The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)

Pick your poison - alcohol, money, drugs, or an insane amount of guilt.

Intro.

I'm finding the 1950's to be a very fascinating era to study.  Right now I've been watching a lot of films that pushed the limits and broke the rules of the strict Hollywood codes put in place by the Breen office (see The Moon is Blue), thanks to TCM's recent film series.  Otto Preminger is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors, mainly because of his sheer determination to break as many of the constricting codes as possible.  In The Man with the Golden Arm he goes after the rule that drugs, drug paraphernalia, usage and all things associated with drugs are forbidden.  You couldn't show someone taking drugs and it could never be said out loud.  So this film, which centers on a man struggling to kick his heroin addiction, exploded out of the box.  And what an explosion!

Overview
Right from the get-go we know that Frankie Machine (Frank Sinatra) is coming back home from some time in drug rehab.  He first stops at the local bar, where he is greeted by all of his colorful neighbors, including his good friend, petty thief Sparrow (Arnold Stang).  His old boss is there too, Zero Schwiefka (Robert Strauss), who runs high-stakes, back room poker games.  Frankie's heroin dealer Louie (Darren McGavin), is also there, and offers him a free "fix".  Frankie refuses and keeps refusing as he tries to get away from that kind of life.  He returns home to his wife Zosch (Eleanor Parker), who is in a wheelchair and tells her he has learned to play the drums in rehab and wants to go into the music business.  She begs him to go back to being a dealer for Schwiefka because she doesn't want anything to change (she doesn't want him to ever leave again).  It seems like Frankie can't get a break though, as he waits to hear back about auditions and has to constantly turn down offers from Louie and demands from his wife to go back to the shady poker games.  He gives in to both though, and from there he begins a downward spiral.  The only people on his side are Sparrow and Frankie's neighbor Molly (Kim Novak).  Molly and Frankie are in love, but Frankie won't leave Zosch until the doctors can cure her.  What he doesn't know is that Zosch has already been cured and is only pretending to be disabled to keep Frankie from leaving her.  Frankie hits bottom when he first flubs his one real chance at getting a job as a drummer in a big band (his one dream) and then gets caught cheating as he deals at poker (losing his valuable "golden arm" reputation).  He had cheated in an exchange with Louie so he could get another fix.  Pushed to the edge, he decides to do his own withdrawal.  He has Molly lock him up in a room of her apartment and begins the long, painful process of recovery.  But an angry Louie shows up and catches Zosch up and walking.  From there the tensions keep rising until, much like the Breen codes, the film's ending shatters the lives of all the characters.
 
Highlights
Frank Sinatra may have won his Oscar for From Here to Eternity but man, he should have gotten an Oscar for this film.  TCM host Robert Osborne said that Sinatra had researched and prepared for this role for weeks and never worked harder to get such a realistic performance.  Sinatra always has a bit of that manic side showing through, and he puts it to good use here.  The withdrawal sequence especially showcased just how hard he worked - it's painful and heartbreaking to watch, even when you tell yourself he's only acting.  He's also joined by some equally talented co-stars like Kim Novak and Eleanor Parker (who I finally found out looked familiar because years later she played the Baroness in The Sound of Music). 

The relationship between Frankie and Zosch needs to be discussed.  It's such a tragic situation - we learn that Zosch was injured in a car crash where an intoxicated Frankie was driving.  Once in the hospital, doctors said she'd never walk again and not long thereafter she and Frankie married (out of guilt, you think?).  They've been together three years and her passive-aggressive nature just turns on the guilt whenever Frankie wants to do something different that may take him away from her.  The worst part is that she really can walk!  You go from feeling kind of sorry for her to despising her.  She's just as dependent on Frankie as he is on heroin.  She needles him constantly (no pun intended) to give up his hopes of joining a band and instead do exactly what she wants him to do.  Their whole relationship runs on guilt.  That's probably why Frankie and Molly get along so well - she's the exact opposite of Zosch and willing to do whatever it takes to help Frankie kick his habit for good, even at the risk of jail time.  Her own crutch is an alcoholic boyfriend, whom she finally banishes from her apartment. 
 

