Since I could not find a youtube video link of Moviedrome presenter Alex Cox presenting director Alexander Mackendrick’s 1957 classic Sweet Smell of Success, readers will once again have to rely on Cox’s transcript (read here). The episode’s original airdate was September 3, 1989 (read here). What more can be said about this great film. We get two powerhouse performances by Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, memorable dialogue from screenwriters Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets (who was also a playwright) (you’re a cookie full of arsenic), spectacular black-and-white cinematography by the late legendary James Wong Howe and last, but not least, late great composer Elmer Bernstein’s jazzy score. I have seen all of Mackendrick’s Ealing comedies, but it has been a while since I saw his last two films, which were A High Wind in Jamaica and Don’t Make Waves, so I will have to re-watch them sometime in the future. Nevertheless, If any of you readers are interested in reading my list of my favorite Alexander Mackendrick films, read here.

Here is a youtube video link to the film’s original theatrical trailer