The Daily Feather — The Sweet Smell of Success

“But Sidney, you make a living. Where do you want to get?”

“Way up high, Sam, where it’s always balmy… From now on, the best of everything is good enough for me.”

The above exchange comes from Sweet Smell of Success, which we were lucky to catch last week on Turner Classic Movies. While introducing the film, TCM host Ben Mankiewicz described it as a personal favorite and standout from 1957 (the “best year Hollywood ever had” by his estimation). Tony Curtis plays Sidney Falco, a ruthlessly ambitious publicist working to get his clients mentioned in newspaper gossip columns, the most popular of which is written by the mysterious J.J. Hunsecker. After Hunsecker tells Sidney he won’t write anything about his clients, the scrappy press agent goes to extreme lengths to try and get into the columnist’s good graces. Shot in black and white, the deeply cynical movie primarily takes place at night and captures the vibrancy and seediness of 1950s New York City.

The relentless pursuit of success (or at least, appearing successful to those around us) is a hallmark of the American ethos. Unfortunately, “keeping up with the Joneses” is increasingly challenged as a factor of the degradation of U.S. household balance sheets.