Details

Release year: 1957

Storyline

A powerful Broadway columnist coerces an unscrupulous press agent into breaking up his sister's romance with a jazz musician.

Top credits

Directors

Alexander Mackendrick

Writers

Cast

Burt Lancaster — J.J. Hunsecker
Tony Curtis — Sidney Falco
Susan Harrison — Susan Hunsecker
Martin Milner — Steve Dallas

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Awards

0 wins & 1 nomination

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Did you know

• Publicity materials for the film noted cinematographer James Wong Howe spread a film of Vaseline on Lancaster's glasses to create a shine and make his stare more menacing.

• The Chico Hamilton Quintet was chosen to play the jazz band in the film partly because they represented the West Coast and cool jazz styles popular at the time, but also because they were "clean". The producers screened them for months to make sure they weren't drug users to avoid giving Walter Winchell anything that he could use against the film.

• As parallels to real life in this film, Walter Winchell was so obsessive about his daughter's love life that he had her institutionalized as being emotionally unstable, and with the help of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had forced her lover to leave the country.