Editing Sweet Smell of Success (section)

==Production==
Faced with potential unemployment from the sale of [[Ealing Studios]] to the [[BBC]] in 1954, director [[Alexander Mackendrick]] began entertaining offers from [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]].{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=137}} He rejected potential contracts from  [[Cary Grant]] and [[David Selznick]] and signed with independent production company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, enticed by their offer to adapt [[George Bernard Shaw]]’s play ''[[The Devil's Disciple (play)|The Devil's Disciple]]''.{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=139}} After the project collapsed during pre-production, Mackendrick asked to be released from his commitment. [[Harold Hecht]] refused and asked him to start work on another project – adapting Ernest Lehman’s novellette ''Sweet Smell of Success'' into a film.{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=140}}

Lehman’s story had originally appeared in the April 1950 issue of ''[[Cosmopolitan (magazine)|Cosmopolitan]]'', renamed "Tell Me About It Tomorrow!" because the editor of the magazine did not want the word "smell" in the publication.{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=140}} It was based on his own experiences working as an assistant to Irving Hoffman, a New York press agent and columnist for ''[[The Hollywood Reporter]]''. Hoffman subsequently did not speak to Lehman for a year and a half.{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=141}} Hoffman then wrote a column for ''The Hollywood Reporter'' speculating that Lehman would make a good screenwriter, and within a week Paramount called Lehman, inviting him to Los Angeles for talks. Lehman forged a screenwriting career in Hollywood, writing ''[[Executive Suite]]'', ''[[Sabrina (1954 film)|Sabrina]],'' ''[[North by Northwest]],'' ''[[The Sound of Music (film)|The Sound of Music]]'', ''[[West Side Story (1961 film)|West Side Story]]'', ''[[The King and I (1956 film)|The King and I]]'', and ''[[Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (film)|Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?]]''.{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=141}}

===Pre-production===
By the time Hecht-Hill-Lancaster acquired ''Success'', Lehman was in position to not only adapt his own novelette but also produce and direct the film.{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=141}} After scouting locations, Lehman was told by Hecht that distributor [[United Artists]] was having second thoughts about going with a first-time director, so Hecht offered the film to Mackendrick. Initially, the director had reservations about trying to film such a dialogue-heavy screenplay, so he and Lehman worked on it for weeks to make it more cinematic.{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=142}} As the script neared completion, Lehman became ill and had to resign from the picture. [[James Hill (American film producer)|James Hill]] took over and offered [[Paddy Chayefsky]] as Lehman's replacement. Mackendrick suggested [[Clifford Odets]], the playwright whose reputation as a left-wing hero had been tarnished after he named names before the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]].

Mackendrick assumed that Odets would need only two or three weeks to polish the script, but he took four months. The director recalled, "We started shooting with no final script at all, while Clifford reconstructed the thing from stem to stern".{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=143}} The plot was largely intact, but in Mackendrick's biography he is quoted from ''Notes on Sweet Smell of Success'': "What Clifford did, in effect, was dismantle the structure of every single sequence in order to rebuild situations and relationships that were much more complex, had much greater tension and more dramatic energy".{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=143}} This process took time, and the start date for the production could not be delayed. Odets had to accompany the production to [[Manhattan]] and continued rewriting while they shot there. Returning to the city that had shunned him for going to Hollywood made Odets very neurotic and obsessed with all kinds of rituals as he worked at a furious pace, with pages often going straight from his typewriter to being shot the same day. Mackendrick said, "So we cut the script there on the floor, with the actors, just cutting down lines, making them more spare – what Clifford would have done himself, really, had there been time".{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=144}}

