Besuch in Kalifornien

"The Man I Love" is a 1947 film (though made in 1945) directed by Raoul Walsh. The stars are Ida Lupino, Robert Alda, Andrea King, Martha Vickers, Bruce Bennett, Delores Moran, and Alan Hale.

Lupino plays a nightclub singer, Petey, who goes home to visit her family - two sisters and a brother. They're all in one way or another pretty messed up, so Petey, the strong one, sticks around to try and help. Her brother Johnny (Don McGuire) is married to Gloria (Delores Moran). They're the parents of twins, but Gloria is out a lot visiting "friends." With Johnny working at night, Gloria gets bored easily.

One of Petey's sisters (King) has a husband (Jon Ridgeley) who is institutionalized due to a breakdown after the war. Petey gets a job at Nicky Toresca's (Robert Alda) nightclub. Toresca is a slimeball who is constantly on the make, but Petey ignores him and goes crazy for a pianist who has seen better days, Sand Thomas (Bennett). But Sand is still grieving over his ex-wife, who comes back to town during the time he and Petey have together before he ships out on a merchant steamer.

Basically, this is a story about not so great men and the women who love them, except for Gloria's poor husband Johnny - but since Gloria is crazy about Nick Tedesco, we can leave Johnny out. All I can say is, with those twins, Johnny is darn lucky his sisters live across the hall. And Sand's not a bad guy but let's face it, he's carrying a torch for the ex.

There is music throughout, including the title song played a great deal in the background. Other music: "Why Was I Born," "If I Could Be With You," and "Liza." Peg LaCentra dubbed for Lupino.

Ida Lupino looks fabulous and wears some great gowns. She plays the strong, independent, no-nonsense Petey well, there for her family for as long as it takes. Robert Alda is smooth with a hint of sleaze, perfect as Nick Tedesco.

As Sand, Bruce Bennett is good. Bennett was one of the most interesting men in show business. Under his real name of Herman Brix, he was a silver medalist for shotput in the 1928 Olympics. Going into films, Bennett enjoyed a good career in supporting roles, including Mildred Pierce's husband, and roles in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "Dark Passage," "A Stolen Life," etc., and tons of TV. He died in 2007 at the age of 100. I can't imagine what it was like watching his old films and realizing that he'd outlived every single person in the movie.

Atmospheric with its nightclub scenes and fog, "The Man I Love" is a different kind of film - it looks like a noir, is part love story, and part an unusual family drama.

... with soundies being, basically, the music videos of the 1940s.

The film has a warning for audiences with the first line. A couple of late night semi inebriated celebrants are trying to get into a nightclub but find it is locked. A guy working on the marquee outside tells them - to paraphrase - "Don't go in there! Those people are crazy!" The noise inside is a late night jam session for crazy people only, led by lounge singer Petey Brown (Ida Lupino). This whole scene is just a set up for Petey saying she is going to California to visit her family, all who have issues, and the issues extend to the neighbors. Among the issues is a post-war baby boom, a cheating wife, a WWII veteran hospitalized with PTSD, Petey's brother looking for a way to make quick easy dough, and a young woman who does not want to leave the house (this is more like a problem commonly seen today). Involved with some of these issues is slippery nightclub owner, Nicky Toresca (Robert Alda), from whom Petey gets a job as a lounge singer on her extended visit.

A big portion of the film actually has something to do with the title - While on the west coast Petey meets a washed-up jazz musician, San Thomas (Bruce Bennett???), who is washed up exactly because he is still in love with his ex-wife, being dumped has sapped his creativity and drive, and he has taken to being a seaman on commercial lines to support himself. For some reason this emotionally and geographically unavailable person is the man of Petey's dreams. Meanwhile her boss Toresca is trying to have an affair with her and about half a dozen other women. Complications and hepcat dialogue I could barely decipher ensue.

To judge this thing on its narrative structure would be a mistake. It meanders incoherently from scene to scene and the plot seems to be held together with spit and bailing wire. But that atmosphere, those jazz musical numbers and jam sessions, that post-war boom and the women with fashions that look like something you would wear on a dare with wide shoulder pads and covered in furs with hats to match. It is like stepping into a time machine.

