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Early in The Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), a lowly press agent in New York, meets J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), a powerful NY columnist, at a restaurant to discuss resumed endorsements of his clients in Hunsecker’s writings. Hunsecker, probably modeled after gossip columnist Walter Winchell, wields so much power that he can exalt or destroy anybody with his words. For example, at the dinner table in this scene he humiliates a U.S. Senator into submission by exposing the Congressman’s lust for a young female wannabe-starlet sitting next to him. Falco recognizes the influence Hunsecker can have on his career and hopes, as he says later, to use Hunsecker to climb “the golden ladder to the place I want to get.”

At the table, Hunsecker, holds up a cigarette and says to Falco, “Match me, Sidney,” to which Falco replies, “Not right now.” The line “Match me” isn’t just about lighting a cigarette; it’s also indicative of a fight, like a match in a ring. Falco can’t “match” Hunsecker at this point in his cold-hearted manipulations. This one line helps to reveal the dynamic of their relationship at that point in the story, as well as to give context to the moral downturn of Falco.

There is a telling scene early on in the story which shows their contrasting levels of “success:” Hunsecker sits in a luxurious room in his apartment. He wears a comfortable bathrobe while sipping coffee at a well appointed table. He receives a phone call from Falco who talks from a dingy room while seated next to a bottle of Alka Seltzer. This discrepancy in their respective situations illustrates that Falco is the one under pressure to please J. J.

Later on, Hunsecker gives Falco the cold shoulder because the latter hasn’t quashed a budding romance between the former’s sister, Susan (Susan Harrison), and a jazz musician, Steve Dallas (Martin Milner). To get back into Hunsecker’s favor, Falco must discredit Dallas through a rival writer. Falco lures a cigarette girl, who needs money for her boy’s military schooling, into sleeping with the other columnist. He gives the girl to the writer so that the columnist will write that Dallas is a Communist.

Falco initially cringes at Hunsecker’s extremes at going after Dallas, but gets on board when Hunsecker promises him the chance to write his column while he is away. Falco has descended so low in the end that when Susan is contemplating suicide by jumping off of Hunsecker’s high rise apartment, his only concern is that he will get blamed for her death.

Early on in the film Falco won’t wear an overcoat in order to save hatcheck tips. But at the end, he is wearing an overcoat just like Hunsecker, which implies that he has climbed that “golden ladder” to the columnist’s level of “success.” He soon may be the one asking other amoral upstarts to “Match me.”