Finally, the storytelling in the film is really well done.  I liked the intertwining stories of Frankie being a dealer (at poker) and his need for a dealer (in drugs).  It took me awhile in the beginning to realize the difference, as everyone kept calling Frankie a dealer - I thought he had been a heroin dealer who had gotten addicted.  Then there's the name of the film.  Frankie's called "the man with the golden arm" because of his prowess as a card dealer, but he's also got a golden arm for playing the drums and of course those are the same arms that he's destroying with his shots of heroin.  It all creates a tight, compelling tale of addiction that anyone can relate to - like Frankie says, "everybody's a habitual something".  

Review and Recommendations

One of the reasons directors like Preminger wanted to break the codes in the fifties was to create films with more adult themes and lure consumers away from the new fad called television and back into the movie theaters.  And you can't break out of the code any more than The Man with the Golden Arm does.  Not only is it an engrossing story, but one of Sinatra's best performances.  Definitely worth watching! 

Pal Joey (1957)

Intro.

I love hearing the backstories of films from TCM's host Robert Osborne.  For example, he explained that the story of Pal Joey began back in the 1930s as a Broadway play.  At one point it starred Gene Kelly, so when studios began trying to  make it into a film, he was their first choice.  However, due to the racy nature of the story and Hollywood's strict codes, it took a long while to be green-lighted.  Finally, Columbia Pictures made it, and cast their biggest star of the 1940s and 50s, Rita Hayworth.  They also cast up-and-coming star Kim Novak.  The problem was finding a leading man - Kelly wasn't available, so they tried Marlon Brando (who couldn't do it) and Jack Lemmon (who was still more or less unknown and Rita Hayworth did not want in the film).  At last Frank Sinatra was cast and the film was a perfect fit for him. 

Overview

Pal Joey feels almost like a Sinatra biography - or at least, the life he presented to the world.  The film opens with Joey (Frank Sinatra) getting thrown out of town for seducing an underaged girl.*  He winds up in San Francisco, where he looks up an old friend in the nightclubs on Barbary Coast.  He talks his way into a job as a singer and it's clear from his first performance that he excels at the job - women throughout the club start falling into a trance just listening to him.  It seems that the only one not affected is one of the chorus girls, Linda English (Kim Novak), who is a bit more reserved than the rest.  Joey pretends not to care about her, but then deliberately moves into the apartment next to hers.  Their first evening job away from the club is at a big fundraiser gala.  The much admired hostess Vera Simpson (Rita Hayworth) puts on a class act, but Joey happens to recognize her from her time as a famous stripper.  When the auction falls short of the monetary goal, Joey pipes up that he'd pay a thousand dollars to see her do her most famous routine right there on stage.  The bidding opens and the goal is met.  But that's only the beginning of an interesting push and pull between Vera and Joey.  Meanwhile, Linda starts to soften towards Joey, thanks to an adorable terrier named Snuffy.  Vera finally makes peace with Joey as well as a deal to open a new nightclub in Joey's name.  Joey's lifelong dream finally comes true, but is short lived as he realizes he's working with a very jealous woman.  The love triangle drives Joey to finally make his choice, but can both women live with it? 

Highlights

Pal Joey is a musical without feeling like a musical.  It's along the same lines as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or Young at Heart: the songs are a natural part of the plot.  Almost all of the songs are done as nightclub performances, when you'd expect to hear them, not out in the middle of the street just for the heck of it.  And these songs are wonderful!  They are all Rogers and Hart numbers, and very familiar to many Frank Sinatra fans.  I loved hearing and seeing him perform some of my favorite songs like "I Could Write a Book" or "The Lady is a Tramp."  Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak each had some great numbers (like "Bewitched" and "My Funny Valentine"), though I learned afterward that they had both been dubbed.  Dubbed or not, it was still a great score and a lot of talent.

I want to talk briefly about icons.  I noticed that in this film, there's a part where a large poster of Joey is put up outside the Barbary Coast club.  That poster is one of the iconic Frank Sinatra images - it's the one where he's got his hat forward and his trenchcoat slung over his shoulder.  I mentioned before that this film was a perfect fit for Frank and it was.  I can't imagine anyone else in this role (except maybe Gene Kelly).  It's almost as if Angelo Maggio** had survived Pearl Harbor and was working the coast after the war.  Joey is the legend of Sinatra - singer, swinger, heartbreaker with all the swagger and bravado we know and love.  As much as I love Frank Sinatra, I know he wasn't the most handsome of leading men, but his voice and confidence more than make up for it.      

