Release CalendarTop 250 MoviesMost Popular MoviesBrowse Movies by GenreTop Box OfficeShowtimes & TicketsMovie NewsIndia Movie Spotlight
    What's on TV & StreamingTop 250 TV ShowsMost Popular TV ShowsBrowse TV Shows by GenreTV News
    What to WatchLatest TrailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb SpotlightFamily Entertainment GuideIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsCannes Film FestivalStar WarsAsian Pacific American Heritage MonthSummer Watch GuideSTARmeter AwardsAwards CentralFestival CentralAll Events
    Born TodayMost Popular CelebsCelebrity News
    Help CenterContributor ZonePolls
For Industry Professionals
  • Language
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
Watchlist
Sign In
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
Use app
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
  • FAQ
IMDbPro

The Man I Love

  • 1946
  • 1h 36m
IMDb RATING
6.6/10
1.6K
YOUR RATING
Robert Alda and Ida Lupino in The Man I Love (1946)
Film NoirDramaMusic

A homesick, no-nonsense lounge singer decides to leave New York City to spend some time visiting her two sisters and brother on the West Coast. Eventually she falls in love with a down-and-o... Read allA homesick, no-nonsense lounge singer decides to leave New York City to spend some time visiting her two sisters and brother on the West Coast. Eventually she falls in love with a down-and-out ex-jazz pianist.A homesick, no-nonsense lounge singer decides to leave New York City to spend some time visiting her two sisters and brother on the West Coast. Eventually she falls in love with a down-and-out ex-jazz pianist.

  • Director
    • Raoul Walsh
  • Writers
    • Catherine Turney
    • Jo Pagano
    • Maritta M. Wolff
  • Stars
    • Ida Lupino
    • Robert Alda
    • Andrea King
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.6/10
    1.6K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Raoul Walsh
    • Writers
      • Catherine Turney
      • Jo Pagano
      • Maritta M. Wolff
    • Stars
      • Ida Lupino
      • Robert Alda
      • Andrea King
    • 40User reviews
    • 21Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win total

    Photos66

    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    + 59
    View Poster

    Top cast51

    Edit
    Ida Lupino
    Ida Lupino
    • Petey Brown
    Robert Alda
    Robert Alda
    • Nicky Toresca
    Andrea King
    Andrea King
    • Sally Otis
    Martha Vickers
    Martha Vickers
    • Virginia Brown
    Bruce Bennett
    Bruce Bennett
    • San Thomas
    Alan Hale
    Alan Hale
    • Riley
    Dolores Moran
    Dolores Moran
    • Gloria O'Connor
    John Ridgely
    John Ridgely
    • Roy Otis
    Don McGuire
    Don McGuire
    • Johnny O'Connor
    Warren Douglas
    Warren Douglas
    • Joe Brown
    Craig Stevens
    Craig Stevens
    • Bandleader
    Tony Romano
    Tony Romano
    • Singer at Bamboo Club
    Janet Barrett
    Janet Barrett
    • Cashier
    • (uncredited)
    Patricia Barry
    Patricia Barry
    • Chorine
    • (uncredited)
    Florence Bates
    Florence Bates
    • Mrs. Thorpe
    • (uncredited)
    Monte Blue
    Monte Blue
    • Cop
    • (uncredited)
    Leonard Bremen
    Leonard Bremen
    • Jim the Bartender
    • (uncredited)
    Nancy Brinckman
    Nancy Brinckman
    • Chorine
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Raoul Walsh
    • Writers
      • Catherine Turney
      • Jo Pagano
      • Maritta M. Wolff
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews40

    6.61.6K
    1
    2
    3
    4
    5
    6
    7
    8
    9
    10

    Featured reviews

    8Kitty-47

    It's a mood

    Ida Lupino excelled at playing tough, yet vulnerable, women. One of the best Ida Lupino films, "The Man I Love" is all about atmosphere. It has great music, great images, and great lines all tied to a fast-paced and entertaining, if unlikely, story. This film influenced director Martin Scorsese when he made "New York, New York". Scorsese's film is overlong and overdone, but "The Man I Love" is brisk and sleek. You won't be bored. If you enjoy "The Man I Love", I also recommend the Ida Lupino film "Road House".
    6blanche-2

    It's Ida's film - all the way

    "The Man I Love" is a 1947 film (though made in 1945) directed by Raoul Walsh. The stars are Ida Lupino, Robert Alda, Andrea King, Martha Vickers, Bruce Bennett, Delores Moran, and Alan Hale.

    Lupino plays a nightclub singer, Petey, who goes home to visit her family - two sisters and a brother. They're all in one way or another pretty messed up, so Petey, the strong one, sticks around to try and help. Her brother Johnny (Don McGuire) is married to Gloria (Delores Moran). They're the parents of twins, but Gloria is out a lot visiting "friends." With Johnny working at night, Gloria gets bored easily.

