December 12, 2020

20,000 vinyl LPs 259: The Man With The Golden Arm ~ Elmer Bernstein & Frank Sinatra

 
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vinyl LP front cover detail 
cover design by Saul Bass
detail photo of album cover by Styrous®

 
Today, December 12, is the birthday of singer, crooner, Frank Sinatra, who was born in 1915, in an upstairs tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey. I have dozens of albums by him but to me this is the perfect tribute to him as he experienced, as a youth, the world of Francis Majcinek, known as "Frankie Machine", a card dealer and amateur drummer, the character he portrayed in the 1955 film, The Man With The Golden Arm. Also, it demonstrated that he was much more than a great singer, he was a great actor. He doesn't sing a single note in the film and he was stunning!     
 
 
Elmer Bernstein - The Man With The Golden Arm
vinyl LP front cover
cover design by Saul Bass
photo of album cover by Styrous®
 

The Man With The Golden Arm is based on the 1949 novel by Nelson Algren. The novel was controversial at the time, and it did receive some bad reviews. In a 1956 article for The New Yorker entitled The Man with the Golden Beef, Norman Podhoretz was critical of what he saw as the glorification of the underclass at the expense of "respectable society".    
 
When the book was made into a film, Algren was initially brought to Hollywood to work on the screenplay, but was replaced by Walter Newman. Algren felt negatively about his experiences in Hollywood, the lack of compensation he received, and the liberties taken by the filmmakers (which included an entirely different ending from the novel). When photographer and friend Art Shay asked Algren to pose below the film's marquee, he is reported to have said "What does that movie have to do with me?"    
 
The book won the National Book Award in 1950. Algren wrote A Walk on the Wild Side in 1956 which was also made into a film in 1965. 
        

Elmer Bernstein - The Man With The Golden Arm
vinyl LP front cover detail 
cover design by Saul Bass
detail photo of album cover by Styrous®

 
The Man With The Golden Arm, shot in the tradition of thirties & forties film noir, deals with the nightmare of drug addition; the first time Hollywood acknowledged its existence. The black and white adds to the gritty feeling of the milieu in which the characters are immersed. Also contributing to this gritty feeling is a fitting and flawless score by Elmer Bernstein performed by a stellar jazz personnel (links below). The film was directed by Otto Preminger.              
 
 

Elmer Bernstein - The Man With The Golden Arm
vinyl LP back cover detail 
cover design by Saul Bass
detail photo of album back cover by Styrous®
 
 
The casting for the film was brilliant. Eleanor Parker, as Sophie (nicknamed "Zosh"), Frankie Machine's wife, who is crippled after a car crash caused by Frankie driving while drunk; but she is secretly fully recovered and pretends to be crippled to make Frankie feel guilty so he will stay with her.      
 
 
 
 
A wonderful job of acting was done by Kim Novak, at the height of her beauty, as "Molly-O" Novotny who works in a local strip joint as a hostess and lives in the apartment below them; unlike Zosh, Molly encourages his dream of becoming a drummer.      
 
 
 
 
Arnold Stang, usually a comic, was perfect as weaselly "Sparrow" Saltskin, who runs a con selling homeless dogs.         
 
 
 
 
Darren McGavin superbly portrayed "Nifty Louie" Fomorowski, the slimy pusher who sells heroin to Machine (links to cast and plot below).        
 
 
Frank Sinatra (Frankie Machine) & Darren McGavin
 
 
 
 

Elmer Bernstein - The Man With The Golden Arm
vinyl LP back cover detail 
cover design by Saul Bass
detail photo of album back cover by Styrous® 
 
 
 
 
Elmer Bernstein - The Man With The Golden Arm
vinyl LP back cover detail 
cover design by Saul Bass
detail photo of album back cover by Styrous®


The score by Elmer Bernstein is jazzy, jittery, frenetic, dissonant, at times suspenseful and pensive, even when it's orchestral, befitting the mood of the film. The one exception is Moly. It is slow, romantic and beautiful with full orchestra and a soft piano played by Ray Turner. However, it does have its stress points towards the end of the piece.     
 
 


 
 
 


There have been many covers of the Main Theme from The Man With The Golden Arm; not all of them have been jazz versions (link below).      

One of my favorite hard rock groups, Sweet, a British glam rock band that rose to worldwide fame in the 1970s, did a fantastic cover of the Main Theme from the film on their album, Desolation Boulevard, added the line, "Watch that man with the golden arm!", tympani and chimes. They performed it for a concert in Germany in 1974; there is a video of the rehearsal for the concert on YouTube (link below). Mick Tucker performs amazing drum solos on both.     

Leonard Cohen used imagery from The Man With The Golden Arm in The Stranger Song, from his first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967): "O you've seen that man before / his golden arm dispatching cards / but now it's rusted from the elbows to the finger" (link below).          
 

               

Elmer Bernstein - The Man With The Golden Arm
vinyl LP back cover detail 
cover design by Saul Bass
detail photo of album back cover by Styrous®


Although the addictive drug is never identified in the film, according to the American Film Institute "most contemporary and modern sources assume that it is heroin", in contrast to Algren's book which named the drug as morphine. The film's initial release was controversial for its treatment of the then-taboo subject of drug addiction.             


