KIRK DOUGLAS, LAUREN BACALL and DORIS DAY are an interesting trio to watch in this film directed by Michael Curtiz, with some jazz trumpet work by Harry James filling the soundtrack.
Musicians seem to have hard luck lives that cry to be told on the screen (or in novels, as this one was). Douglas is a trumpet player almost too talented for his own good whose temperamental outbursts are not unlike the actor's own private life actions. He plays the role knowing full well how to show larger than life tantrums.
He has some larger than life love interest too--in a rich, neurotic girl who is jealous of his love for the trumpet, played luxuriously by a purring and sultry LAUREN BACALL, and a fresh-faced singer who does some marvelous vocals as a band singer, DORIS DAY. The stark contrast between the two female leads adds to the story's interest and both actresses do some of their best work here. Day really knows how to put over a song standard with great phrasing and beautiful timing.
Enjoyable as both drama and musical, YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN is a sort of rags to riches story of a complex man with a tortured soul who finally gets away from the grips of despair and ends up with the girl who stood loyally by him through all his ups and downs.
It's nothing deep, but it is certainly absorbing and well played.
Musicians seem to have hard luck lives that cry to be told on the screen (or in novels, as this one was). Douglas is a trumpet player almost too talented for his own good whose temperamental outbursts are not unlike the actor's own private life actions. He plays the role knowing full well how to show larger than life tantrums.
He has some larger than life love interest too--in a rich, neurotic girl who is jealous of his love for the trumpet, played luxuriously by a purring and sultry LAUREN BACALL, and a fresh-faced singer who does some marvelous vocals as a band singer, DORIS DAY. The stark contrast between the two female leads adds to the story's interest and both actresses do some of their best work here. Day really knows how to put over a song standard with great phrasing and beautiful timing.
Enjoyable as both drama and musical, YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN is a sort of rags to riches story of a complex man with a tortured soul who finally gets away from the grips of despair and ends up with the girl who stood loyally by him through all his ups and downs.
It's nothing deep, but it is certainly absorbing and well played.