The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Otto Preminger

Writers:

Nelson Algren (novel)
Walter Newman (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

16 January 1956 (Brazil)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Strung-out junkie deals with daily demoralizing drug addiction while crippled wife and card sharks continue to pull him down.

Plot Keywords:

Drugs | Heroin Addict | Heroin | Drug Addiction | Drug Withdrawl

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 3 nominations

Cast

Frank Sinatra	...	Frankie Machine
Eleanor Parker	...	Zosch Machine
Kim Novak	...	Molly
Arnold Stang	...	Sparrow
Darren McGavin	...	Louie
Robert Strauss	...	Schwiefka
John Conte	...	Drunky
Doro Merande	...	Vi
George E. Stone	...	Sam Markette
George Mathews	...	Williams
Leonid Kinskey	...	Dominiwski
Emile Meyer	...	Detective Bednar

Runtime:

119 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #17011) | Portugal:M/12 | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | Argentina:13

Company:

Otto Preminger Films

Trivia:

The movie's poster was as #14 of "The 25 Best Movie Posters Ever" by Premiere.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Zasha's scrapbook is titled "My Scrapbook of Fatal Accidence" (instead of "accidents").

Quotes:

Frankie Machine: I'm the kind of guy, boy when I move - watch my smoke. But I'm gonna need some good clothes though.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Indie Sex: Censored (2007) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Jazz sequences

Do you think those bobbie soxers I'll really go for me?

(Mild Spoilers) Frankie Machine had been dealt a bad hand in life. A card dealer at an illegal gambling den in his Chicago neighborhood he was busted when the joint was raided by the cops and given six months in jail.

While behind bars Frankie was treated for his heroin addiction at the prisons hospital and learned how to play the drums as part of his rehabilitation program. Now out of prison and back in his old neighborhood Frankie is trying to put his life back together by getting a union card in the Musicians Union and then a job as a drummer in a band and put his old life behind him but instead it catches up with Frankie in no time at all in "The Man with the Golden Arm".

Otto Preminger's ground-breaking 1955 film about heroin addiction with Frank Sinatra giving the performance of his life as the drug addicted card sharp Frankie Machine, the Man with the Golden Arm. Frankie tries to getaway from the life that he lead but has this monkey or, better yet, gorilla on his back that just won't let him. Soild performances by the entire supporting cast starting with Frankie's friend Sparrow, Arnold Stang. Sparrows attempt to get Frankie back on his feet by shoplifting a suit of clothes for him ends up putting him and Frankie in the slammer, and almost back to prison, until his former boss at the gambling den Schwiefka bailed him out.

There's Frankie's psychically as well as emotionally crippled wife Zosch, Eleanor Parker, who sees that her hold on Frankie is slipping and is slowly driven to madness murder and suicide. There's Frankie's drug dealer Louie, with Darren McGavin in one of his first acting roles, who's hold on Frankie is only good as long as he stays addicted and Louie goes out of his way to make sure that he does.

There's the owner of the gambling joint that Frankie works at as it's top card dealer Schwiefka, Robert Strauss, who like Louie goes out of his way to get Frankie back to work for him even though if he's arrested again Frankie's hopes for a new and better life will go down the drain. And then there's Frankie's next-door neighbor and friend Molly, Kim Novak,who goes to almost impossible lengths to get him over his addiction by locking him up in her apartment. It's there that he goes "Cold Turkey" and almost ends up dying trying to kick the habit in one of the most harrowing sequence ever put on film.

A no holds barred movie with explosive performances by everyone involved makes "The Man with the Golden Arm" one of the great classics of realism in motion pictures coming out of the 1950's.