The Man With The Golden Arm


The "quitting, cold turkey" scene in the film is graphic and frightening; it is only matched by the similar theme in the 1945 film, Lost Weekend, which starred Ray Milland as an alcoholic (links below).     
 

Elmer Bernstein - The Man With The Golden Arm
vinyl LP back cover detail 
cover design by Saul Bass
detail photo of album back cover by Styrous®




       
 Elmer Bernstein - The Man With The Golden Arm
vinyl LP back cover details
detail photos of album back cover by Styrous®
       
 
 
 
Frank Sinatra is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide.    
 
Born to Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, Sinatra was greatly influenced by the intimate easy listening vocal style of Bing Crosby and began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey.       
 
 
Harry James & Frank Sinatra - 1939
photographer unknown
 
 
Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943; his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, was released in 1946. By the early 1950s his professional career had stalled and he turned to Las Vegas. In 1965, he recorded the retrospective album, September of My Years, to me the best album he ever made (link below).           
 
Other dramatic films he starred in are From Here to Eternity in 1953, Suddenly in 1954, Not as a Stranger in 1955, The Pride and the Passion in 1957, Some Came Running and Kings Go Forth both in 1958, The Manchurian Candidate in 1962, and many others.           
                        
 

 
 Elmer Bernstein - The Man With The Golden Arm
vinyl LP back cover details
detail photos of album back cover by Styrous®
 
      
       
 
 
 
      
vinyl LP labels, side 1 & 2
detail photos by Styrous®

       
Tracklist:     
 
Side 1:

    Clark Street
A1a     The Top    
A1b     Homecoming, Trumpet – Pete Candoli   
A1c     Antek's    
    -
A2     Zosh    
A3     Frankie Machine, Flugelhorn – Shorty Rogers   
A4     The Fix    
A5     Molly    


Side 2: 
 
    Breakup 
B1a     Flight    
B1b     Louie's    
B1c     Buriesque     
    -
B2     Sunday Morning    
B3     Desperation    
B4     Audition, Drums – Shelly Manne, Flugelhorn – Shorty RogersTrombone – Milt Bernhart
   
    The Cure
B5a     Withdraw    
B5b     Cold    
B5c     Morning    
    -
B6     Finale    

Companies, etc.

    Manufactured By – Decca Records, Inc.

Credits:

    Arranged By [Jazz Arrangements] – Shorty Rogers
    Bass – Abe Luboff, Ralph Pena*
    Cello – Armand Kaproff
    Clarinet – Mitchell Lurie
    Composed By, Conductor – Elmer Bernstein
    Design – Saul Bass
    Drums, Arranged By [Drumming Sequences] – Shelly Manne
    Edited By – Leon Birbaum
    Flute – Martin Ruderman*
    French Horn – Joseph Eger
    Musical Assistance [Assistant To Mr. Bernstein] – Robert Helfer
    Oboe – Arnold Koblentz
    Orchestrated By – Fred Steiner
    Piano – Ray Turner
    Saxophone [Alto] – Bud Shank
    Saxophone [Tenor] – Bob Cooper
    Trombone – Milt Bernhart
    Trumpet – Bob Fleming
    Violin – Anatol Kaminsky

Notes:

Jazz sequences arranged and played by SHORTY ROGERS and His Giants with SHELLY MANNE

Black Decca label with "Long Play 33 1/3 RPM" along the bottom
  
Barcode and Other Identifiers

    Matrix / Runout (A-Side - Label): MG 4524
    Matrix / Runout (A-Side - Stamped): MG4524T6 3 //\
    Matrix / Runout (B-Side - Label): MG 4525
    Matrix / Runout (B-Side - Stamped): MG4525T6 3 ///

 

        
         
         
Viewfinder links:        
         
Nelson Algren         
Milt Bernhart        
Elmer Bernstein         
Bob Cooper         
Bing Crosby        
Tommy Dorsey           
Armand Kaproff       
Shelly Manne         
Darren McGavin         
Ray Milland          
Kim Novak         
Otto Preminger           
Shorty Rogers         
Bud Shank       
Frank Sinatra         
Frank Sinatra ~ September of My Years           
Arnold Stang         
Fred Steiner          
Sweet (The Sweet)          
Mick Tucker           
 
Net links:        
         
The Man With The Golden Arm  
       Cast         
       Plot         
Frank Sinatra ~                
      Film career          
      Music career       
Reviews:         
Empire Online ~ The Man With The Golden Arm        
The New Republic ~ The Man With the Golden Arm      
Variety ~ The Man With The Golden Arm              
Vulture Culture ~ The Man with the Golden Arm
Sweet website        
   
YouTube links:        
         
Music:         
 
Leonard Cohen - The Stranger Song         
The Man with the Golden Arm (Soundtrack Suite) (1955) (15 mins.)   
Moly        
Sweet ~ The Man with the Golden Arm (8 mins., 48 sec.,)       
 
Videos:            
        
The Man with the Golden Arm (complete) (1955) (1 hr., 59 mins.)    
The Man With The Golden Arm ~        
     Trailer    
     Main Theme    
     Audition Scene   
     Quitting Cold Turkey Scene       
Frank Sinatra (interview)          
Sweet ~ The Man With the Golden Arm (6 mins., 51 sec.)        
 
 

 “There's people in hell who want ice water.” 
                         ~ Nelson Algren
 
 
 
Styrous® ~ Saturday, December 12, 2020       



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