The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)

★ 7.2 1h 59m IMDb

When illegal card dealer and recovering heroin addict Frankie Machine gets out of prison, he decides to straighten up. Armed with nothing but an old drum set, Frankie tries to get honest work as a drummer. But when his former employer and his old drug dealer re-enter his life, Frankie finds it hard to stay clean and eventually finds himself succumbing to his old habits.

The Man with the Golden Arm

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Cast

Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra as Frankie Machine Died 1998 · Hoboken, New Jersey, USA Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a su...
Eleanor Parker
Eleanor Parker as Zosh Machine Died 2013 · Cedarville, Ohio, USA Eleanor Jean Parker (June 26, 1922 – December 9, 2013) was an American actress. She was nominated for three Academy Awards for her roles in the films Caged (1950), Detective Story (1951), and Interrup...
Kim Novak
Kim Novak as Molly Age 93 · Chicago, Illinois, USA Marilyn Pauline Novak (born February 13, 1933), known professionally as Kim Novak, is an American retired film and television actress. She began her career in 1954 after signing with Columbia Picture...
Arnold Stang
Arnold Stang as Sparrow Died 2009 · Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA Arnold Stang (September 28, 1918 – December 20, 2009) was an American comic actor who played a small and bespectacled, yet brash and knowing big-city type. One of the most arresting facts about Arnold...
Darren McGavin
Darren McGavin as Louie Died 2006 · Spokane, Washington, U.S. Darren McGavin (born William Lyle Richardson; May 7, 1922 – February 25, 2006) was an American actor best known for playing the title role in the television horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker an...
Robert Strauss
Robert Strauss as Schwiefka Died 1975 · The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Robert Strauss (November 8, 1913 – February 20, 1975) was a gravel-voiced American actor. Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Strauss (actor), l...

Audience Reviews

CinemaSerf 7/10 Nov 14, 2022
This story has quite a well trodden feel to it. Frank Sinatra's "Frankie" is released from a stint in prison and heads straight back to the drug-infused melting pot from whence he came. Initially intent on staying clean, soon peer pressures and his struggle to survive, with his high-maintenance wife "Zosh" (Eleanor Parker) have him back at square one. It might just be that his salvation can come from his lover, the excellent Kim Novak ("Molly"), and from his drum kit? Sinatra proves he has some versatility as an actor here, and both Parker and Novak - alongside an un-nerving effort from Robert Strauss as his supplier "Schwiefka", makes this a far grittier, harder hitting drama than we might have expected. It shows us the relentlessness and hopelessness of his situation; also of the relative futility of the attempts at rehabilitation he went through in jail. It is too long, the first twenty minutes establish the characters, but at the expense of any decent pace - but once the ducks are in a row here, Otto Preminger elicits characterful performances from the cast that make this film quite realistic, and tough to watch at times.
r96sk 8/10 May 29, 2024
Bit of a slow-moving picture, one that might've ended sooner, though I do class <em>'The Man with the Golden Arm'</em> as something rather quite good.

Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak keep events moving along with strong showings, Sinatra especially. Eleanor Parker is, though, the person onscreen that I appreciated most whilst watching, there's just something about her performance that puts her ahead of her co-stars; I'd even say she overacts in parts, yet it absolutely still worked for me.

The story does go round the houses a little, but even with that being the case it didn't actually affect my personal enjoyment all that much - it just totally could've been trimmed and we probably wouldn't have missed anything. Elsewhere, the score is excellent - especially the theme for when Frankie desires his habbits.

I'd have to be in the right mood to revisit this. Nonetheless, it do be a very good film from 1955 - ahead of its time, that's for sure.

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