Love Me or Leave Me (1955)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Charles Vidor

Writers:

Daniel Fuchs (screenplay) and
Isobel Lennart (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

10 June 1955 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama | Music | Romance

Tagline:

You'll Love it!...The Big Lavish Musical of the Roaring Twenties!

Plot:

A fictionalized account of the career of jazz singer Ruth Etting and her tempestuous marriage to gangster Marty Snyder, who helped propel her to stardom.

Plot Keywords:

Singer | Star | Broadway | Marriage | Gangster

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 1 win & 6 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Fri. July 17

4:45 PM

TCM

Cast

Doris Day	...	Ruth Etting
James Cagney	...	Martin Snyder
Cameron Mitchell	...	Johnny Alderman
Robert Keith	...	Bernard V. Loomis
Tom Tully	...	Frobisher
Harry Bellaver	...	Georgie
Richard Gaines	...	Paul Hunter
Peter Leeds	...	Fred Taylor
Claude Stroud	...	Eddie Fulton
Audrey Young	...	Jingle Girl
John Harding	...	Greg Trent

Runtime:

122 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (35 mm optical prints) | 4-Track Stereo (Western Electric Sound System) (35 mm magnetic prints)

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | USA:Approved (certificate #17433) | Australia:PG (TV rating) | USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | Sweden:Btl | Australia:G | Finland:K-16 | UK:PG | Germany:6

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

Of the sixty-two films he made, James Cagney wrote that he rated this among his top five.

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: During one scene late in the film where Cagney is speaking, the audio/visuals are off by more than a second.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey (1991) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Mean to Me

James Cagney gave a brilliant performance: gritty and tough with nuances of pathos

I am NOT a fan of Doris Day - there is just something about her that annoys me. But in this movie she acted very different from the usual Doris Day movie. And the way she sang those ballads breaks your heart. But the acting job that truly amazes - and has through the years made me a fan - is that of James Cagney. One wonders if he had a parent that was abusive or an Uncle or someone he had intimately observed. Because from somewhere that man understood something about an abusive relationship and put it in his performance. It was positively beyond extraordinary. He deserved an Academy Nomination at the very least. While he was cruel, vile, despicable, certainly repulsive and yet you felt at the same time he was pitiful, sad, pathetic. It was an extremely complex performance. When I saw "Love Me Or Leave Me" as a teenager I didn't appreciate the subtlety of his acting. It wasn't until I saw it many, many years later and had gone through a lot of living that I comprehended the true magnitude of his performance.