The Man with the Golden Arm

Name: The Man with the Golden Arm
Genre: Drama, Romance, Crime
Released: December 15, 1955
Duration: 119 min
Rating: 63
Cast: Arnold Stang, Darren McGavin, Doro Merande, Eleanor Parker, Frank Sinatra

1955

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 9 Ratings

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7.3	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 9 Ratings

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The Man With The Golden Arm

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Movie Details & Credits

United Artists | Release Date: December 15, 1955 | Approved

Starring: Arnold Stang, Darren McGavin, Doro Merande, Eleanor Parker, Frank Sinatra, George E. Stone, George Mathews, John Conte, Kim Novak, Robert Strauss

Summary: A strung-out junkie deals with a demoralizing drug addiction while his crippled wife and card sharks pull him down.

Director: Otto Preminger

Genre(s): Drama, Romance, Crime

Rating: Approved

Runtime: 119 min

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Critic Reviews

Staff (Not Credited)

Clinical in its probing of the agonies, this is a gripping, fascinating film, expertly produced and directed and performed with marked conviction by Frank Sinatra as the drug slave. Read full review

Josh Larsen

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. Read full review

Tim Purtell

Though director Otto Preminger’s decision to use an RKO set instead of Chicago locations initially jars, he makes it work, amping up the claustrophobic tension in beautifully choreographed long takes. Read full review

Delmore Schwartz

The film is a pretty good picture show, as we used to say, but anyone who has read Nelson Algren’s wonderfully poetic novel is likely to make invidious comparisons and be otherwise distracted, particularly when the film strives to narrow itself to a problem of drug addiction. Read full review

Dave Kehr

The tension is intriguing and expressive (perhaps this is what Beineix had in mind for The Moon in the Gutter), though the unstable mixture is clearly limited as a sustainable style. Read full review

Empire Kim Newman

More Damon Runyan than Irvine Welsh, but as entertaining as it is important. Read full review

Bosley Crowther

It is a pretty plain and unimaginative looksee at a lower-depths character with a perilous weakness for narcotics that he miraculously overcomes in the end. Read full review

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User Reviews

alejandro970

Feb 5, 2021

There is no easy way out of trouble. Not everyone can leave behind a troubled past. This drama about an aspiring musician, a slave to drugs, is an example of Frank Sinatra's talent on stage. To see as curiosity. For useless trivia: Arnald Stang was the original / lead voice for Top Cat.

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Gamzguy17

Aug 21, 2021

This film has a lot of good things going on. Let's have a rundown: Frank Sinatra playing the lead character - good. Art direction - good. Music score - good. Characters and character interactions - good. It's so disappointing that the film starts on such a promising high only for it toThis film has a lot of good things going on. Let's have a rundown: Frank Sinatra playing the lead character - good. Art direction - good. Music score - good. Characters and character interactions - good. It's so disappointing that the film starts on such a promising high only for it to spiral downward into slow derivative melodrama by the end. Overall, the film's good qualities are enough to make it a passable experience, but man is it a disappointment.… Expand

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