1957 noir, dir. Alexander Mackendrick, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster;
IMDb /
allmovie. Compromise enough
and there's nothing left; then the film begins.
This is a film about unlikeable people doing unpleasant things to
each other. So is Uncut Gems, which I watched a few months ago also
for Ribbon of Memes; and yet I enjoyed this film very much more.
Some of it is probably that Tony Curtis is a better actor than Adam
Sandler. Although his Sidney Falco is, without doubt, completely
morally bankrupt, one gets the sense that somewhere deep down he has
buried the self-awareness of what a vile person he is, and
occasionally it threatens to get out. Gems' Howard Ratner never has
the slightest bit of doubt that he's on the right track.
Two of Falco's acts as a press agent leave a particular impression; he
tries to blackmail a columnist into running a hit piece, only for the
columnist to turn round and say "publish and be damned", and Falco in
his world of apperances and getting ahead clearly can't understand how
anyone could do that; and later, he bribes another columnist by
pimping out his occasional girlfriend to him. (And then talks her into
going along with it.) "Whatever it takes" would clearly be his motto.
Meanwhile Burt Lancaster (co-owner of the production company that was
paying for the film) breaks type from his usual leading man roles, not
least by hiding his bankable face behind thick glasses. (Not to the
extent of de Niro in Brazil, but I get a similar impression of
deliberately not using the thing the actor is known for.)
But nobody here has all the answers, and even Susan (sister of
Lancaster's leading columnist J. J. Hunsecker) can only prevail by
using the deceptive tactics that surround her, not by playing straight
against cheaters.
This was a critical success, but a commercial disappointment, I
suspect in part because of the lack of sympathetic characters (and in
particular Curtis had mostly played good guys). But my goodness, it
works. "This is life, get used to it" says Falco to his secretary; but
one feels that his life is horrible like that because he made it
horrible like that. He is the man who does other people's dirty work,
going to places nobody else is willing to, while still mistakenly
believing that the people he works for respect him.
I talk about this film further on
Ribbon of Memes.
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