As dark and compelling a tale of a man losing his soul as I’ve ever seen told. Tony Curtis portrays Falco like a trapped animal, fast-moving, fast-talking, but vulnerable and constantly on the edge. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a moral struggle portrayed in a more brilliantly dramatic way, with Falco alternating between the lows of defeat and the highs of victory, able to ignore the destruction in his wake as long as he thinks he’s on the winning team. He’s brilliant and talented, but he’s a small fish in a big ocean of people more talented and brilliant than he, which keeps the danger and tension of his politicking in the red zone in nearly every scene.
And yet, it’s Burt Lancaster who walks away with the film. Lancaster gets one of the all-time great character introductions in a scene where he destroys a senator, Falco, an ingenue, her manager, and unseen people on the phone, all as casually as he was exhaling. That the film later can credibly subvert such a powerful character is a testament to the script which, along with featuring a classic line of dialogue every ten seconds, is a marvel of carefully constructed moving parts. Easily one of my new all-time favorite films. A+
Martha Marcy Nash and Young 