The Man With The Golden Arm (1955)

The Man With The Golden Arm (US 1955 119min.) directed by Otto Preminger

Gritty drama starring Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak. Chicago: card dealer and heroin addict Frankie Machine has just got out of jail. He returns to his old haunts determined to kick his habits and become a musician. But the pressures of dealing with a wife in a wheelchair, a pusher and the woman he really loves make things tough.

In the mid to late-fifties Otto Preminger made a near-career from upsetting those who were intent on maintaining the status quo both in society as a whole and especially on the cinema screen ; his Anatomy Of A Murder (1959) became a cause celebre with its frank portrayal of marital infidelity, abortion and discussion of women's undergarments.

The Man With The Golden Arm is, if anything, more groundbreaking. Its full and (reasonably) honest approach to the perils of  heroin addiction certainly has nothing to do with the Doris Day/Rock Hudson view of American life during the immediate post-War decade.

At the centre, leading man Sinatra is on fine form, In something approaching the doldrums in his musical career (although on the cusp of a re-birth) he seems willing to put everything he can into his portrayal of a weak man who feels he deserves a break after cleaning-up but who finds, time and time again, that circumstance and fate have different ideas for him.

He's a jumping bag of nervous energy, seldom able to sit still, flitting from flat to bar to card game and constantly attempting to push back against the tide of people who all want a piece of him and are intent on pulling him (almost literally) apart.

Aside from the Robert Strauss character, who wants him back dealing at his illegal card parties, and the smooth, elegant evil of the local pusher Louie (a great turn by Darren McGavin) Frankie is also constantly tugged at by the two women in his life.

Eleanor Parker plays Zosch, the wife Frankie married as she lay in hospital following a car crash caused (it's implied) by Frankie driving while high. Confined to a wheelchair Parker is constantly nagging Frankie for money - for more doctors, for better food, to fund dreams and schemes - she appears to contribute nothing to the couple's life other than being a perpetual drain on Frankie's energy, resources and time.

Parker is convincing and suitably annoying in this difficult role.

His escape from this domestic torment is downstairs neighbour Molly (Kim Novak, herself on the brink of becoming something rather special via Hitchcock) - she's a nightclub worker and has a greater understanding of Sinatra's character's desperate desire to break free from his background and make something of himself.
She allows Frankie to set up his drums in her flat and practice there when Zosch bans them from the marital home on account of the noise and the affect this has on her 'delicate' nerves. She listens to and encourages his dreams, she's the one who attempts to keep him straight and out of the clutches of the more shady members of their neighbourhood. It's obvious from the first time we meet her that Novak's character is Frankie's soulmate ; but his sense of duty and obligation seems destined to keep them apart.

Arnold Stang also puts in good work as Sparrow ; Frankie's friend, a low level hustler who hero worships Frankie but whose enthusiasm and lack of skill at his chosen profession also constantly threatens to bring even more trouble into his life.

Preminger makes good use of the limitation of budget which restricts most of the action to a Hollywood backlot distressed so as to appear like a low-rent (Chicago?) neighbourhood. The sense of place is so well developed that it becomes almost as real as any location-shot neo-realist film.

The three central actors are all perfectly pitched and played, the script is solid with an absorbing story, the supporting cast is excellent and Preminger's direction deft and un-intrusive.

A very fine example of a fifties Hollywood film that's not afraid to move outside the mainstream and have the courage to tackle some very mature themes in an honest and thoughtful way.