What columnist does Burt Lancaster play in Sweet Smell of Success?

In Sweet Smell of Success, Burt Lancaster plays newspaper columnist J. J. Hunsecker.

Hunsecker is a powerful, vindictive gossip columnist whose influence reaches through New York’s entertainment and media circles. He uses that power to pressure his sister Susan, played by Susan Harrison, into ending her relationship with jazz guitarist Steve Dallas. Tony Curtis plays Sidney Falco, an unscrupulous press agent who tries to satisfy Hunsecker in exchange for access and publicity.

The 1957 film was directed by Alexander Mackendrick and adapted from Ernest Lehman’s story with a screenplay by Lehman, Clifford Odets, and Mackendrick. Its night-time Manhattan locations, acidic dialogue, and James Wong Howe’s shadowy cinematography give it a distinctive urban noir style.

Hunsecker is commonly associated with Walter Winchell, the influential real-life gossip columnist. Winchell provided an important model, but Hunsecker is a fictional character rather than Winchell’s exact screen identity. Another frequent mix-up is Sidney Falco: Falco is Curtis’s press agent character, not Lancaster’s columnist. The film was initially a commercial disappointment but later became widely regarded as a classic.