The Man with the Golden Arm

The Man with the Golden Arm has seen its reputation mellow in comparison to other addiction dramas from the era, namely The Lost Weekend. I suppose falling into the public domain and an avalanche of poor home video releases can do that to a movie. Shame as The Man with the Golden Arm has a lot to offer the viewer on all fronts, not just as historical trivia as the first major release to tackle drug addiction.

Loosely based on the Nelson Algren novel, shining more light and injecting more hope into the proceedings (this was the heyday of the Hays Code and strict censorship, after all), but don’t ever mistake this for an easy viewing experience. From the first frame, in which Frankie Machine (Frank Sinatra) returns to his neighborhood after a stint in a prison hospital to kick his heroin habit, a sustained dread and anxiety ensnares both the characters and viewers.

This is not an environment conductive to a recovering addict. We know his relapse is a matter of when and how bad, never if. Frankie returns hopefully and optimistic about his recovery. He learned to play the drums while in the hospital, and figures if he can keep his mind focused on getting a career going, stay away from the poker games and shady dealers lurking around, he can do all right. This optimism is ground out of him by his wife (Eleanor Parker) who is manipulative and abusive, along with two nefarious men, Schwiefka (Robert Strauss), who runs the illegal card games, and Louie (Darren McGavin), the dealer.  

The only people rooting for Frankie’s recovery, and Frankie as a person, are Sparrow (Arnold Stang) and Molly (Kim Novak), an old flame with unresolved romantic tension. Eventually, Frankie’s relapse and destructive behavior pushes everyone away, everyone except for Molly who nurses him through a cold turkey withdrawal. In a film of numerous intense, disturbing scenes, Frankie’s cold turkey withdrawal is the zenith, the film’s moment of highest artistic achievement.

Throughout the film, Sinatra has delivered a performance that shakes off the typical Rat Pack persona that many of his most enjoyable films are built upon. Sinatra is not the cool player here, but a broken man trying to rebuild. He’s uncommonly anxious and vulnerable here. A scene where he’s in prison and witnesses a junkie’s hysterical fits and contortions is a marvel of empathy for him as an actor. The camera lingers in on his face, and his eyes mist, and a noticeable amount of fear clouds his features. No swinging braggadocio here like in Pal Joey.

Which leads us back to his cold turkey scene, where Sinatra is not only vulnerable, but wildly unpredictable. There’s a danger here, like Sinatra may drop dead from his exertions or hurt Kim Novak in his manic state. His commitment goes beyond Method acting, and into the realm of the uncomfortably real. The Man with the Golden Arm belongs in large part to Sinatra, and much of the film’s grand success rests upon his career-best performance.

But he’s matched every step of the way by his two leading ladies. Parker was one of the finest, underappreciated character actors of her era. She was a truly chameleon-like presence on screen. If you only know her for her cold, glamorous Baroness in The Sound of Music, you’ll be in for a shock when you see her as a dowdy, damaged, manipulative aggressor. Her passive-aggressive treatment of Frankie keeps him in a constant state of shame and guilt about her accident, and the more revelations about her character we glimpse the more pitiable and sick she becomes. It’s a tour de force for Parker, and a reminder of what a great actress she truly was.

Released the same year as her star-making role in Picnic, Kim Novak retains much of that enigmatic, clinical detachment and sadness that electrified her best work. She’s still wounded and deeply sad here, but she’s also the bright light in the film, the symbol of hope in the darkness. Many scenes between her and Sinatra are tender and vulnerable, particularly one early in the film where they talk around their unresolved attraction and feelings for each other. Novak was still a bit green here, but with Otto Preminger guiding her and Sinatra working with her, she turns in remarkably strong and solid work. Her role isn’t as flashy as Parker’s, but she’s the film’s wounded soul.

While I firmly believe that this is a true standout in everyone’s filmographies, especially director Preminger, the three leads, Saul Bass for his jittery, angular main titles and poster designs, and Elmer Bernstein’s thundering jazz score, there are a few drawbacks. The most obvious flaw is the instance, probably by the Hays Code, that only so much censorship could be broken. We never see Frankie shooting up, Molly works in a surprisingly sterile strip club, and the rundown neighborhood is an obvious soundstage creation. These concessions, even as the film slowly tries to break the Code’s back, take some of the sting and realism out of the piece.

The rot of the story is also compromised by the happy ending, one that finds Frankie running off with Molly for a fresh start. These scrubbed clean portions have never marred the film for me. I still find it a stellar piece of character study, a claustrophobic, deeply tense study of addiction. If modern films have rendered it dated by their shock factors and grittiness, many of them have also forgotten to attach the haunted, fatalistic dread, committed performances, and moxie. The Man with the Golden Arm is a classic in dire need of reappraisal.