Love Me Or Leave Me

This is title of one of my favourite gangster-showbiz movies, and I suppose the same could be said of it's two main stars. You either love em'... or leave em'. Said stars are Doris Day and Jimmy Cagney. I guess this could be said more of Doris than Jimmy and... Oh my goodness, I have to interupt the post just to tell y'all that... IT'S SNOWING!!! That's big in England, and it's not just little flakes, IT'S BIG ONES!!! Yay!!!

Taken in my kitchen (with the french window open, much to my family's dismay ;D)

A-N-Y-W-A-Y... There are Doris Day obsessives, and Doris Day hate groups. I love her. She is so moving in this, and The Man Who Knew Too Much - so funny in things like Send Me No Flowers and Pillow Talk - and has one of my favourite singing voices. Here is the review. But first, R.I.P to Blake Edwards: director of the stupendous Pink Panther movies, and Husband to my beloved Julie Andrews.

Love Me Or Leave Me
Cast:

• James Cagney  as gangster Martin Snyder
•  Doris Day as Ruth Etting (whose life the bio-pic is based upon)
• Cameron Mitchell as Ruth's pianist, Myrl Alderman

Plot:
(This film is in colour, but all the pics I liked from it are in black and white. No change there!)
Ruth Etting is a dancer in a "rent a dancer" club (not unlike in Sweet Charity), but yearns for a career in singing. One night after she kicks a man in the leg for dancing "innapropriately" with her, she is fired. She then meets Martin Snyder, owner of a laundrey service, who offers to get her a job at a club he's "involved" with. She jumps at the oppertunity. As she had told him of her singing aspirations, she had assumed it would be a singing job. It was as a backup dancer. Quite angry, she tells Martin that she wanted a job as a singer he replies with "Ya said j'a wanned ta be awn stage, didn't cha?!".

He agrees to let her rehearse with the pianist, Myrl Alderman, to train. One day he arranges for her to be the announcer-singer for the main artist, but she is still not satisfied. She gets the chance to sing as the main act. From then on it's up, up, up for Ruth's career. One day she is offered a job in The Zigfield Follies to sing "Shakin' The Blues Away" amoung other classics.

This goes well, until Martin has a fight with a stage-hand and takes her out of the show. She manages to get her way to Hollywood through her own radio show. Now married to Snyder, Ruth grows more and more unhappy. Martin really loves her, despite his attitude, but she is too ambitous. And in love with her piano player...

The Review:
This film is really great. Great songs and great performances. The only thing I have to say against it, is that they don't show how much Martin loves her enough. The movie could have done with that. I know it's just a fictionalized bio-pic, but I still wanted Cagney to have more tender scenes than he did. I really find Jimmy Cagney amazing in this film. I seem to be forever excusing someone of their accused one-dimensional-ness, but Jimmy Cagney is an amazing singer and dancer! In Yankee Doodle Dandy (one of my favourite musicals) he does both amazingly. Just thought I'd tell ya that. Also, whenever I see clips of Bette Davis and him in movies together, it astounds me how similar their speech pattern and habits are. I found this Bette Davis blooper video (sorry, no embeding code! I think I've posted this before, but it's really cool.) a while ago. It's so funny. There are some bits with her and Jimmy Cagney in them, but beware, there is quite a bit of strong language from Miss Davis!

Can't wait for Christmas. I can't remember if I've told you all this, but we are getting a film projector for Christmas, and we are having a double bill of Christmas movie showings on Christmas Eve on it (if we didn't open it on Christmas Eve we wouldn't be able to watch Christmas Movies!), Meet Me In St. Louis at 4:30ish, and It's A Wonderful Life at 7:30ish. Can't wait!

~Bette