MikeBSG wrote:I've seen this listed as noir in some places. What do you think? It has a gritty look and sleazy people, but nobody gets killed and it isn't about crime in a conventional sense.
Actually slander, drug planting/possession, police brutality, and prostitution are formidable crimes.
The Sweet Smell of Success is steeped in the noir genre and has a much more legitimate claim than many lighter vehicles that were nominated in the recent noir contest (
Casablanca, The Narrow Margin, The Big Sleep, etc.).
Much like the woefully underappreciated
Force of Evil (1948),
SSOS takes a hard look at corruption within society--particularly American society. Lives and careers are made and broken not through hard work or talent, but graft. Although the film has definite ties and nods to the HUAAC and the blacklist that was affecting the motion picture industry at that time (Note that Steve Dallas was called a drug addict
and a communist), it also fits squarely into today's world where politicians
do date call girls and recent talentless music icons (I won't name names here) suggest palm grease rather than genius is the deciding factor of what defines art.
Honesty and morality are not valued in such a world. In fact, they are a disadvantage and detriment to those who hold such values ("It's a publicity man's nature to be a liar. I wouldn't hire you if you weren’t a liar"). Only those who compromise themselves and are willing to play the game are given the opportunity and breaks to succeed.
To compare and contrast,
Taxi Driver (1976) is
not about a man going crazy as another recent post suggested, but an individual who cannot adapt to the disingenous world around him. He is viewed as a psychopath, but although his methods are reprehensible, the crime and corruption around him that passes for normalcy are seen as the deeper stain of our humanity. The J.J. Hunsecker's
"love this dirty town" while the Travis Bickle's think
"someone should flush this city down the fuckin toilet." Travis is seen as dangerous (although he saves a man's life in a stick-up and rescues a child from prostitution), while Sidney and J.J. are respected members of society. Travis has definitely lost touch with reality, but perhaps he is more deeply aware of what the
real world consists of, which drives him to the edge.
The Sweet Smell of Success is a rare warning about the darker side of human nature and the facade of
The American Dream. Fame and fortune are not created by aspiring individuals, but bought and sold everyday along with the poor souls who have learned to use the system instead of their God-given abilites. Although it might seem like
The Sweet Life, Hunsecker and Falco's world (like Fellini's 1960 masterpiece) is shown to be poisonous, morally corrupt, and rotten to the core. Like a cookie full of arsenic.