Movie #2123 "Young Man with a Horn" (TCM) Since it was Doris Day week, I saw this advertised on TCM and I had always wanted to see it, so I sat down to watch it a week ago. Doris Day is not in this as much --- it's Kirk Douglas' movie all the way --- he plays the trumpet player from little kid to desperate adult. He really encompasses all the passion a musician has --- he is consumed with playing the horn --- he studies under a great african american mentor (which in the 1950s is controversial since the mentor can't play in some places because he is black). As the young man goes up the ladder of success, he even plays in one band for half the night and later in the evening goes across town and plays in another so that his mentor's band does well in that club. He is friends along the way with Doris Day and clearly she loves him, but he is just so obsessed with playing, it seems like nothing can penetrate that wall of his he has built around him................that is until he meets Lauren Bacall. And she turns on all the alluring tactics she uses in every movie she is in (mostly with her hubby Bogart) --- the smokey voice, those seeking eyes, that beautiful face and body --- and he falls for her hook, line and sinker, even when Doris tries to point out to him that she is no good for him because she's an opportunist and she will just use him. Well, after she did, and drops him like a bad penny, he is depressed --- feels washed up, disillusioned, until Doris comes back in the picture (along with his mentor) and they help him through the bad times. I liked this film because there aren't a lot of pictures that so adequately portray the passionate musician and consider the question: Can that artist let anything else happen in his life ---- like family or the outside world? Doesn't he have to? and how successful can that be? and doesn't he/she have to find a partner that is willing to be second in his/her life? The film covers these well, for the 1950s and I'm glad I got to see Doris play a different part here --- and Kirk Douglas is fantastic; this part fits him like a glove. I'd give it 3.5 out of 5. (the people and conflicts were complicated, but I felt the script could have explained more his angst. You knew the script was lacking a bit when it had to bring in Hoagy Carmichael (who played his best friend) at the very end to narrate to the audience what the young man learned through the movie. Ugh)
"YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN" 1hr and 52 mins 1950
No comments:
Post a Comment