It's a shame that this adaptation of Nelson Algren's classic Chicago novel, one of the first to deal with drug-addiction, is so obviously studio-bound. Even by 1955, the year it was made, a number of more adventurous directors were going to real locations. Perhaps it was Sinatra, notoriously antsy when it came to being too far away from Hollywood or Vegas, who insisted that Preminger shoot the story on those phony sound-stage interiors which passed once for real city streets. Sam Leavitt, the cinematographer, seems to have over-lit many of these studio sets as if he was afraid of being too dark and depressing. Another minus, but much lauded in its time, is Elmer Bernstein's heavy handed big-band score which often only punctuates what is obvious. Sinatra really tries, working hard, committed to making the role seem both real and sympathetic. The primary failure of this film can only be blamed on that most vastly over-rated of directors, Otto Preminger, whose gift for self-promotion and controversy can no longer disguise the fact that at heart he was a rather mediocre director. Too bad someone like old-timer Raoul Walsh couldn't have directed this.
Review of The Man with the Golden Arm
