“I’d hate to take a bite outta you. You’re a cookie full of arsenic.” — J.J. Hunsecker
Adding to what is shaping up to be an already stellar year for classic film at The Criterion Collection, Alexander Mackendrick’s classic, caustic, sneering noir “Sweet Smell Of Success” is coming to the boutique label.
Playfully “announced” via a photo posted (see below) to Criterion’s Facebook page showing the film being prepped within the confines of the company’s technical studio the release, it is widely expected to arrive both on DVD and BluRay (as it has been shown on MGMHD regularly for the past little while). At any rate, it should definitely improve upon the bare bones disc that is currently in stores.
As per usual, if you haven’t seen this, queue it up at NetFlix and then buy it when it comes out; the wonderfully dark film follows influential newspaper columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) who uses his influence to force a press agent (Tony Curtis) — eager to get his clients mentioned in Hunsecker’s column — to do some dirty work to split up a relationship between Hunsecker’s sister and a jazz guitarist. While beautifully photographed, and finely acted, the film is notable for its absolutely crackerjack, high wire dialogue. You will not find another film with as many deliciously acidic bon mots as this one.
This film marks yet another classic film arriving from Criterion in a year already stacked with with enough to bankrupt even the most casual cinephiles. Roberto Rossellini’s War trilogy; John Ford’s “Stagecoach”; Carol Reed’s “Night Train To Munich”; Leo McCarey’s “Make Way For Tomorrow”; Nicholas Ray’s “Bigger Than Life”; Sidney Lumet’s “The Fugitive Kind”; the forthcoming trio of Josef Von Sternberg silents “Underworld,” “The Last Command” and “The Docks Of New York” as well as the recently announced “Night Of The Hunter” should quash anyone’s doubts as to Criterion’s commitment to the classics. [via Blu-ray.com]