It was really freaking me out..it is very rare for me to see a man that needs her sister sooo much, and that is actually the base of the whole story. But he was insane for his sister..what did you think about it?Because it let me disturbed!
My happiness is your hap-penis
We're supposed to be disturbed about it. It shows how really perverted JJ is. He does't want anyone to have his sister. He does't want her to be happy with anyone else. You can see how demented she seems, how used & abused she seems. She stares into space. She only seems to come alive w/Dallas, her fiance. But JJ ruins it by ruining his career. Dallas stood up to JJ & Susan admired that because she couldn't. But eventually, he 'respected' her enough to just let her go. He let her go back to her brother. Sick! He should have seen that she needed for him to MAKE her leave her brother. But at the end, she went to him in the hospital & we have to believe that they did get married & JJ was left without her, as it should be.
shareIt was sick and supposed to be. I thought the actress they cast as Susan was perfect. Sweetly innocent looking with those puppy eyes full of pain and hope. From this site, I learned that she was the ballerina in one of the creepiest "Twilight Zone" episodes...the one with the dolls in the Salvation Army toy drum.
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I agree that JJ's obsession with his sister is supposed to be disturbing. I think it is supposed to make us uncomfortable, like Tony Montana's relationship with his sister in SCARFACE...nothing overt is shown or said, but enough is implied to make the viewer uncomfortable with their relationship.
shareWatched this tonight and I thought that there were distinct similarities with Scarface.
shareI was going to say the same thing. I saw it as JJ having some kind of inappropriate/sexual obsession with her, much as Tony Montana does in Scarface. It's not quite so subtle in Scarface though.
shareThe smoking gun is when JJ is going to kiss her on the mouth and she disgustedly turns her cheek and he plants it there.
shareThe age difference is disturbing as well. JJ is well into his 40's and his sister is only 19. That means he was in his twenties when she was born.
shareThe scence at the end where she is about to flee from the high-rise apartment and JJ tries to get her to stay as he presses the door, obstructing her with extended fingers, was just a bit campy.
For someone who wielded power the way he did throughout the film, this seem oddly out of character - granted it was a despairing moment. It just did not ring true.
If this movie were made about fifteen years later I bet you anything there would've been sex implied. I just saw it last night and that's immediately what my mind jumped to.
"I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating!" -The African Queen
You're right! I thought the same thing. Incest is implied subtly, but because of the times it had to be kept very subtle. J.J. was just too weird when he was around his sister. He wasn't just trying to protect her. He wanted her for himself in every way, even if it wasn't stated in the film.
shareIn the scene where J.J. calls Suzy into his office the morning the smear on her finance is printed, there's an exchange that I think speaks to this issue at hand. The whole scene underlines the bewildering power relationship between them, but one line in particular seems miss-placed enough to warrant special attention.
After promising Suzy to help get Dallas' job back, J.J. gets on the phone. He asks to speak to the manager of the club and then turns to Suzy with the line "Don't ever tell them how I untied your apron strings." I know that's not any sort of euphemism for sex, but something about that line and the subsequent cut to her face chills my blood. The rest of the film's dialogue is sassy and tight, no small-talk or muttering. That line really sticks to my ears when I hear it.
I can't put my finger on it (I may have even have the line slightly wrong), but there's something there than I think confirms J.J.'s sexually predatory relationship with her, whether it was ever physically acted-out or not. Any thoughts on this? That scene in particular?
""Don't ever tell them how I untied your apron strings."
I'm pretty sure he says some version of don't ever tell anyone how you've got me wrapped around your finger.
Whip up your hate in some tottering state. But not here dear. Is that clear dear?
It's "Don't ever tell them how I'm tied to your apron strings" - very creepy as you say, his pose of husbandly pseudo-submission is skincrawling.
Also we see in this scene that he has a photo of her on his desk, in the usual wife-n-kids spot.
