CFS Film Screening: Sweet Smell of Success

Join Canterbury Film Society for our screening of a breath-takingly dark vision of New York: Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick • 1957 • 96 mins • USA • PG).

A delivery van drives down gleaming, neon-lit Broadway and dumps a bundle of newspapers on the sidewalk in Times Square. This authoritative opening of Sweet Smell of Success, first released to little acclaim and bad box-office in 1957, announces a film noir about hard-hitting journalism and the alluring world of Manhattan at night. But the hitting is all below the belt and the cowardly pugilists are J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), a syndicated right-wing gossip columnist who can make or break reputations with a couple of barbed sentences, and Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), the unprincipled press agent, who supplies him and his rivals with the dirt they dish up daily.... The film is a masterpiece, intelligent Hollywood cinema at its best. (The Observer)

This is a Film Society Members Only screening - but new members are warmly welcome. Go to www.canterburyfilmsociety.org.nz to see membership options (including 3-film Flexipasses for $40, as well as Half Year and Full Membership). Join and pay online, or bring along cash (eftpos not available) and sign up at the membership table before the film.

The Canterbury Film Society offers weekly screenings of top-quality films – arthouse, classic, cult, documentary, world cinema and more – on the big screen. We screen on Monday night at 7.30pm, doors open 7.00pm with drinks and home-baked food for purchase.

Let us take you further into film!