The Man I Love

Ida Lupino was a magnificent actress who fulfilled the promise of intelligence and talent that always seemed to burn in her eyes by demonstrating her creative moxie as a director. Unfortunately, her career in front of the camera often found her in cast off looking pot-boilers (she got to rummage through what was rejected by Davis, Crawford, and whoever else might be hot at the moment).

This noir-ish romantic weepy with a bad nicotine cough was typical of the sows ears she tried to make fit like silk. Filmed in 1945....and not widely released til early in 1947...it is filled with competent but rather second string talent...many of whom never quite made it to the top rung. Bruce Bennett (who deserves great credit for being one of the few actors to survive being cast as Tarzan without forever being typed and stymied) does his usual low key but very sincere turn as Ida's Piano whiz turned world weary seaman (don't ask). Robert Alda is effectively smarmy as the dame hungry club owner...after Ida and just about every other female with a pulse...it is a shame that playing George Gershwin (in "Rhapsody in Blue") and having this meaty part in a film based around one of the Gershwin's greatest standards didn't lead to bigger and better film roles.

The world weary atmosphere of jaded postwar funk that lingers over the film like a cloud of smoke and stale perfume is More persuasive than the rather clunky script...( you have to give the writers credit for gaul however...the final clinch lines are lifted almost verbatim from "Now Voyager" and "Casablanca"...and tend to make this end up looking more shallow and tacky than it is).

The musical sequences are great...and Ida seems ideally suited for the role of a jam session diva...even if she did have to borrow a voice for the part. The atmosphere of electric bluesy ambiance was seldom captured better on film until Garland nailed it to perfection wailing about "the Man that got away" in 1954.

Unfortunately several numbers are missing from the print shown on TCM (which runs only 89 minutes...and is in DREADFUL shape...with many scratches, spices, breaks, and reals where the images look like something from a cheap public domain dupe of a dupe).

Here's hoping someone in the Warner Brother's Library does some digging...finds the original negative...and restores this..because Ida deserved the very best...even if she seldom got it.

I had never been an big Ida Lupino fan until I recently saw THE MAN I LOVE. The film was fun, frothy and, ultimately, forgettable, but Ida was terrific. As the eldest of four siblings, she holds the clan, as well as the film, together with her tough, wisecracking, heart of gold persona. Even while lip syncing the title song, Ida makes an impression. Check out her reading of the lines, "From which I'll never roam, Who would, would you?" She really nails it.

THE MAN I LOVE is a fun way to pass an evening but Ida Lupino is a revelation.

... 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 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".

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!