And then there's that earlier bit where he watches her sleep and looks stricken...then goes out onto the balcony overlooking Broadway and surveys his kingdom. The rising soundtrack, the tilted camera angle, the way the shadows cut up his face, everything in that scene speaks of corruption and breakdown and (barely)repressed want.
Hippolito...shurrup.
What's also strange is that the audience never sees J.J. interact with any other woman, except for his matronly secretary and the bimbo in "21." Susie seems to be his only link to women. Unless I've missed something he makes no mention of past wives or current girlfriends. The audience is also left to wonder about their past. He was obviously an adult when she was born. Did their parents die and leave her in his care?
shareFor me the line that really pointed out J.Js longing for his sister was when J.J asks Sidney;
"What's this boy got that Susie likes?"
To me it sounded like...
"What's this boy got that i haven't got?"
"Death by tray it shall be!"
What?!?! He was just a caring and considerate older brother who had only her best interests at heart. It was just like his selfless devotion to his readers.
Take it away, Leon!
That was so funny you almost made me choke on my gum!
shareI suppose we ought to track down the book to confirm JJ's obsession as incestuous. It certainly seem to be. What was the "dirty" job Tony says he did for JJ a couple of years before? Could it have been arranging an abortion for JJ's sister? There's also more than a bit of hint that Falco is sexually ambivalent, referre to regularly as "pretty" and in other terms that suggest femininity.
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Yes, I would definitely say that J.J.'s psychological hold on his sister would imply incest. Why else would he totally refuse to allow Steve Dallas to have her hand in marriage?
shareThe relationship reminded me of the one in Scarface, between Al Pacino and his sister.
I guess that Scarface is based on the 1932 Scarface, so I suppose you couldn't say they lifted that from Sweet Smell of Success, but it sure does seem like they did in how it was represented on film.
I agree that JJ's obsession with Susie seemed borderline incestuous. More than being obsessed with her sexually, though, I think that JJ was obsessed with her emotionally - he was desperate for his sister to adore him, to idolize him. Hence his panic at the thought that Susie would figure out that he was the one behind Sidney's schemes to break her up with Steve. That's also why JJ didn't try to stop Susie from leaving at the end. He had already lost her soul and her mind - keeping her body prisoner would just be a daily reminder of what he had lost.
I don't think the relationship is incestuous, but deeply possessive. J.J. wants to keep Susie locked away, his own private secret and safe from the cruel world he enjoys wreaking havoc upon. He doesn't seem lustful toward her, but more like a clutchy parent who can't face his own mortality and loneliness in his child's fledgling independence.
shareEvidently Walter Winchell, the columnist that J.J. Hunsecker is based on, had a daughter who he "protected" and treated very much like J.J. treats Susie. Ernest Lehman, the author of the short novel, changed the relationship to brother and sister so the connection to Winchell wouldn't be so obvious.
This juicy tidbit is from a great article by Sam Kashner about the movie that was published in Vanity Fair in 2000. The article is also in a collection of VF articles about the background of several great movies, called "Tales of Hollywood." Highly recommended!
This movie just stands the test of time, the dialog is still crisp, the acting still tight, the moral relevancy and dark underbelly of power just as real as if it were today...I love this movie.
And I love love love Tony Curtis in it...he's perfectly glib, obsequious, sycophantic and narcissistic all at the same time, with that tiny bit that would make him human completely subservient to his overwhelming drive to be "successful." ...what a part, acted perfectly!
"I jumped off a roof for you"
I completely agree that JJ's obsession with Susie is emotionally incestuous: he wants to be the only man in her life. There is no evidence that it's sexual, but it's emotionally possessive in an unnatural way. Susie most likely represents the only connection to innocence and decency in JJ's life, he desperately clutches her to retain a shred of humanity. Of course, in the film there is no real evidence that JJ wants to be a normal human being, we can read that into it if we want to. When Susie walks out at the end, why is JJ so devastated? Because he has lost his only meaningful, however perverse, human relationship.
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Definitely incest. He even tries to kiss her, had she not turned away it would have been smack on the mouth. A few years later Burt is hitting on a teen girl in The Swimmer....
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