Sweet Smell of Success

I was watching Sweet Smell of Success earlier in the evening, for the first time (I came in a bit late), and it felt as though I'd stumbled into watching the longest episode of The Twilight Zone I'd never seen.

It looks like a Twilight Zone episode — beautifully photographed in black-and-white, most of the story seems to take place at night, on city streets. It even sounds like a Twilight Zone episode — strange, not-quite-natural dialoge (much of it written by Clifford Odets), and a great jazz soundtrack (by Elmer Bernstein). Martin Milner is in it, too — and you know something just isn't right when he's been cast as a jazz guitarist.