Rita Hayworth at this point in her career had already been a top leading lady for a number of years.  She was #1 at Columbia Pictures, having made her mark in films like Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Cover Girl (1944) and Gilda (1946)***.  Kim Novak had just started to rise, having made a huge success in the film Picnic only two years earlier.  As Robert Osborne said, this film was like a "passing of the crown" from Columbia's former leading lady to the new one.  Both women are great, talented actresses and each one does a phenomenal job in this movie.  I think Novak, Hayworth and Sinatra have equal roles in the film, though ultimately it does bring sharp focus to just Sinatra's character.  The film is a strong vehicle for all three performers and a must-see!

I have to mention some of the great lines in this movie.  First, upon seeing Joey sing for the first time, one of the chorus girls remarks how cute he is.  Her friend says: "You think everyone with pants is cute." To which the girl replies: "That's not true.  I like lots of people without pants."  Later on, Vera tells Joey he has "all the subtlety of a battering ram."  I think I've heard this line before, but never delivered as well as Rita Hayworth does it!  A few times we also hear the line, in reference to Joey, that "one false move and you're out on your Francis!"  I don't know how they came up with that line, whether it was really a figure of speech or not, but I laughed as Sinatra is a Francis.  Joey throughout the film spells out his words for emphasis, but never spells them correctly.  I wasn't sure each time if he was being funny or if he was uneducated.  For example, he spells classy "K-l-a-s-y".  Some of those misspellings Frank Sinatra kept using off stage - his line to Snuffy to get off the bed: "Get off, O-R-F, off!" was used during his performances at the Sands in the 60s.  Just another way that films cross into real life and legends are made.

Review and Recommendation

Pal Joey is a brilliant showcase for three legends of Hollywood.  It's a fun, energetic story full of romance and great music.  Maybe not one of the most famous of musicals, it's nevertheless an entertaining one and well worth watching.

Random Film Trivia:
* Sinatra was once arrested for "seduction and adultery in New Jersey in the 1930s.  Charges were eventually dropped, but the story stuck with Sinatra.
** Angelo Maggio was Sinatra's character in From Here to Eternity (1953); a performance which won Sinatra an Academy Award.  He wanted the part because he said it was a perfect fit for him and he wouldn't even have to act. 

*** For modern movie fans, Gilda was the film being shown in The Shawshank Redemption (1994), which is why Andy asks for Rita Hayworth.  The original story by Stephen King is called Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.  I highly recommend both the film and the novella!  I got the movie listing from IMDb.

Picnic (1955)

Intro.

Very few people I know today who are in their twenties recognize the name William Holden.  I don't have an exact number, but in conversations with my friends, I've realized most of them know Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, but not Bill Holden.  In the mid-1950s, he was the leading male star in Hollywood, and known as America's Golden Boy.  I recommend most of his films (of the ones I've seen), starting with the epic The Bridge on the River Kwai.  But now I have to add Picnic to that list - what a great film!  And a perfect film to watch on Labor Day!

Overview

Picnic opens with a train slowing down in a small Kansas town and the engineer waking a passenger.  The passenger is a wandering vagrant (Bill Holden), who has an easy, friendly manner.  He goes to the first house he can find and asks for work.  The old woman, Mrs. Potts, tells him no one works on Labor Day and invites him to breakfast.  He soon is working in her yard anyway and without a shirt, which attracts the attention of next door neighbors: mother Flo (Betty Field), daughters Madge (Kim Novak) and Millie (Susan Strasberg), and their boarder, an aging, single schoolteacher named Rosemary Sidney (Rosalind Russell).  The man gets cleaned up and goes off to meet up with his old college buddy, Alan Benson (Cliff Robertson in his film debut).  Alan, son of the wealthiest man around, relives some good old times with Holden's character, who we learn is Hal Carter, the former college football hero.  Alan is taking his girl, Madge, to the Labor Day picnic and encourages Hal to take Millie.  The whole group, including Rosemary's date Howard, goes to the picnic and has a great time.  Madge is crowned Neewollah queen (a big honor in the town), uptight Rosemary relaxes as she enjoys a bottle of liquor smuggled in by Howard, and Millie starts crushing on Hal.  Things heat up after sundown, as Madge and Hal give in to a growing attraction and dance together.  It's a pretty intense performance that gets out of hand when a jealous Rosemary (who's already having problems dealing with the loss of her youth) breaks them up, tearing Hal's shirt.  Then teenaged Millie grows ill, having stolen the liquor to deal with her own jealousy.  After getting chewed out by almost everyone, Hal takes off, but Madge follows him.  They spend the night together, but come morning Alan has reported his car stolen (he had lent it to Hal).  Hal has to get out of town and Madge has to finally choose what she really wants out of life.

