Frank Sinatra plays Frankie Machine, a card dealer and recovering heroin addict who is returning to his old neighborhood after a stint in rehab. Sinatra’s “cold turkey” scenes – the usual shivering and moaning – aren’t as impressive as his smooth inhabiting of a hep cat with a heart, not an arm, of gold. Frankie has every intention of extricating himself from the sleazy world around him by establishing a new career as a jazz drummer. (That may not be the smartest move for an addict, but it does make for an electrifying soundtrack.) Of course, it isn’t easy being clean. Frankie’s wheelchair-bound wife (Eleanor Parker) guilts him into dealing cards again, while his former supplier (Darren McGavin) hangs out at the corner bar watching with a Cheshire cat grin. “The monkey is never dead, dealer,” he whispers. “The monkey never dies.” As you can probably sense from this cast of characters, The Man With the Golden Arm has a bizarre, carnivalesque atmosphere. Director Otto Preminger emphasizes the lurid whenever he can – the neon signs, the smoky interiors, the insinuating bass on the soundtrack – so that the movie plays like a blurry, bleary night-on-its-way-to-morning. Only Sinatra’s talent is clear.
