Al compás de la vida

Firstly, I like the directness of the title. Apparently one of those films Sinatra made when he was on his career downward curve before "From Here To Eternity" on screen and Capitol Records on vinyl set him aright a couple of years later. Me, I really enjoyed it and wouldn't wonder it might have gotten a better reception and been better remembered if it had been made after 1953 and all that.

The story's pretty far fetched as Sinatra, Alex Nicol, Raymond Burr and a young Shelley Winters play out a love-rectangle if you will with surprisingly, Nicol being the one who gets the girl. Burr is the mobster with designs on her after he employs her as a singer at one of his clubs and who then takes singer and pianist duo Nicol and Sinatra on as their agent but at a hefty 50% cut of their earnings. Nicol is the nice guy, older than Frank's Danny Wilson and obviously some sort of mentor / father figure to him which is just as well as Frank's clearly going through his wild years (thanks, Tom Waits) always one misheard remark or misunderstanding away from a fist fight, from which Nicol usually extricates him.

How the intertwining love stories and the duo's situation with Burr resolve themselves are a little rushed and pat into the bargain, but there's enough grit and drama to see it through to a satisfactory conclusion.

The story goes that Sinatra and Winters didn't get along on set, but you wouldn't really know it here as they make a feisty and watchable couple. I don't recall seeing Nicol in a movie before but liked his work here, the straight man to firecracker Frankie. Burr actually isn't much on camera but conveys a credible sense of malevolence when he does.

The main attraction for Sinatra aficionados is the chance to see the still young Francis Albert looking good and sounding great rendering a nice selection of well known songs in fine style, including "All Of Me", "When You're Smiling", "That Old Black Magic" and "I've Got A Crush On You". He also has a knockout duet with Winters singing "A Good Man Is Hard To Find".

Other things to like were the New York settings, although much of it was probably recreated I'd guess, a one-line cameo by Tony Curtis and there's a cute scene where Sinatra effectively invents the first flash-mob at the airport to try to stop Winters leaving him, just after she's reluctantly become engaged to him.

So there you have it, part musical, part drama, part thriller, an unusual cocktail of a movie but these shaken up ingredients settle well together and made for a good 90 minutes well spent.

Danny Wilson (Frank Sinatra) and Michael Francis (Alex Nicol) are a struggling entertainment duo. Hot head Danny keeps getting them into trouble. Joy Carroll (Shelley Winters) grabs them off the streets. She needs drinking company after a bad break. Danny hits a policeman and the guys get arrested. Joy bails them out and gets them jobs in a nightclub owned by gangster Nick Driscoll (Raymond Burr).

This movie is going all out on Sinatra's crooning. His real stardom helps although in his post-war real life, he did fall into a small dip. This has a lot of old classics. Winters is playing the sexy dame but she does it with force. She surprises me with some sassy singing. Notoriously, she and Sinatra had a big dust up during the filming. One doesn't really sense the animosity although their romantic chemistry is not that great. Winters could never do that demure lovey-dovey romantic stuff that well. It's not really in her bag of tricks. The movie takes a hard turn into gangster violence which doesn't really fit. Sinatra's big fight scene before that is his opponent laughing at his weak punches. Sinatra is not really the hard hitting type. The movie is a mishmash of elements. Some of them like Sinatra's singing is great. Some others are ill-fitting. All in all, it's an interesting intersection for these two legendary entertainers.

I just started watching this on TCM, figuring it would be a throwaway 50s romantic drama. It's better than that.

The first thing that grabbed me was the dialogue. It's unusually sophisticated, natural, and modern in its rhythms. They situations aren't overly simplified. They're not saccharine, they're not melodramatic. They're modern.

Second, who knew Shelly Winters could sing?

Winters is refreshing and wonderful as a well-adjusted, successful professional. Here, Winters is not burdened by her usual portrayal as damaged goods.

And despite a shaky start, Sinatra turns in a good acting performance. His buddy, Alex Nicol, is bit of a stuff, but a likeable one. Burr is a refreshingly lighter touch as his usual heavy villain.

And it's beautifully photographed as well.

Not at all bad. Meet Danny Wilson, a show-business melodrama with a lot of songs thrown in, betrays a distinct noirish tinge which darkens as the movie progresses. It's a thinly-veiled knockoff of the stories about Frank Sinatra's early days in show business – from the shrieking bobby-soxers to the extortionist contract that almost held him back. Obviously, it stars Sinatra, at a low ebb in his career before he had gained the imperial control of his later days as Chairman of the Board, and before he had assembled the legendary `cool' that, as much as his voice, was to become his hallmark.

Crooner Danny Wilson and his pianist/manager/buddy (Alex Nichol) are a couple of rough-and-ready slum-bred boys having trouble breaking into the big time. Through the help of a lounge singer they meet up with (Shelly Winters), they get a gig in a posh nightclub run by a mobbed-up entrepreneur (Raymond Burr). The catch is, Burr spots Sinatra's potential and demands half of his future take. A messy love triangle emerges, too, with Sinatra falling head over heels for Winters, who's smitten with the loyal square rigger Nichols. The plot points get connected with the arrival of Success, in the form of recording contracts, attendant royalties and even the movies.

Most arresting is Burr as gangster Nick Driscoll. An indispensable fixture of the noir cycle, where so often he played the Heavy Menace, here he takes on a better-written, more shaded role. In addition, he's slimmed down drastically, and the slimming brings out his huge and expressive – even seductive – eyes. But he still doles out the menace, even if it's cushioned in unaccustomed suavity. Apart from Sinatra, he's the most memorable actor in the film (certainly more memorable than the generic Nichol).

Sinatra performs several of the hits which were to enter his standard repertory; he also duets with Winters in a patter-song. Meet Danny Wilson remains strangely obscure, but, despite a warm and perfunctory wrap-up, it's a better crafted and more solid outing than many of the movies he made in his pigs-in-clover Rat Pack days.

Most enjoyable film with Sinatra and Shelley Winters in a love triangle and messy criminal goings on. Specifically interesting is the part of Raymond Burr, who is a real meany, and cameo roles abound including Tony Curtis and Jeff Chandler, among others who look like they're waiting for something to happen! It does! The music and singing is great! The acting is great! Be ready to enjoy! 7/10