Triple Bill of Alexander Mackendrick

The Man in the White Suit (1951)
The Ladykillers (1955)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

I was already a fan of Alexander Mackendrick as evident by the ranking of his two Ealing studio films The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers at #22 and #35 respectively in my Top 60 Comedy films list. I associated Mackendrick with Ealing Studios and the Comedy Genre especially since four of the five films he directed for Ealing Studios were comedies with Mandy (1952) being the exception. All five of his Ealing Studio films: Whiskey Galore! (1949), The Man in the White Suit (1951), Mandy (1952), The Maggie (1954), The Ladykillers (1955). 

However, a recent viewing of Sweet Smell of Success led me to rethink Mackendrick’s films in a new light. The 1957 American film starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison is dark look at human nature and on the surface is far removed from the comedic framework of Ealing studio films. Even though, The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers have a predominant comedic note, they aren’t pure comedies but contain dark notes. The Ladykillers is a dark comedy laced with crime while The Man in the White Suit is draped with shades of tragedy and irony along its sleeves. Sweet Smell of Success heightens the dark and tragic undertones from these two films and mutes any comedic element to a whisper. 

In Sweet Smell of Success, Tony Curtis’ Sidney Falco character is constantly joking, laughing but his character has an air of desperation about him while the entire film has tragedy written all over it. Sidney is a press agent who gets promotion money from owners to promote their club. All he needs is a good review or a mention of the club in a newspaper article from J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster). Sidney would go to any lengths to get on J.J’s good side including trying to fulfill J.J’s request to breakup his sister’s (Susan Hunsecker played by Susan Harrison) romance with a jazz musician. As Sidney tries to do whatever it takes to break up the romance, he starts to cross moral and ethical boundaries from which there is no turning back.

Sweet Smell of Success is a brilliant portrayal of American society at a time when newspaper reviews meant the world for financial survival for restaurants, theatrical plays and even movies. While traditional newspapers have been in decline in recent decades, some of the core elements of the film such as a smearing someone’s reputation, publishing false stories or personal affairs have sadly been amplified in our contemporary social media dominated world. In that sense, Mackendrick’s film and script co-written with Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman is still as relevant today as it was back in 1957.

Sweet Smell of Success belongs to a different genre but it is unified via 2 threads to Mackendrick's two Ealing Studio films. All three films are a keen insightful observation of characters while also provide an overarching commentary on society. The Man in the White Suit highlights the invisible hand or supply-demand forces that make things work. All the clothing textile company owners want the invention of an indestructible and dirt repellent fabric to fail as that would make people buy their clothes less. In The Ladykillers, the bank robbers try to justify their crimes as saying that no one would be hurt by the missing money because it would be a blip for the banks since insurance would cover it all while the robbers can use the money for their families benefit. There is a financial truth to what the robbers say as has become evident with all the banking and insurance frauds that have become much more commonplace since the film was released. Sweet Smell of Success shows a world where favours can open doors for people and the scenarios in the film are aptly described by the phrase “you scratch my back, I scratch yours”. This phrase still makes the world go around and allows careers to flourish and is at the core of our broken political machine.

I was a fan of Alexander Mackendrick before but after seeing Sweet Smell of Success, I am an even bigger fan. He clearly was one of the best directors to have worked in cinema, yet not as widely appreciated as his peers.

A double bill of Jorge Sanjinés

El coraje del pueblo / The Night of San Juan (1971)
Jatun Auka (1974)

I hadn’t come across any of Jorge Sanjinés’ films when exploring Bolivian cinema a decade ago. Now in 2024 when doing a similar search, his name showed up quite a bit. This change in internet searches feels driven by changing political landscape in Bolivia more than just chance or timing. Given the topic of Sanjinés films, it makes sense why it is likely easier to discuss his films openly in the last few years than it was in the early 2000s. As per this article by Carla Suárez, Jorge Sanjinés

“particularly focused on documenting indigenous cultures of the Andes: Aymara and Quechua. Sanjinés, an avid critic of colonialism, initiated his cinematic journey under the guiding principle “el cine junto al pueblo” (“cinema with the people”). He took a revolutionary Marxist approach to documentary filmmaking with the mission of giving a voice to the oppressed people of the Andean nation. In 1966, Sanjinés founded the Ukamau Group alongside screenwriter Oscar Soria, cinematographer Antonio Eguino, producer Beatriz Palacios and filmmaker Alfonso Gumucio. The group was named after the title of their first feature-length film Ukamau (meaning “and so it is” in Aymara).” Carla Suárez, 2021

I would like to speculate that the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia likely ushered a new interest in the cinema of Jorge Sanjinés and the Ukamau Group he co-founded. This is because in 2006 Bolivia finally had a president who came from the country’s indigenous population. Given the topics that Sanjinés explored in his films, it likely was easier to discuss them once the country had someone like Morales at the forefront.

In addition, Sanjinés' films especially such as Jatun Auka showcases the struggle of ordinary people against the wealthy land owners who used the strength of the military to suppress the people. This film also shows the role Americans played in training the Bolivian generals. Such cinema is labeled leftist or Marxist cinema and is rarely talked about in North American film critics sections. Somehow talking about guerrillas, resistance isn’t favoured by mainstream critical publications due to how they are funded. This also could be another reason why the cinema of Sanjinés was missing in the English language discourse I tried to search in the early 2000s.

Ukamau Group and Direct Cinema

Carla Suárez likens the cinema movement of Jorge Sanjinés to that of Neorealist cinema and cinéma direct:

"New Latin American Cinema is a film movement, inspired by Italian Neorealismo and Québec documentary genre cinéma direct, that used cinema as an instrument of social awareness and change." Carla Suárez, 2021

One of the aspects of Direct Cinema is the embedded nature of filmmaking where the filmmaker immerses themselves in the environment:

“For the cinéma direct filmmakers, the point of departure is the filmmaking process in which the filmmaker is deeply implicated as a consciousness, individual or collective. It is this process--this consciousness--which gives form and meaning to an amorphous objective reality. Instead of effacing their presence, the filmmakers affirm it.” David Clandfield’s essay From the Picturesque to the Familiar: Films of the French Unit at the NFB (1958-1964).

In this regard, Jorge Sanjinés’ two films seen as part of this spotlight meet the criteria as he clearly immerses himself in the local/village surroundings to depict events. The slight variation for The Night of San Juan is that the film is a documentary-fictional hybrid where villagers/workers re-enact events of the massacre that happened. Such a reenactment lends a reality to proceedings.

Jatun Auka shows how exploitation of people can lead to revolution which in turn leads to a cyclical nature of violence. The finale in the film shows Bolivian military aided by US troops killing revolutionaries and their bearded leader is also a reminder that it was in Bolivia that Che Guevara was killed.

Latin America has had many examples of filmmakers showcasing the human impact of revolution in their films. Patricio Guzmán is one of the best examples with his The Battle of Chile while from an overarching political exploration, Octavio Getino and Fernando E. Solanas’ The Hour of the Furnances (1968) comes to mind. The cinema of Glauber Rocha also explored such topics. Looking beyond Latin America, Indian director Shyam Benegal’s cinema also has a lineage to Direct Cinema in its depiction of plight of villagers.

References / Reading material:

Carla Suárez, Emergence of Indigenous Cinema in Bolivia: The Ethnographic Gaze of Jorge Sanjinés and the Ukamau Group.

Alonso Aguilar: Foundations of Resistance in Bolivian Cinema.

Direct Cinema covered earlier in this blog.

Shyam Benegal covered in this blog.

Glauber Rocha.