Movie #2122 "Love Me Or Leave Me" (TCM) It was a Doris Day week on TCM (since she died in the past year) and I have always wanted to see this one (since Day and Cagney are the stars, and I am big fans of both) so I sat down to watch this. It's melodramatic, for sure, but the conflict is interesting ----- a man with lots of money falls in love with a beautiful, talented woman, and wants to make her famous and gives her everything she needs to do that. She is bowled over that he is so generous and she doesn't see his motives. To add to the problem, his money is mobster money --- he is not a nice man. However, Cagney is able to slap people around, be sure with them in speech, shouts orders, all the while being very tender, usually, with her. When he feels he is losing her "adoration" and appreciation of him, he starts to get desperate and those scenes are hard to watch --- she feels she owes him everything, so the guilt just dominates her every move, including turning away from a guy she clearly loves and who loves her. That's when Cagney really "chews up the scenery" which he can do --- when he does 150% acting --- (he's like Al pacino that way) Because she feels she owes him, and because he really down deep loves her, it offers an interesting conflict that was starting to get covered in the 1950s --- these two can handle the acting and over the top acting, so I didn't mind that much. I would give it 3.5, though, and not really recommend it to many --- unless you are fans of either of these two actors, or the story sounds interesting to you. There are quite a few over the top scenes that aren't really believable --- but like I said, I liked the conflict. And it helps you understand how so many people, even today, just venturing into a show business job find they can get into a situation of "owing" somebody who has sinister motives, and how touch it is to get out from under that, for sure.
"LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME" 1955 2 hours and 2 mins
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