Details of the 2012 Cambridge Film Festival will appear here shortly

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS was Mackendricks American debut, a rat trap of a film in which a vicious NY gossip hustler (Curtis) grovels for his Mr Big (Lancaster), a monster newspaper columnist who is incestuously obsessed with destroying his kid sisters romance. He is a figure as evil and memorable as Orson Welles in THE THIRD MAN or Robert Mitchum in THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. The dark streets gleam with the sweat of fear; Elmer Bersteins evocative jazz score (courtesy of Chico Hamilton) whispers corruption in the Big City. The screen was rarely so dark or cruel.