A fine American film, directed by Britain's Alexander Mackendrick, who learned his trade in Ealing comedies. Burt Lancaster, wearing a pair of owlish spectacles for his role, is frighteningly sinister as the newspaperman who glories in the cringing servility of those who seek his favours; and Tony Curtis gives a magnificent performance as the crawling press agent, Sidney Falco, who would - and does - sell his soul for a paragraph in Lancaster's column. Susan Harrison, in her only film role, plays Lancaster's sister, in a permanent state of white-faced fear, and Marty Milner is her upright, incorruptible boyfriend. Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman dipped their pens in acid to write the screenplay; the black (and blacker) photography is superb and the whole package is sealed by the haunting jazz of Chico Hamilton.