Editing Sweet Smell of Success (section)

===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>