Burt Lancaster is a ruthless newspaper columnist, J.J. Hunsecker, and Tony Curtis is press agent Sidney Falco who needs his clients featured in Hunsecker's column. The film starts with Falco trying to get in touch with Hunsecker who has refused to feature any news about Falco's clients for the past month. As a result, Falco's clients are upsetting and firing him left and right. He needs to get back in Hunsecker's good graces. It turns out that Hunsecker wanted Falco to break up the romance between his sister, Susan Hunsecker, and Steve Dallas, a local jazz musician. Falco failed in his first attempt to break them up, thus Hunsecker is punishing him. Hunsecker gives Falco one more chance to break up Susan and Dallas. Falco decides to plant a false rumor in a competing column as a means to hurt Dallas' reputation. Then Hunsecker will defend Dallas in his column, in which Dallas will dismiss Hunsecker's attempts to smooth things over and in effect, he will look bad to girlfriend, Susan. That's the plan anyway... First thing. I loved the music in this movie. It was great rowdy, raunchy jazz music that I love and it fit the aesthetic and the mood of the film perfectly. I also loved the cinematography in this film. I thought the black and white looked great. I also liked how some characters would be presented in an extreme close-up, but also at an angle. There's a shot like this of Falco in the beginning. I think it is supposed to symbolize this character's corruption and uneasiness. Extreme closeups can be somewhat uncomfortable for the audience (at least for me anyway, it almost seems a bit claustrophobic, if that makes sense). I also loved the New York settings. In addition to the music and camera work, I thought Curtis and Lancaster were excellent in their roles. While I didn't dig Lancaster's crew cut, I thought it worked well for his character who seems like he's pretty much all business all the time. He kind of had a Hank Hill thing going on in this movie--but of course, he's smarter and more shrewd than Hank Hill could ever be. I also really liked Curtis in this movie. Before I kind of dismissed him as a big of a lightweight actor (though I do really like him in Some Like it Hot), but this film demonstrated that he was adept at drama. I thought he was great as Falco, the agent who would stop at nothing to be successful. I didn't care much for the actress who played Susan. She wasn't bad, but I didn't like how she talked. She ov-er e-nun-ci-ate-d her words. I thought this was a great film.

Fast paced, well acted, tautly directed, and carefully scripted, this superb thriller, in a realistic way, develops a gut-wrenching story, depicts some memorable characters and above all represents the filmmaking of the highest level. It is so dark that you almost feel despair about the world. The dramatic tension is raised a historically new height. If you use one word to describe the movie, then it should be jaw-dropping, which means that you will never close your mouth until the end of the movie.

What a sparklingly brilliant and horrible noirish movie this is. Even beneath the opening credits the film is bursting forth with crowds bustling, newspaper lorries gushing forth and neon reflecting onto the dark and wet pavements. The fast pace is maintained throughout and there is a slight problem at first in ascertaining what is going on because we find it so hard to accept that Tony Curtis is playing a bad man. Hardly any good men in this, though, as we see how the popular newspaper gossip writers go about their business and the pleasure they take with their snide insinuations and malicious digs. Curtis is fantastic playing against type and this is probably his finest work, Lancaster is similarly playing it more darkly and is so scary, with minimal movement and a steely glare. Much has been said about the seeming weakness of the young lovers and maybe Lancaster's sister could have been more of a wild child and her jazz friend more of a hip cat. But it is a minor moan when the picture before you glows and glistens in glorious b/w before exploding in the midst of its manipulative nastiness.

This movie was filmed really well. It had a complex set of characters as well as plot. I also love the shots the camera got of New York City and all the different angles as well as lighting. I especially loved the scene where JJ was looking out at the city from a few floors up out an open window, and it was nighttime and you could see all the lights of the city, and then a few seconds later it was the same shot except New York City in the morning. It had a quiet mis-en-scene about it and I really enjoyed the immediacy of the contrasting lighting of the scene. JJ was such a strong and intimidating character, I found it a little hard to like him at times, especially when it came to passively threatening his sister. Overall though, the film was really great in my opinion and I think I would watch it again, just to get a fuller understanding of everything that happened.