightlife and millions read the columns to see what was hot. Lehman based his short novel, Sweet Smell Of Success, on this world. It's a seamy story, and was seen as an attack on gossip-monger Walter Winchell. (Winchell could be a powerful enemy, and he fought against the film, but was weakened by it more than the other way around.)

Burt Lancaster, a major producer as well as star, thought the book would make a good movie. Lehman would write the screenplay and also direct. However, there was so much tension and acrimony in getting the screenplay done that Lehman suffered physically--from a spastic colon--and had to bow out. Playwright Clifford Odetts was brought aboard. He'd seen better days, however, and they pretty much had to lock him in a room to get any pages.

This, of course, is one reason screenwriters aren't remembered like directors--because there are so often more than one on any project, and it's hard to know who did what. There's no question Odets helped make the dialogue sparkle, but I've always thought (though it's a guess) that Lehman was the main man here, since a contemporaneous work from Odets in a similar vein--behind-the-scenes Hollywood in The Big Knife--doesn't strike me as nearly so clever or enjoyable, or even glib, as Success.

In any case, the dialogue is the glory of the film. It also has a great jazzy score by Elmer Bernstein, sharp black and white cinematography (shot on location) by James Wong Howe, taut direction by Ealing Studio master Alexander ("Sandy") Mackendrick, and two career-topping performances by Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster. The film flopped.

Essentially, no one wanted to see a story about New York's underside, and they definitely didn't want to see pin-up boys Curtis and Lancaster as bad guys. Curtis fought to get the role, yet both he and Lancaster should have figured no one would show up. Trapeze from the year before, that's the kind of colorful romance-melodrama the people wanted.

Here's the set-up: Sidney Falco (Curtis), a low-rent Broadway press agent, has been shut out of the column of powerful J. J. Hunsecker (Lancaster). To get back in his good graces, Falco tries to break up the romance of Hunsecker's 19-year-old sister with an up-and-coming jazz guitarist. There's a moral spiral downward as the plot gets more convoluted and the men get more unscrupulous.

The film isn't perfect. The ending doesn't really work, and the two sappy lovers are mostly annoying. Yet the film's reputation kept growing. Once you accepted the ugliness--in fact, once you start enjoying it (as J.J. Hunsecker puts it, "I love this dirty town!")--you see the brilliance.

There are probably more great lines from this film than any other, even Casablanca: "Watch me run a fifty-yard dash with both legs cut off." "From now on, the best of everything is good enough for me." "You're dead son, get yourself buried." "Match me, Sidney." "Why is it that everything you say sounds like a threat?" "The cats in the bag and the bag's in the river." "I'd hate to take a bite out of you. You're a cookie full of arsenic." "You've got more twists than a barrel of pretzels." "I don't relish shooting mosquitoes with an elephant gun." "That's fish four days old. I won't buy it." "Come back, Sidney. I want to chastise you."

If you haven't seen the film, or haven't seen it in a while, as a tribute to Lehman, check it out.