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Perhaps it’s a bit too long, and maybe a few of the musical sequences are a little stiff, but I still think Guys and Dolls is an enjoyable riot. Obvious musical players like Frank Sinatra and Vivian Blaine excel here, but Jean Simmons is the surprising coup, providing the movie with a heart and soul, while Marlon Brando reveals that there was a natural comedian lurking underneath all that smoldering Method intensity. Perfect it ain’t, but it’s got a lot of color and charm.
Let’s get the problems out of the way first, because what works outweighs it. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was a natural for quiet, small character-driven dramas, look at his superior “women’s picture” A Letter to Three Wives or the towering achievement that is All About Eve, but he wasn’t a natural photographer of song-and-dance. Sometimes the choice to simply plant the camera and shoot works, like in the high-spirited “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” but it undoes the winking sexuality in “Pet Me Poppa” and leaves “Luck Be a Lady” is little soggy. Mankiewicz was smart to simply shut up and follow the acrobatic dancing and pantomime of the opening, which slowly introduces us to the lovable grifters and criminals we’ll see more of, but he’s clearly no Vincente Minnelli or Stanley Donen in the musical department.
While I adore Brando, it is a bit funny to see him in the leading role, which has all of the big numbers, while Sinatra is sacked with the quirky character part that requires no range. Sinatra wanted Brando’s part, and they should have switched roles. Brando does fine in a few of the quieter numbers, but the bigger pieces are clearly limited by his small vocal range. He plays the dramatic scenes and comedic beat with relish, and his romancing Jean Simmons is feisty and lively.
Now that that unpleasantness is out of the way, everything else in Guys and Dolls is a winner. Jean Simmons is the true surprise, and walks off with the film by the end. Shacking off the respectable British leading lady vibe that hovered around her, she dives into her character’s drunken antics, physical comedy, and big emotional scenes like a starved animal on a particularly juicy cut of meat. Her singing voice is surprisingly strong, and quite lovely. Watching this, I’m reminded of how strong a performer Simmons in, and I can’t help but wonder how she could deliver this performance, along with her great supporting work in Hamlet and Elmer Gantry, and not become a big star on par with Vivien Leigh or Deborah Kerr. It’s impossible to imagine producer Samuel Goldwyn’s original choice, Grace Kelly, ever coming close to this role.
If Mankiewicz is sometimes confused about staging of the numbers, he at least made the tremendously smart choice of giving this film a completely unique look. Unlike numerous other big musicals of the era, Guys and Dolls wasn’t filmed in real outdoor locations, and it wasn’t given the glossy MGM-style treatment either. This version of New York, an obvious set, is entirely enchanting for being so minimalistic and strange. It somehow befits the cartoon-ish Damon Runyon creations that they don’t populate a recognizable world, but one made up of bits-and-pieces and highly stylized impressions of New York’s various locations.
Even better are Runyon’s numerous colorful supporting players, gangsters who don’t speak in contractions, engage in funny wordplay to talk around subjects, and have generally outsized personalities. Particular standouts are Vivian Blaine’s Miss Adelaide, a loopy, nasal-voiced nightclub singer who finds herself chronically sick while waiting for Sinatra to propose, B.S. Pully’s Big Jule who sounds like a talking ashtray, and Stubby Kaye’s Nicely-Nicely Johnson who is generally personable throughout as a comic-sidekick, but gets a glory moment in the aforementioned “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat.” They’re exaggerated cartoons, but they’re endearing for being so broad and comically large transforming profane hustlers into endearing kooks.
Even better is the Michael Kidd choreography that covers a wide terrain of styles and moods. The Havana sequence has sexy movements, delivered by Brando with his some stiffness but his trademark smoldering, and by Simmons, who practically explodes with an unleashed carnality that wipes everything else off the screen. The introduction of “Luck Be a Lady” is theatrical and athletic, showing a dice game in exaggerated leaps and expressive movements. And Kidd gives Blaine, and a new chorus of Goldwyn Girls, some teasing, winking cheesecake in her two numbers, one of which is a striptease that rivals Rita Hayworth’s imaginary one in Pal Joey for being a gasser that’s also sexy.
Maybe it gets a little flabby in the mid-section, and it’s definitely a bit too long, but I think Guys and Dolls is a charmer. If nothing else, it’s great as an antidote to some of its era’s rivals for simply forsaking their grandiosity for earthy characters, sharp wit, and imaginative production design. Any film that manages to overcome problems that would sink any other deserves major kudos. It’s not a perfect musical, but I love spending time with these ne’er-do-wells brushing up against the Salvation Army.
