Within the next two or three days, I’ll become the very last guy in the column-writing, Bluray-reviewing realm to savor Criterion’s brand-new version of Alexander Mackendrick‘s Sweet Smell of Success (2.22). DVD Beaver‘s Gary Tooze says it “offers superiority” over the previous DVD “in every area…significantly smoother [with] distracting artifacts removed, scratches greatly minimized, contrast vastly improved…[and] quite a bit more information in the frame on all four edges…a magnificent transfer.”

“The wonderful commentary [from] film scholar James Naremore is typically professional, insightful and informative…one of the best I have heard in this early year…he knows his stuff.”

This is an opportunity to re-post something I ran two years ago — a portion of screenwriter Ernest Lehnan‘s recollection of working with Sweet Smell of Success producer-star Burt Lancaster and his producer-partner Harold Hecht, as recounted in a Sam Kashner piece in Vanity Fair’s Tales of Hollywood: Rebels, Reds, and Graduates and the Wild Stories Behind the Making of 13 Iconic Films (Penguin).