I'd recommend this one, but as for the plot, don't ask questions just go with it.

Ida Lupino is always good or really good--here she is overpowering, but without unbalancing a movie with a very strong script and a cast of actors who may not be all that famous (Robert Alda, beautiful but sinister; Bruce Bennett, the sad shadow of Gary Cooper) but who certainly pull their weight. Ida begins the movie by smoking and drinking while she sings the title song in a killer deadpan, and goes on to confront, unarmed, a gunman and slap him silly. But, unusually, these theatrics are balanced by romantic and psychological dialogue of a maturity that is rare indeed in the movies, certainly at this early date. Occasionally harsh realism (for instance, in the terrifying behavior of a mentally disturbed veteran) more than earns the qualified optimism shown here.

Two other things to be impressed by: Bruce Bennett, as the jazz pianist, does all his own playing (bet Gary Cooper couldn't do that!), and Ida, in skin-tight evening gowns, looks astonishing. What a figure!

Raoul Walsh's The Man I Love opens during an after-hours jam session at a Manhattan jazz boîte, the 39 Club, where Petey Brown (Ida Lupino, dubbed by Peg La Centra) sings the title song while expelling cigarette smoke. And it seems there was a man she loved, but we don't hear much about him, except that their parting has given her wanderlust, leading her back home to California.

Living there is what's left of the family of which she becomes de facto matriarch: Her sister Sally (Andrea King), whose shell-shocked husband (John Ridgely) is in a psychiatric hospital; younger sister Ginny (Martha Vickers); and ne'er-do-well brother Joe (Warren Douglas). Almost part of the family are next-apartment neighbors, the O'Connors - doting and deluded Johnny (Don McGuire) and discontented, two-timing Gloria (Dolores Moran, in a deliciously slutty turn).

They keep Lupino's hands full, but a girl's gotta make a living, too, so she slaps on the war-paint and slithers into a gown, landing a job as `canary' in a nightspot operated by womanizing Nicky Toresca (Robert Alda). She keeps rather tepid company with him, until circumstance brings legendary jazz-piano man San Thomas (Bruce Bennett) into her life; the victim of an unhappy marriage, he's currently AWOL from the Merchant Marine and thinks he's lost his gift for the ivories. They kindle a volatile liaison (apparently the template from which Martin Scorsese struck the romance between Francine Evans and Jimmy Doyle in New York, New York). But Lupino's two lives, family and romantic, start to interlock disruptively....

An unlikely amalgam of freighted, '40s romance, low-key musical and a touch of film noir, The Man I Love relies less on plot than on old-fashioned story. It's a complicated and ever-shifting story that Walsh manages to juggle adroitly (though he lets a couple of Indian clubs clatter to the floor - the shut-away husband and the Vickers character don't come to much, and the usually glamorous King is ill-garbed as the long-suffering hausfrau).

But Lupino, though she shares the movie with a large cast, stays at its center - strong and smart-mouthed but compassionate and vulnerable. (Her grand exit, smiling through tears on the waterfront, recall's Barbara Stanwyck's in Stella Dallas.) Bennett proves a good match for her, in a strong, shaded performance (though top billing among the males goes to Alda, looking like a young Danny Thomas and delivering no more than a bland, generic heavy).

The Man I Love exerts a nostalgic pull that avoids (barely) the campy and the overwrought. Though there's a violent death, it's not a violent film, nor even, really, a crime story. Coming from the immediate post-war era when emotions were still running high and not yet subject to over-analysis, it serves up its thick stew with gusto. Yes, it ends a little too daintily, but with its torch songs, its messy relationships, and unabashed commitment, it still makes a memorable meal.

Ida Lupino excelled at playing tough, yet vulnerable, women. One of the best Ida Lupino films, "The Man I Love" is all about atmosphere. It has great music, great images, and great lines all tied to a fast-paced and entertaining, if unlikely, story. This film influenced director Martin Scorsese when he made "New York, New York". Scorsese's film is overlong and overdone, but "The Man I Love" is brisk and sleek. You won't be bored. If you enjoy "The Man I Love", I also recommend the Ida Lupino film "Road House".