CAMERON KELSALL: Sweet Smell of Success makes an imperfect case for noir as a musical genre. The adaptation of Ernest Lehman’s classic look at the entertainment industry’s underbelly, crafted by the weighty team of Marvin Hamlisch, John Guare and Craig Carnelia, fizzled quickly on Broadway in 2002. The material has the unpleasant distinction of feeling lightweight and rancorous at the same time. Although some of the score is tuneful, Hamlisch’s musical geniality seems an ill match for an unapologetically dark morality tale. Still, the show has its admirers—among them Ted Sperling, who programmed it as the season-opening concert for his MasterVoices series. Yet despite a heavy-hitting cast and strong musical values, the proceedings veer far from success.

DAVID FOX: Cameron, your point about musicals and noir is an intriguing one. Yes, there are some obvious ways in which traditional musical theater seems like an odd fit with noir, though given the popularity of both greatly loved American genres, you’d think more people would have tried it out. Yet reading what you wrote, I’m struck that the only other noir musical I can come up with is City of Angels, and that’s more of a comedic riff than true noir. 

But as you also point out, Marvin Hamlisch wouldn’t be the first—or even the 10th—composer I’d think of for this project. His great fame, forged in the 1970s, is steeped in a kind of heart-on-your-sleeve emotional transparency. It’s the essential note of A Chorus Line, and he capitalized on it in They’re Playing Our Song, the bittersweet musical romance based on his own relationship with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager. And of course, it’s there in “The Way We Were,” an omnipresent hit for Streisand and others in the waning days of adult pop radio play. All very winning and very successful material, but of a completely different mood. Frankly, by 2002, Hamlisch’s star had faded considerably.

CK: The Sweet Smell score includes several lovely songs, but it’s perhaps telling that the most memorable, “I Cannot Hear the City,” finds Hamlisch in his typical romantic mode; it’s an indulgent ballad sung by Dallas, a rising jazz pianist, to his girlfriend Susan, who unbeknown to him is the sister of the powerful gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker. It was performed ardently in the MasterVoices concert by Noah J. Ricketts in the first act, and its return in the second was a welcome balm amid a fairly aimless denouement. But Hamlisch’s music overall lacks the biting irony to portray the dog-eat-dog world in which Hunsecker and Sidney Falco, his protégé-turned-prey, operate.

DF: I think the lack of bite is the main takeaway for me, too. The movie has exactly the kind of raw, high voltage quality you’d expect from noir, including its own highly memorable score by two real heavy hitters: Elmer Bernstein (who provides most of the non-diegetic music), and the Chico Hamilton Quartet, whose angular jazz additions really punctuate the edginess of the story. While I rather admire that Hamlisch decides to go in a different direction, his own sound world here is too generic.

CK: Even so, the MasterVoices presentation was slick and enjoyable—a respectable endeavor put together in a relatively short period of time. It benefited from a fine lead performance by Raúl Esparza as J.J., whose intense energy suited the nefarious intentions of his character. Ali Louis Bourzgui matched him well as Sidney. He was believable as someone who would shirk his morals to achieve success, and as someone who would ultimately fall victim to his own hubris. The contemporary folk singer Lizzy McAlpine fit easily into the musical theater idiom. She remains, however, a limited actress: that wasn’t such a problem when she made her Broadway debut earlier this season in Floyd Collins, but here, as Susan, you wanted someone who could give a bit more of a complicated subtext to the character. Still, the pleasure of her voice remained sui generis.

DF: I do want to commend MasterVoices for revisiting Sweet Smell. This ambitious, imaginative company has done many very fine projects across a wide spectrum of genres and styles. In the moment when the City Center Encores series dropped the ball on reviving rare material, this group has stepped in. In addition to showcasing their superb choral ensemble, they’ve brought in major performers to round out the casts. One reason for doing this piece surely was for Raúl Esparza, who is a perfect fit for J.J. Hunsecker, both as a no-holds-barred actor and a fine singer (surely stronger as the latter than its creator, John Lithgow).

As you’ve said, Noah Ricketts sang superbly, as did Ali Louis Bourzgui and Lizzy McAlpine. It’s more a weakness of the show than of their work that none of the supporting actors emerge with the profile that their characters have in the film, particularly Sidney, who needs to register more fully as a partner and (spoiler alert) later betrayer of J.J. And as for the leads, the film’s original pairing of Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis sets an impossibly high bar.

But then, that’s the problem in a nutshell: what you have here is an attempt to take a nearly flawless film and adapt it into a less suitable genre. Maybe there are composers, lyricists and librettists out there who could make it work. But here, what was noir perfection emerges as pale gray.

Photos by Toby Tenenbaum.