Synopsis: Press agent tries to curry favour with influential gossip columnist
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Actors: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis
Date: 1957
How viewed: already in my DVD collection
Rating: 4/5
David Meyer says:
It's a nervy piece of work: complex, adult, and spiteful.
I say:
Very watchable, Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis (with a Tony Curtis haircut??) were great, but the film was not quite what I was expecting. Loved the atmosphere, New York at night, buzzing with people on the make, wheeling and dealing, ducking and diving, dog eat dog, corruption and cheating (pre-cursor to The Thick of It??). Great jazzy score by Elmer Bernstein and Chico Hamilton, great New York street slang, great lines 'the scruples of a guinea pig' anyone?? However what seemed at first to be a subplot - Curtis paying back a favour by breaking up Lancaster's sister's relationship with a jazz guitarist, took over, and Lancaster's almost incestuous relationship with his sister was very creepy indeed. So, I rather lost track of what the film was all about...
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