Al compás de la vida

If you liked Frank Sinatra in the light fare Double Dynamite, you can check him out in Meet Danny Wilson. He plays a singer with a knack for getting into trouble, who also gets involved with a gangster. Some might call it a story that's a little close to home, but others will just take it for what it is: a cutesy love triangle with some Frank Sinatra songs thrown in for good measure. You'll get to see "How Deep Is the Ocean?", "I've Got a Crush on You", "That Old Black Magic", and "All of Me" performed in a fun nightclub setting.

The woman who is the object of everyone's desire is Shelley Winters, and although she sang in a few movies, she didn't have the best voice. It's still fun to see her share a duet with Frankie, and her eyes sparkle with the fun we think she's having. It turns out, they didn't enjoy working together, but you'd never know it from their cute rapport onscreen. I always wished Shelley had been cast as Adelaide in Guys in Dolls - she would have been so much better! Alex Nicol, Frankie's piano player, and Raymond Burr, the mobster, also vie for Shelley's affections. Who will win out? Find out if you can have love and success all in one in Meet Danny Wilson.

Any excuse like Meet Danny Wilson you can get to hear Frank Sinatra sing some great old standards is something to take advantage of. Problem with Meet Danny Wilson is that when Sinatra stops singing, he's really one obnoxious boor in this film.

Singer Frank Sinatra and his accompanist piano player Alex Nicol are making a meager living in a whole lot of dives until top singer Shelley Winters hears them and gets them hired by her gangster boss Raymond Burr. Burr's got eyes for her, Sinatra has eyes for her, but she only sees Nicol. That leads to a whole lot of complications.

What further leads to complications is Raymond Burr's verbal contract to get 50% of Sinatra's earnings. Burr doesn't like things in writing just fork over the money and he has 32 caliber lawyer if needed.

Some have said this is a thinly veiled Sinatra autobiographical film. If so it's a picture of Frank no one could take. I'm still trying to figure out why Nicol puts up with him. They're old army buddies, but that only takes you so far.

Danny Wilson is one of the least attractive characters Sinatra ever brought to the screen. But when he's singing, my oh my.

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.

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.

This musical has Frank Sinatra in the title role as a bantam rooster of a fellow, who picks fights with anyone who annoys him, but has a marvelous singing voice. Shelley Winters is Joy Carroll, a nightclub thrush Danny falls in love with. Alex Nicol is Mike Ryan, Wilson's manager, piano player and roommate. Raymond Burr is a gangster who owns the nightclub where Joy sings, and where Danny gets his big break.

Sinatra is in good voice here, especially on "That Ol' Black Magic" and his duet with Winters, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find". Aside from their duet, Sinatra has zero chemistry with Winters. Winters does well in her scenes with Burr and Nicol, but she seems angry in almost all of her scenes with Sinatra. Burr makes a good impression as the gangster Nick Driscoll.

From what I've read in Winters' autobiographies and biographies of Sinatra, the two apparently couldn't stand each other, and the film almost didn't get finished. They both walked off the set more than once, had multiple screaming matches, and during the shooting of a hospital scene, Winters capped off one screaming match with Sinatra during the filming of a hospital scene by throwing a bedpan at him. It connected. The film ends abruptly, with the two stars in separate shots, not together in the same scene.