Highlights   
This was only Kim Novak's fourth credited film, but she is wonderful in it.  It's very easy to see why she rose to be such a big star.  She and William Holden make a good, believable couple, despite Holden being a few years too old for this role.  There was a 15 year difference in their ages, but I think Holden's charm and box-office appeal helped make the film a success.  Of course, I think the number of shirtless scenes probably didn't hurt either.  When I started watching the film, all I could think of was that the whole plot really revolved around his half-naked shots.  It makes sense then that the studio wanted the top male actor of 1955 in the role after it was turned down by the actor who had made it a hit on Broadway.  They wanted a built-in audience and they got it.      

I really liked how this film was shot.  There are so many elements that go into a frame, and in Picnic each one seems to fit together like a well-woven quilt.  Everything that is mentioned or seen once comes back later in the film - no loose ends.  The scene where Rosemary tears Hal's shirt is reminiscent of his arrival that morning when he took his shirt off to be cleaned (I told you the whole plot revolved on him being shirtless).  In the opening sequence, Hal cleans up at the river by a small waterfall - he returns to this same spot with Madge and then later when he is running away from the police.  It's a key point in the film, because it's at those falls where we learn the most about his character.  The shots themselves are also really well-constructed, particularly during the dance sequence, which features many shots at waist level.  All we see of Hal and Madge is from their elbows to their knees.  Framing alone can tell a great story.

Characters are great in this film.  You can't say the film is solely about Hal.  We learn just as much about Madge and Rosemary, and even quite a bit about Millie and Flo.  None of them are all good or all bad, but completely and entirely human.  They could be your next door neighbors.  Well, neighbors in 1955 maybe.  There's a side story about Madge and Flo too.  Flo is still hurt by her husband walking out on her some ten or twelve years earlier, and wants Madge to marry the "right kind of man" like Alan.  She keeps stressing that Madge should convince Alan to propose soon, before her beauty starts to fade.  At one point, Madge says "I'm only 19!" To which Flo responds, "Then next summer you'll be 20.  Then 21.  Then 40."  As if in answer to this warning, we see Rosemary, almost or already 40 and angry at still being an old maid.  Through the course of the picnic (and steady intake of alcohol), she goes from sarcastic to jealous to downright crazy.  Her resentment is aimed at the young lovers Hal and Madge, which is why she so viciously goes after Hal.  Howard, as boastful and unattractive as he first appears, becomes a sympathetic character by first helping Hal and then by marrying Rosemary.  Finally, Millie really makes an impact as the kid sister growing up.  During the course of one day she goes from being a stubborn tomboy to a lovely young lady.  She and Hal get along so well because in many ways he's still a fourteen year old boy.  Millie might still be a child, but she's also the one who has insight enough to tell her sister what to do in the end.

Picnic turns out to be no picnic for any of the characters, if you'll pardon the awful pun there.  It's a great film that encompasses not just one day in the life of these people or a holiday celebration in a small 1950s town, but also the hard choices we have to make about love and our own destinies.  I think Mrs. Potts says it best.  At the end, she admits that she liked Hal because he was so different and shook everyone out of their routine, everyday lives.  It's ironic since Hal only wanted to reinvent himself and have a shot at a normal life.  Whether he gets that or not is left up to us.      

Review and Recommendation
I loved this movie.  And not because William Holden was shirtless (although, I have to admit, he's really handsome).  It's masterfully done, with great cinematography, acting and story-lines.  It's one of the strongest character-driven films I've seen, and one of Holden's best performances.  It's also great to see Rosalind Russell and Kim Novak together, as two such talented actresses share the same screen!  I am definitely adding this to my Top Films list and recommend it to anyone interested in the real classics of Hollywood's golden age.

P.S. Thanks to TCM for all the movie backstory!  Also on their website, I saw that Picnic was remade in 2000 with James Brolin and Gretchen Mol.  I wonder if it can even come close to being as good as this version.

P.P.S. I was talking about this film at work the other day, and a woman in the breakroom told me that she had done the play of Picnic in high school and had hated it.  She said it was the worst play.  I think it could have been great if only Bill Holden had been there to take his shirt off.  It's always good to hear other people's responses to works - be it the film itself or the original play or book, the medium can often affect the story itself.