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One of Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster’s best. It’s NYC, it’s the 50s and Curtis is playing a scumbug who is trying to make a career hanging from the coattails of another scumbag(Lancaster), albeit a higher class scumbag. This is a tale of success(natch!) and the path to it and the human beings that are laid to waste along the way. Basically this is a film noir with “success’ standing in for the femme fatale. The dialogue by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman is amazing and so damn snappy it’s hard to believe. This is Glengarry Glen Ross territory folks, and really there’s a lot of similarities between the films. The white hot spotlight, concentrated upon the simple greed and cruelty of man, that the two films share will always link them for me. Gorgeously shot in black and white by the amazing James Wong Howe. Watch it soon and perhaps never forget it!