Review of Love Me, Love My Doll (2007) by David F — 28 Feb 2009

For some reason I've been holding off on watching this film, I've had it on tape off of TCM for more than a year but I just never got around to it. Well, I finally watched it, and it turned out to be an entertaining and likeable musical from Joseph L Mankiewicz.

Marlon Brando stars as Sky Masterson (one of the many great names used in this film), a big shot gambler who will bet anything. Nathan Detroit (played by Frank Sinatra) bets him that he can't woo missionary Jean Simmons and take her on a date in Havana. And that's pretty much the set up of this fun film.

The songs are good (though some pretty forgetful) and are well performed, and who knew that Brando had a good singing voice? But the film is a bit overlong and some of the songs could've been cut, but this film's pretty hard to dislike. The characters are entertaining (imagine all of the characters that Ray Liotta introduces in that long tracking shot in GoodFellas singing and dancing together) and they all have that tough guy charm. And they all speak clearly and must never ever use contractions in their vocabulary.

Nice sets and costumes, and the 4 leads are all enjoyable, especially Brando in his great Luck Be a Lady number.

Overall, it's an entertaining film, a bit long, but never boring. I enjoyed it.