The Man With the Golden Arm
Director: Otto Preminger
Year Released: 1955
Rating: 3.0
For being as old and "dated" (as many reviewers claim), this early film about drug addiction keeps up pretty well, mostly because of the surprisingly good performance by Frank Sinatra as a junkie trying to straighten his life out. The story around him isn't as quite as sound - Eleanor Parker overacts as his 'crippled' wife; the ending is a bust - and Sinatra's rather quick recovery at the end doesn't ring true, but Preminger does create a genuine feeling of despair, and Kim Novak is effective as a depressed woman of ill-repute. Elmer Bernstein's jazz score isn't up to Duke Ellington standards, but it does the trick.