    One of Petey's sisters (King) has a husband (Jon Ridgeley) who is institutionalized due to a breakdown after the war. Petey gets a job at Nicky Toresca's (Robert Alda) nightclub. Toresca is a slimeball who is constantly on the make, but Petey ignores him and goes crazy for a pianist who has seen better days, Sand Thomas (Bennett). But Sand is still grieving over his ex-wife, who comes back to town during the time he and Petey have together before he ships out on a merchant steamer.

    Basically, this is a story about not so great men and the women who love them, except for Gloria's poor husband Johnny - but since Gloria is crazy about Nick Tedesco, we can leave Johnny out. All I can say is, with those twins, Johnny is darn lucky his sisters live across the hall. And Sand's not a bad guy but let's face it, he's carrying a torch for the ex.

    There is music throughout, including the title song played a great deal in the background. Other music: "Why Was I Born," "If I Could Be With You," and "Liza." Peg LaCentra dubbed for Lupino.

    Ida Lupino looks fabulous and wears some great gowns. She plays the strong, independent, no-nonsense Petey well, there for her family for as long as it takes. Robert Alda is smooth with a hint of sleaze, perfect as Nick Tedesco.

    As Sand, Bruce Bennett is good. Bennett was one of the most interesting men in show business. Under his real name of Herman Brix, he was a silver medalist for shotput in the 1928 Olympics. Going into films, Bennett enjoyed a good career in supporting roles, including Mildred Pierce's husband, and roles in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "Dark Passage," "A Stolen Life," etc., and tons of TV. He died in 2007 at the age of 100. I can't imagine what it was like watching his old films and realizing that he'd outlived every single person in the movie.

    Atmospheric with its nightclub scenes and fog, "The Man I Love" is a different kind of film - it looks like a noir, is part love story, and part an unusual family drama.
    viamber

    Ida Lupino is a Tour De Force!

    My favorite of the movie was the "bitch-slappin'" scene where she is on the staircase knocking some sense into neighbor Johnny's head. What a hoot and what a total surprise! And right in front of her wanna-be gangster boyfriend, Nicky! I cheered and clapped myself silly. Fine film,lots of plot twists and turns. San, the piano player, was a dour disappointment. Too stiff and unemotional for me. Looked a lot like Charleston Heston, too. Ida Lupino's gowns were simply divine and she looked simply fine in them. Great costuming for the whole cast. The neighbor's wife, Gloria, was hilarious with her anti-Mom comments that were decidedly politically incorrect. All in all, great fun.
    5martylee13045burlsink342

    For the love of Ida

    Ida Lupino was a magnificent actress who fulfilled the promise of intelligence and talent that always seemed to burn in her eyes by demonstrating her creative moxie as a director. Unfortunately, her career in front of the camera often found her in cast off looking pot-boilers (she got to rummage through what was rejected by Davis, Crawford, and whoever else might be hot at the moment).

    This noir-ish romantic weepy with a bad nicotine cough was typical of the sows ears she tried to make fit like silk. Filmed in 1945....and not widely released til early in 1947...it is filled with competent but rather second string talent...many of whom never quite made it to the top rung. Bruce Bennett (who deserves great credit for being one of the few actors to survive being cast as Tarzan without forever being typed and stymied) does his usual low key but very sincere turn as Ida's Piano whiz turned world weary seaman (don't ask). Robert Alda is effectively smarmy as the dame hungry club owner...after Ida and just about every other female with a pulse...it is a shame that playing George Gershwin (in "Rhapsody in Blue") and having this meaty part in a film based around one of the Gershwin's greatest standards didn't lead to bigger and better film roles.

    The world weary atmosphere of jaded postwar funk that lingers over the film like a cloud of smoke and stale perfume is More persuasive than the rather clunky script...( you have to give the writers credit for gaul however...the final clinch lines are lifted almost verbatim from "Now Voyager" and "Casablanca"...and tend to make this end up looking more shallow and tacky than it is).

    The musical sequences are great...and Ida seems ideally suited for the role of a jam session diva...even if she did have to borrow a voice for the part. The atmosphere of electric bluesy ambiance was seldom captured better on film until Garland nailed it to perfection wailing about "the Man that got away" in 1954.

    Unfortunately several numbers are missing from the print shown on TCM (which runs only 89 minutes...and is in DREADFUL shape...with many scratches, spices, breaks, and reals where the images look like something from a cheap public domain dupe of a dupe).

    Here's hoping someone in the Warner Brother's Library does some digging...finds the original negative...and restores this..because Ida deserved the very best...even if she seldom got it.
    8bmacv

    Ida Lupino outshines large cast in Raoul Walsh's messy, irresistible, high-40s drama

    Raoul Walsh's The Man I Love opens during an after-hours jam session at a Manhattan jazz boîte, the 39 Club, where Petey Brown (Ida Lupino, dubbed by Peg La Centra) sings the title song while expelling cigarette smoke. And it seems there was a man she loved, but we don't hear much about him, except that their parting has given her wanderlust, leading her back home to California.

