MovieChat Forums > Sweet Smell of Success (1957) Discussion > Where does the title come from?

Where does the title come from?


I get it that Sidney toasted success, but where does "the sweet smell" of success come from?

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"Sweet" has been used metaphorically to refer to something pleasing. One of the earliest uses of it being attached to success is from 1684:

"A Woman drunk with sweet Success; Whom smiling Fate had brought to dare no less"

From Creech's translation of the Odes, Satyrs, and Epistles of Horace

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Didn't he say before toasting success that it was his favorite perfume?

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Success == Money.

Proud member of the Pro-film Anti-digital Society (PFADS).

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