Review of The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) by Cindy I — 06 Sep 2010

Decent but not great movie about a ex-junkie and how he got sucked back into his habit.

I'm not a Sinatra fan, but he did OK as heroin addict Frankie Machine. The title refers to Johnny's job, which is a card dealer for illegal card games. Eleanor Powell plays Johnny's wife, who is in a wheelchair because of an accident that was Johnny's fault. Kim Novak plays Johnny's mistress with her usual stiff as a board portrayal (I'm not a Novak fan either) . I'm so used to Eleanor Powell playing strong women, that seeing her playing a weakling (although not as weak as she first appears...heheh) was interesting. Her performance reminded me a great deal of Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, which wouldn't be for another seven years. Could Joan have based her protrayal on Powell's?

My main complaint about this film is that it seems to be two films edited together. We have the carddealer/heroin addict story, and then we have the love triangle between Johnny, his crippled wife and Molly. They only slightly seem to be connected.

I can't say that this film made me any more of a fan of either Sinatra or Novak, but I don't consider it a waste of time either.