Steve Dallas showed gumption by standing up to J.J., but I never thought of him as the hero (nor Susan a heroine) so much as a square. He also seemed miscast as a musician. Within the means of the script, his character served a purpose: a competitor for Susan's affections, a chance to pit integrity vs. deceit, a means to introduce New York's music scene. But the actor himself seemed washed-out next to larger-than-life Sidney and J.J.
I wonder whether anyone else had the same impression, and if so, what might be behind it. Was he not to compete with the film's big names, especially (as in Tony Curtis' case) when some thought playing villains was a risky career move? If the audience felt more in touch with Steve and Susan, would J.J. and Sidney's actions been more turn-off than intrigue?
5 comments:
Great question!
I suppose the daring thing — it wouldn't have passed Hollywood code — would have been to have Susan fall for Chico Hamilton, the authentic black jazzman.
(I sort of saw the marijuana accusation as a way of associating Steve with his black musician brethren, since pot was such a huge part of that scene — making him look more black, as it were). It's hard to imagine J.J. objecting much if Steve were a milquetoast accountant. I think his career and lifestyle and the people he associated with were what made J.J. see him as unworthy of his sister.
Maybe the filmmaker should have had Steve scheming for good — show him to be just as smart and determined as his enemies).
I liked him, though. I was rooting for him. And that didn't make the others' villainy any less entertaining for me.
I didn't care much for Steve. He was a dud during a lot of scenes. I agree with cl: It's hard for me to associate him with a "jazz lifestyle" or pot-smoking or any of that. He seemed to me like an accountant holding a guitar.
I loved Sidney and J.J.'s talk about Steve's "integrity." "Integrity is a pocketful of firecrackers waiting for a match."
I thought he was very believable as a jazz musician. They showed him actually playing the guitar and he was great. But maybe the main reason I found it easy to think of him that way is that he was a lot like the best jazz guitar player I've ever personally known. I get what you're saying about him seeming like an accountant, but that's what my friend is like, too.
You are exactly right: he is a square. The first time that Sidney tried to find Steve, he asked the other band members where the “cat” was. They kind of blankly asked, “who?” Now part of that was that they had no interest in helping Sidney find Steve, but it also seems like it never occurred to them to think of Steve as a cat. He was a square.
Perhaps the character was this flat on purpose in that the film makers didn’t want you to think of him as somebody who really might have been a pot smoker with a free wheeling, free loving, big city jazz lifestyle. Picking up on kc’s idea, Steve and Susan at the end of the movie can be seen as representing the American public rejecting Walter Winchell. It was a public more square than cool.
Was the actor actually a musician? I noticed on the credits that it was a real jazz quintet (Chico Hamilton quartet), and that kid was really playing the guitar, so I wondered whether it was a non-acting musician who played Steve.
Scratch that, I just read his list of credits on imdb.com. He had already been in 40 movies and TV shows before Sweet Smell of Success.
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