成功的滋味

汉塞克是纽约最有影响力的专栏作家，他的文章能让人一夜成名，也能使人一蹶不振。法科则是一名无足轻重的宣传经纪人，梦想着进入上层社会。

这两个人在追求金钱和地位上不择手段，可谓丧尽天良，毫无人性。

一般的黑色电影会设计一些浪漫爱情戏，不管美人是不是蛇蝎，没有她们会显得太沉闷了。

然而《成功的滋味》里没有一位重要的女性角色。两位男主角也没和任何人发生浪漫关系。

汉塞克只有对他妹妹的占有欲，而法科则无视所有向他示好的女人，当他勾搭女人的时候，别怀疑，他只是想利用她。

那个年代，处理乱伦问题一定要谨慎小心，不然就会被审查委员会踢出局。所以影片中的乱伦处理得很隐晦。真正将之大白于天下的是的1974年的《唐人街》，导演是罗曼·波兰斯基。

汉塞克为阻止妹妹和一个叫达拉斯的年轻乐手的恋爱，让他的走狗法科买通自己的宿敌，在报纸上抹黑达拉斯。又买通警察，污蔑他贩毒。

饰演法科的托尼·柯蒂斯（Tony Curtis）此前一直演小白脸的角色。比如在《热情如火》里男扮女装最后抱得梦露归。

而在《成功的滋味》里，他奉献了个人影史最佳演出。不得不说，柯蒂斯这张脸太有味道了，男子气和古典美的结合。

看他在片中说“从今天起，样样东西我都要最顶尖的”或是“用脑子思考，别用屁股。我对用屁股思考的女人没意见，这是女人的天性”时，你几乎不能相信他还能在《热情如火》里扮装搞怪。

汉克塞的扮演者伯特·兰卡斯特（Burt Lancaster）另一个令人印象深刻的角色是《纽伦堡的审判》中的纳粹律师，他向来善于扮演这类心机深重的角色。

与大多数黑色电影相比，此片的娱乐性不强，但令人难以忘怀。比如说满地垃圾的纽约街道，乌烟瘴气的酒吧，一张张贪婪的面孔，以及托尼·柯蒂斯那张太过俊美的脸。

最后说一句，此片的演员选的太好了，要是换了其他人，估计就无法让人轻易原谅法科做的那些恶。

公众号：电影套盒（laodianyinghualang）

英国导演亚历山大·麦肯德里克（Alexander Mackendrick）在四、五十年代拍摄了若干经典喜剧影片，最有影响力的是1955年的《贼博士》（The Ladykillers），一部黑色犯罪喜剧片。之后麦肯德里克赴好莱坞发展，不久就拍出了其导演生涯最杰出的作品《成功的滋味》（Sweet Smell of Success）。

影片改编自恩斯特·莱赫曼发表于1950年的同名短篇小说，最初莱赫曼被指定为影片导演，后来发行公司不同意启用新人导演，于是请来了初到好莱坞正无片可拍的麦肯德里克。莱赫曼改编剧本期间因病推出，由克利福德·奥德茨接手。这位左翼社会剧作家擅长以冷酷的笔法刻画美国社会，《大刀》、《金童》皆出自他笔下。

莱赫曼的改编剧本过于偏重对白，于是奥德茨将场景一一解构，重建出更复杂和更具戏剧张力的情景和人物关系。由于改编时间拖长，奥德茨只能跟随剧组前往纽约边拍编写，往往刚完成的戏份就要赶在当天拍摄。

麦肯德里克在拍摄期间承受了很大压力，他早已习惯正式拍摄前先排练好，而严格的拍摄时间不允许他这样，他往往必须立即拍摄奥德茨在一两个小时前刚完成的内容。而且，实景拍摄不比在摄影棚，经常有意外状况发生，何况地点还在纽约最嘈杂繁华的地段。主演托尼·柯蒂斯（Tony Curtis）的粉丝就数次冲破警戒线。有时拍摄已展开，剧本却还没来，剧组成员就只能焦灼地等待。

托尼·柯蒂斯此前一直扮演小白脸的角色，与他签约的环球影业反对他扮演片中的专栏经纪人，唯恐这个唯利是图的角色会影响他的职业发展。而事实上，《成功的滋味》成就了托尼·柯蒂斯的个人影史最佳演出，并且承受住了时间的考验。

《成功的滋味》是晚期黑色电影的代表作，通过对报业媒体圈内人士明争暗斗的展现，投射出人性最扭曲丑陋的一面。影片中，如日中天的花边专栏作家与饥不择食的宣传经纪人互相勾结、利用，其余情节都是这段黑暗勾当的注脚。

伯特·兰卡斯特（Burt Lancaster）扮演的报纸专栏作家J.J.汉塞克想要阻止妹妹和一个年轻乐手的恋爱，于是遣他的跟班西德尼·法科去搞破坏，但法科没成功。为了避免汉塞克将自己踢出局，法科用一个爱慕他的酒吧女郎做诱饵，哄骗汉塞克的一位宿敌，在他专栏上诽谤那名乐手。之后又贿赂警察，污蔑乐手贩毒，将其抓紧了警察局。汉塞克的勾当起效了，妹妹却怀疑这是法科和哥哥一手谋划的，最后汉塞克痛失亲妹。结尾，妹妹走在清晨的曼哈顿街头，她终于逃出了哥哥的魔掌，获得自由。

