This film has a strange look. It's a throwback to the 1940s. It's shot completely on the RKO lot and looks it. Perhaps it was to cut down on costs. You get the same overall feeling when watching 1982's Hammett (a alcoholic's dream-like San Francisco). The studio set gives the film a off look, a throwback look, a cheap look, it reminded me of a typical TV teleplay, especially since quite a few noir by 1956 were opening up, were using imaginative on location work. It's supposed to be Chicago but it oozes backlot. This detracts a bit from it's effectiveness. Using real ghetto Chicago neighborhoods as Call Northside 777 (1948) did, greatly enhanced its realism and grittiness. As is you are watching an uninteresting film, visually unexciting, just one step up from a filmed stage play.
Frankie (Frank Sinatra) |
faux Chicago |
Club Safari and Molly-O (Kim NovaK) |
Sparrow (Arnold Strang) and Frankie |
Frankie and Louie (Darren McGavin) |
Sparrow, Frankie, and Schwiefka (Robert Strauss) |
Zosh (Eleanor Parker) |
Leaving the bar Frankie schleps down the street to his apartment house and his wheelchair bound shrewish wife Zosh (Eleanor Parker). She is pushy, overly possessive, and a conniver, the Femme Fatale of the piece. Frankie tells her that he's clean. He's got the monkey off his back. In the hospital he learned that if he keeps busy, keeps practicing his drumming, he won't be tempted to geeze. But, when he sets up the drum to practice Zosh either keeps interrupting, or tells him the pounding gives her a headache. It takes about five minutes of nagging to push Frankie off the rails. He heads out the door looking for Louie and the needle.
Detective Bednar rt., (Emile Meyer) |
When Louie looking for Frankie walks into the apartment he discovers that Zosh can walk and has been faking her disability to make Frankie feel guilty. Zosh in a panic pushes him off the stairway landing and he falls a couple of stories to his death. When the police arrive they suspect Frankie had a fight with his pusher, and Zosh lets them believe so. It all goes Noirsville.
Noirsville
Doro Merande |
Both Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando were given the script for the part of Frankie. Sinatra researched the part spending time at rehab clinic watching geezers going cold turkey. He also learned to play drums. If he got the part through mob connections I wouldn't be surprised. The rest of the cast are good, Eleanor Parker (Caged (1950), Detective Story (1951), Darren McGavin (The Case Against Brooklyn (1958), Mike Hammer TV Series (1958–1959)), Kim Novak (Pushover (1954), 5 Against the House (1955), Vertigo (1958)), Robert Strauss (Stalag 17 (1953)), I Mobster (1959), Emile Meyer (Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), Shield for Murder (1954), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), The Lineup (1958)), Arnold Stang and Doro Merande vie for the biggest schnozzola in the film, they have a scene together that resembles two toucans having a sword fight.
The Man With The Golden Arm was nominated for three Academy Awards: Sinatra for Best Actor in a Leading Role, for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White and for Best Music (Elmer Bernstein). Sinatra garnered best actor awards by the BAFTAs and The New York Film Critics. 7/10 Update - TCM showed a fantastic new print and I've replaced the old underwater looking screencaps.
The much Noir-er storyline of the novel:
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Often referring to his drug habit as the "thirty-five-pound monkey on his back", Frankie initially tries to keep Sparrow and the others in the dark about it. He sends Sparrow away whenever he visits "Nifty Louie" Fomorowski, his supplier. One night, while fighting in a back stairwell, Frankie inadvertently kills Nifty Louie. He and Sparrow attempt to cover up his role in the murder.
Nifty Louie owed money to politically connected men, and finding his killer becomes a priority for the police department. Sparrow is held for questioning by the police, and he is moved from station to station to circumvent Habeas corpus requirements. Eventually he breaks down and reveals what he knows, and Frankie is forced to flee.
While on the run, Frankie manages to find Molly at a strip club near Lake Street. He hides in her apartment and beats his addiction, but in the end the authorities learn where he is hiding. He barely manages to escape and gets shot in the foot, leaving Molly behind. He flees to a flophouse, but without any hope of reuniting with Molly or staying free, he hangs himself in his room on April Fools' Day, 1948.
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