NYC's Gossipy Underbelly: The Sweet Smell of Success

Sure, there are lots of big movies opening tomorrow - The Aviator (DiCap flies a plane), Spanglish (Adam Sandler plays a Thomas Keller-like chef - ha! - and Tea Leoni hopes this will make her a star), and Lemony Snicket (okay, the baby biting the table is cute) - but Gothamist's pick for a must-see film this weekend is The Sweet Smell of Success. Sweet Smell is playing as part of Film Forum's Essential Noir series, and it's part of a double bill with Orson Welles's Touch of Evil. With a sharpness that few films can match, Sweet Smell tells the classic tale of power and manipulation by NY's media machine, with Tony Curtis as publicist Sidney Falco and Burt Lancaster as the columnist who pulls the strings. And another reason to see it on the big screen? Film Forum description notes "James Wong Howe’s glistening, location-shot b&w cinematography captures late-50s midtown in the minutest detail, from the marquees of Times Square to a shadowy street below the Queensboro Bridge."

The Sweet Smell of Success plays Friday and Saturday at the Film Forum at 1:35, 5:25, 9:15. Read Andrew Sarris's review of The Sweet Smell of Success; it's also a Great Movie according to Roger Ebert.