on his face. Shooting on location in New York City also added to Mackendrick's anxieties. Exteriors were shot in the busiest, noisiest areas with crowds of young Tony Curtis fans occasionally breaking through police barriers. Mackendrick remembered, "We started shooting in Times Square at rush hour, and we had high-powered actors and a camera crane and police help and all the rest of it, but we didn’t have any script. We knew where we were going vaguely, but that’s all". Musical score and soundtrack Reaction A preview screening of Sweet Smell of Success was poorly received, as Tony Curtis fans were expecting him to play one of his typical nice guy roles and instead were presented with the scheming Sidney Falco. Mackendrick remembered seeing audience members "curling up, crossing their arms and legs, recoiling from the screen in disgust". Burt Lancaster's fans were not thrilled with their idol either, "finding the film too static and talky". The film was a box office failure, and Hecht blamed his producing partner Hill. "The night of the preview, Harold said to me, 'You know you've wrecked our company? We're going to lose over a million dollars on this picture,'" Hill recalled. According to Lehman, Lancaster blamed him, claiming that: "Burt threatened me at a party after the preview. He said, 'You didn't have to leave – you could have made this a much better picture. I ought to beat you up.' I said, 'Go ahead – I could use the money.'" Although he and Hecht would fire Mackendrick from The Devil's Disciple for the same painstaking (and costly) approach, Lancaster was quoted as saying that he felt Mackendrick had done a fantastic job for Sweet Smell of Success and that it wasn't his fault the film lost money. He also believed that Curtis should have gotten an Oscar for his role as Falco. Sweet Smell of Success premiered in New York at Loew's State in Times Square on June 27, 1957. Critical reaction was much more favorable. Time magazine said the movie was "raised to considerable dramatic heights by intense acting, taut direction ... superb camera work ... and, above all, by its whiplash dialogue". Time and the New York Herald included the film on their ten-best lists for films released in 1957. The film's critical reputation increased in subsequent decades. David Denby in New York magazine later called it "the most acrid,