It's all there, professional hardware and expertise, up on the
cinemascope screen - but for two oddities: the lead roles.
Newman and Blyth look good (she even looks like Debbie's older
sister as seen in Singin In the Rain) and Newman at 30 is about at
handsome as the 50s screen ever was........but they are both light
for grim roles. Doris Day pulled it off in Love Me Or Leave Me and
Cagney was the full gargoyle as Marty the Gimp which is probably
what the Larry role Needed from Newman...but he was really too
pretty. Looking alot like how Some Like It Hot turned out, it looks
like it wants to be a comedy....which it probably now almost is.
Anne Blyth is Minnie Mouse, I think and that is what doesn't help.
And where's Joan Blondell when WB need her......and I bet Richard
Carlson kissed Michael Curtiz feet in gratitude for the high profile
role here after all those D grade schlockers he had prior. He even
had his name in lights in the fabulous credits. This is alot like the
1933 CASE OF THE LUCKY LEGS without the laughs. This film is
so well made, but it doesn't work, whereas other bios from the
same period are dynamic. Like for Doris Day and Susan Hayward.
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