影片由著名摄影师黄宗霑掌镜，鲜明的明暗对比，反常的拍摄角度，大胆的摄影机运动，使人性的阴暗一览无遗。这是最早一批拍摄纽约时代广场夜景的电影之一，肮脏的街道、密集的建筑和人流成为人物内心在环境中的投射。

影片的台词也是一大亮点，充满了媒体圈内盛行的各种黑话。角色之间的种种勾心斗角，都通过充满机锋的台词展现出来。当代影评人重新评价此片，写道：“影片主要的叙事动力，在于其机智、刻薄又充满语感的对白，在如今这样一个充斥着特效大片的文盲时代是绝然听不到的”。

故事讲述的是莱赫曼身为纽约著名媒体经纪人和专栏作家欧文·霍夫曼助手的亲身经历。但上映后，被视为对最著名也最受人诟病的花边专栏作家沃尔特·温切尔的露骨攻击。当年的观众都听说过，温切尔曾用他的专栏对一个想娶他女儿的年轻人口诛笔伐。

遗憾的是，1957年上映时遭遇了票房上的惨败，麦肯德里克并无机会品味“成功的滋味”，在执导了另外三部作品后，他令人遗憾的早早结束了导演生涯。1969年至1993年去世前，他一直就职于加州的某电影机构，从事学术研究工作。现代的影评人一致认为它是麦肯德里克导演生涯最杰出的作品。1993年《成功的滋味》被美国国会图书馆的美国国家电影登记处列为在文化、历史和艺术上具有重大意义的电影。《时代》杂志的“影史百部佳片”榜单中，此片也榜上有名。

公众号：电影套盒（laodianyinghualang）

It is pitch black, both visually and metaphorically, in Alexander Mackendrick’s SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, his first American film, the former blackness is prominently reflected through director of photography James Wong Howe’s cracking night-view of a bustling NYC under the sharp panchromatic hue, the camera slides and breathes like a restless animal, tailing our protagonist, the amoral Manhattan press agent Sidney Falco (Curtis), into a crammed restaurant as he circulates from one character to another, even inside his office/apartment, facing sympathetic secretary Sally (Donnell), Sidney rarely stay still, he is hot under the collar.

It is all because Sidney is on the wrong side of influential newspaper columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Lancaster), after the latter asks for a simple favor to break up the romance between J.J.’s younger sister Susan (Harrison) and a whippersnapper Steve Dallas (Harrison), the axeman in a Jazz band (the cameo by the Chico Hamilton Quintet), which he hasn’t delivered yet. But to what extent will he do to pull that off? Sky might be the limit.

Sidney is an out-and-out hanger-on to J.J., who openly despises him yet, as a fixer, Sidney becomes his go-to option as there is not a scintilla of moral boundary in him, J.J. in his first scene, is seen dining with a senator (Forrest) and overtly scorns the presence of the latter’s female companion, arranged by one of his associates, so he advises the senator to get rid of the compromising situation, a point taken that apparently J.J. has a high moral attitude, yet the complexity lies in that, for his perverse obsession with Susan and paternalistic manipulation of her life, he has to debase himself into that type of man on the same level of Sidney, and J.J. proves that he can even descend lower, after he is offended by Steve’s vitriol, simply splitting the pair of lovebirds is not enough for his vengeful temperament, he wants ruination for Steve, and Sidney is the perfect enabler, however, Susan’s desperate action will sidetrack the course of events, a chink of daylight only peers in the coda, at least, there is one innocent survivor on sight.

Curtis, second-billed, but hogging the lion’s share of the screen-time, pristinely reinvents himself as an unscrupulous go-getter, who can smell blood instinctively and go whole hog to get things done, one particular moment involves him buffaloing a hapless cigarette girl Rita (a mostly poignant Nichols) into putting out with a rival columnist Elwell (a brazen David White in his celluloid debut), to cinch a deal of smear, as we audience involuntarily root for Rita’s integrity, Curtis’ Sidney gets the upper hand through a steely combination of coercion and goading, under which Rita cannot help but buckle. Flexing his muscles with immediacy, urgency and celerity, Curtis is beyond doubt, at his top form here.

However, Lancaster is no slacker either, his J.J. emanates a high-toned agglomerate of cruelty, snobbery and sheer contempt, that his threatening gaze and harsh articulation can pierce through any viewer’s skin like a sharp-edged knife, the toxic symbiosis between him and Sidney is so mesmerizing to behold enclosed by the shadowy atmospherics where any residue of humanity is chipped away into a cynical void.

Starlet Harrison, braving herself in Susan’s unfortunate shoes, swaddled by a mink coat until she needs to deep-six it, sinks her teeth into her first film role (her career actually stalled definitely after movie no. 2), she has the heavy-lifting to undertake as the sole character we can relate to and sympathize with, and to her credit Susan doesn’t easily fall into a one-note ingénue, her torment and anguish is quite palpable; then there is Milner, holds fast in his open-faced bluntness against a formidable Lancaster and smarmy Curtis, by and large, the ensemble is a winning combo to couch the rapier-like diction from Ernest Lehman’s source novel, and Mackendrick and co. fabricates a slick, eloquent moral tale to plumb the abysmal bottom of immanent turpitude infesting a capitalistic world.

referential entries: Mackendrick’s THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT (1951, 7.6/10); Vincente Minnelli’s THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1952, 7.8/10).