Pun Salad

I put this 1957 movie on my Netflix queue when Tony Curtis died a while back and John Nolte deemed it to be Curtis's best film. Yes, it's got acting out the wazoo. But it's another critical favorite that I just didn't enjoy. As always, your mileage may vary.

Burt Lancaster plays J.J. Hunsecker, an extremely powerful newspaper columnist. (It's said that he's based on Walter Winchell.) He uses the power of his mighty typewriter to both make and destroy careers. Following him like a remora is Tony Curtis's character, Sidney Falco, a press agent who lives and dies by getting (or not getting) his clients mentioned in Hunsecker's column.

As the movie opens, the main plot is already in progress: Hunsacker is upset about his sister's romance with a jazz guitarist (Martin Millner!) He's tasked Sidney with breaking up the happy couple in a way that can't be traced back. Much of the movie details Sidney's increasingly desperate efforts to plant rumors that Millner is a dope-smokin' Commie. (Never mind that at least the dope-smokin' bit was probably a prerequisite for 50's professional jazz musicians.)

Neither Falco nor Hunsacker are remotely sympathetic characters, and just about everyone else views them with varying mixtures of fear and loathing. They move mostly at night through a variety of Manhattan clubs, restaurants, bars, and theatres. The overall atmosphere, even in the superficially glamorous nightspots, is one of unremitting seediness and corruption.

But that's just not my cup of tea, sorry. In addition, the dialogue (which, mind you, some critics just love) was phony and contrived to my ear, the screenwriter dazzling himself with his own cleverly-turned phrases.