 Hecht @-@ Hill @-@ Lancaster allowed Mackendrick to familiarize himself with New York City before shooting the movie . In Notes on Sweet Smell of Success , Mackendrick said , " One of the characteristic aspects of New York , particularly of the area between 42nd Street and 57th Street , is the neurotic energy of the crowded sidewalks . This was , I argued , essential to the story of characters driven by the uglier aspects of ambition and greed " . He took multiple photographs of the city from several fixed points and taped the pictures into a series of panoramas that he stuck on a wall and studied once he got back to Hollywood . 