Tony Curtis had to fight for the role of Sidney Falco because [[Universal Pictures|Universal]], the studio to which he was contracted, was worried that it would ruin his career.{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=145}} Tired of doing pretty-boy roles and wanting to prove that he could act, Curtis got his way. [[Orson Welles]] was originally considered for the role of J. J. Hunsecker. Mackendrick wanted to cast [[Hume Cronyn]] because he felt that Cronyn closely resembled [[Walter Winchell]], the basis for the Hunsecker character in the novelette.{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=145}} Lehman made the distinction in an interview that Winchell was the inspiration for the version of the character in the novelette, and that this differs from the character in the film version. United Artists wanted Burt Lancaster in the role because of his box office appeal and his successful pairing with Curtis on ''[[Trapeze (film)|Trapeze]]''.{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=145}}  [[Robert Vaughn]] was signed to a contract with Lancaster's film company and was to have played the Steve Dallas role but was [[Conscription in the United States|drafted]] into the Army before he could begin the film.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hikaritakano.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=239&Itemid=133 |title=Hikari Takano Interviews &#124; Robert Vaughn Interview Transcript - Open Source Transcripts - Robert Vaughn Interview Transcript Ro &#124; hikaritakano.com |publisher=www.HikariTakano.com |access-date=June 17, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100414040508/http://www.hikaritakano.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=239&Itemid=133 |archive-date=April 14, 2010 }}</ref> [[Ernest Borgnine]], contracted to Hecht-Hill-Lancaster since ''[[Marty (film)|Marty]]'' (1955) was offered a role in the film but turned it down as his role was only seven pages long in the script. His refusal led him to be put on suspension from Hecht-Hill-Lancaster.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ernest-borgnine-1917-2012-interview-346400/|title = Ernest Borgnine (1917-2012): A Personal Remembrance and an Unforgettable Interview| website=[[The Hollywood Reporter]] |date = July 9, 2012}}</ref>

Hecht-Hill-Lancaster allowed Mackendrick to familiarize himself with New York City before shooting the movie. In ''Notes on Sweet Smell of Success'', Mackendrick said, "One of the characteristic aspects of New York, particularly of the area between [[42nd Street (Manhattan)|42nd Street]] and [[57th Street (Manhattan)|57th Street]], is the neurotic energy of the crowded sidewalks. This was, I argued, essential to the story of characters driven by the uglier aspects of ambition and greed".{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=145}} He took multiple photographs of the city from several fixed points and taped the pictures into a series of panoramas that he stuck on a wall and studied once he got back to Hollywood.{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=146}}

Cellist [[Fred Katz (cellist)|Fred Katz]] and drummer [[Chico Hamilton]], who briefly appear in the film as themselves, wrote a score for the movie, which was ultimately rejected in favor of one by [[Elmer Bernstein]].<ref>Butler, David. (2002) ''Jazz Noir: listening to music from Phantom Lady to The Last Seduction''. Greenwood Publishing Group, {{ISBN|0-275-97301-8}}, p. 136</ref>

===Principal photography===
Mackendrick shot the film in late 1956, and was scared the entire time because Hecht-Hill-Lancaster had a reputation for firing their directors for any or even no reason at all.{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=147}} The filmmaker was used to extensive rehearsals before a scene was shot and often found himself shooting a script page one or two hours after Odets had written it. Lancaster's presence proved to be intimidating for numerous individuals involved with the production; at one point, Lehman had been approached to direct the film, but declined due to his fear of Lancaster, although Hecht maintained that Lehman had never been offered the chance to direct. Mackendrick and composer Elmer Bernstein both found Lancaster intimidating, with Bernstein later recalling, "Burt was really scary. He was a dangerous guy. He had a short fuse".{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=147}}<ref name=nare>{{cite book |last=Naremore |first=James |date= July 6, 2010 |title=Sweet Smell of Success: A BFI Film Classic |publisher=British Film Institute |isbn=978-1844572885 }}</ref> Mackendrick decided to use Lancaster's volatility to work for the character of JJ, asking that Lancaster wear his own [[browline glasses]], which Mackendrick felt gave him the presence of "a scholarly brute".<ref name=nare/> Mackendrick smeared a thin layer of [[vaseline]] on the lenses, preventing Lancaster from focusing his eyes and giving him a perpetually blank gaze. Assisted by cinematographer [[James Wong Howe]], Mackendrick intentionally filmed scenes with JJ from a low angle using a [[wide-angle lens]] and with overhead lighting directly above Lancaster, so that the spectacle frames cast shadows on his face.<ref name=nare/>

Shooting on location in New York City also added to Mackendrick's anxieties. Exteriors were shot in the busiest, noisiest areas with crowds of young Tony Curtis fans occasionally breaking through police barriers. Mackendrick remembered, "We started shooting in [[Times Square]] at rush hour, and we had high-powered actors and a camera crane and police help and all the rest of it, but we didn’t have any script. We knew where we were going vaguely, but that’s all".{{sfn|Kemp|1991|p=147}}