Young man (Orley Lindgren) is taught jazz trumpet by Juano Hernandez (this is one of the best bits of the film), grows up to be Kirk Douglas, who takes on the role seriously - you never once think he isn't playing that trumpet (it's actually Harry James, who taught him the fingering). He also goes through the same sort of mad intensity Kirk's known for. However everything goes wrong when he meets icy, messed up intellectual Lauren Bacall, and he hits the slides, or whatever the expression of the day was. Buddies Hoagy Carmichael and Doris Day make sure he comes out OK.
A somewhat clichéd story in a way with some good numbers (a couple too many from Day). The scene where Kirk gets messed up by some bad guys looks like it's going to go somewhere else but doesn't, feels like it's from the wrong film.
Some nice on location stuff - though I guess they had to try and avoid it looking too much like The Lost Weekend, which it starts to.
Dorothy Baker's novel, purchased by Warners in 1945 as a vehicle for John Garfield, is loosely based on the life of Bix Beiderbecke (who was a friend of Hoagy's). Carl Foreman and Edmund H North wrote the screenplay.
So a bit of a disappointment, but just fabulously photographed by Ted McCord.
You'd think with the amount that Hoagy smoked in all these old movies that he would have died young - not at all - he made it to 82 in 1981.
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