    Living there is what's left of the family of which she becomes de facto matriarch: Her sister Sally (Andrea King), whose shell-shocked husband (John Ridgely) is in a psychiatric hospital; younger sister Ginny (Martha Vickers); and ne'er-do-well brother Joe (Warren Douglas). Almost part of the family are next-apartment neighbors, the O'Connors - doting and deluded Johnny (Don McGuire) and discontented, two-timing Gloria (Dolores Moran, in a deliciously slutty turn).

    They keep Lupino's hands full, but a girl's gotta make a living, too, so she slaps on the war-paint and slithers into a gown, landing a job as `canary' in a nightspot operated by womanizing Nicky Toresca (Robert Alda). She keeps rather tepid company with him, until circumstance brings legendary jazz-piano man San Thomas (Bruce Bennett) into her life; the victim of an unhappy marriage, he's currently AWOL from the Merchant Marine and thinks he's lost his gift for the ivories. They kindle a volatile liaison (apparently the template from which Martin Scorsese struck the romance between Francine Evans and Jimmy Doyle in New York, New York). But Lupino's two lives, family and romantic, start to interlock disruptively....

    An unlikely amalgam of freighted, '40s romance, low-key musical and a touch of film noir, The Man I Love relies less on plot than on old-fashioned story. It's a complicated and ever-shifting story that Walsh manages to juggle adroitly (though he lets a couple of Indian clubs clatter to the floor - the shut-away husband and the Vickers character don't come to much, and the usually glamorous King is ill-garbed as the long-suffering hausfrau).

    But Lupino, though she shares the movie with a large cast, stays at its center - strong and smart-mouthed but compassionate and vulnerable. (Her grand exit, smiling through tears on the waterfront, recall's Barbara Stanwyck's in Stella Dallas.) Bennett proves a good match for her, in a strong, shaded performance (though top billing among the males goes to Alda, looking like a young Danny Thomas and delivering no more than a bland, generic heavy).

    The Man I Love exerts a nostalgic pull that avoids (barely) the campy and the overwrought. Though there's a violent death, it's not a violent film, nor even, really, a crime story. Coming from the immediate post-war era when emotions were still running high and not yet subject to over-analysis, it serves up its thick stew with gusto. Yes, it ends a little too daintily, but with its torch songs, its messy relationships, and unabashed commitment, it still makes a memorable meal.

    More like this

    The Hard Way
    7.1
    The Hard Way
    Ladies in Retirement
    7.1
    Ladies in Retirement
    They Drive by Night
    7.2
    They Drive by Night
    The Face Behind the Mask
    7.1
    The Face Behind the Mask
    Moontide
    6.8
    Moontide
    Strange Fascination
    6.1
    Strange Fascination
    Ten Cents a Dance
    6.5
    Ten Cents a Dance
    Cry of the Hunted
    6.1
    Cry of the Hunted
    Shopworn
    6.3
    Shopworn
    On Dangerous Ground
    7.2
    On Dangerous Ground
    Virtue
    6.9
    Virtue
    Deep Valley
    6.8
    Deep Valley

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Ida Lupino's singing voice was dubbed by Peg La Centra.
    • Goofs
      After Petey's debut at Nicky Toresca's nightclub, the newspaper caption announcing that misspells his name as "Toresco's".
    • Quotes

      San Thomas: I ran down like a clock. It was just as though I'd been wound up too tight and the spring broke.

    • Connections
      Featured in Okay for Sound (1946)
    • Soundtracks
      The Man I Love
      Music by George Gershwin

      Lyrics Ira Gershwin

      Performed by Ida Lupino (dubbed by Peg La Centra)

      [Instrumental version played during the opening credits, sung by Petey at the 39 Club, played by San on the piano, and instrumental excerpts played throughout the movie]

    Top picks

    Sign in to rate and Watchlist for personalized recommendations
    Sign in

    FAQ16

    • How long is The Man I Love?Powered by Alexa

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • January 11, 1947 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Official sites
      • Streaming on "Fatime Seferova" YouTube Channel
      • Streaming on "World Classic Moveis" YouTube Channel
    • Languages
      • English
      • French
    • Also known as
      • Night Shift
    • Filming locations
      • Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA(Studio)
    • Production company
      • Warner Bros.
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 36 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

    Related news

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    Robert Alda and Ida Lupino in The Man I Love (1946)
    Top Gap
    What is the French language plot outline for The Man I Love (1946)?
    Answer
    • See more gaps
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page

    More to explore

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb app
    Sign in for more accessSign in for more access
    Follow IMDb on social
    Get the IMDb app
    For Android and iOS
    Get the IMDb app
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • License IMDb Data
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Your Ads Privacy Choices
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2025 by IMDb.com, Inc.