Love Me or Leave Me (1955)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Charles Vidor

Writers:

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

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
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Dorothy Abbott	...	Dancer (uncredited)
Jay Adler	...	Orry (uncredited)
John Alban	...	Reporter (uncredited)
Mal Alberts	...	Reporter (uncredited)
Geneviève Aumont	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
Veda Ann Borg	...	Dance Hall Hostess (uncredited)
Chet Brandenburg	...	Chauffeur (uncredited)
Benny Burt	...	Stage manager (uncredited)
Claire Carleton	...	Claire (uncredited)
Robert Carson	...	Brelston, Radio Station Manager (uncredited)
Dick Cherney	...	Reporter (uncredited)
Jean Corbett	...	Ziegfeld Follies Girl (uncredited)
Joan Corbett	...	Ziegfeld Follies Girl (uncredited)
Jimmy Cross	...	Photographer (uncredited)
John Daheim	...	Stagehand (uncredited)
John Damler	...	Reporter (uncredited)
Robert Dix	...	Assistant Director (uncredited)
Helene Drake	...	Dance Hall Cashier (uncredited)
James Drury	...	Assistant director (uncredited)
Roy Engel	...	Reporter, propman (uncredited)
Mauritz Hugo	...	Irate customer (uncredited)
Michael Kostrick	...	Assistant director (uncredited)
Henry Kulky	...	Bouncer (uncredited)
Bill Lee	...	Singer (uncredited)
Marco López	...	Extra (uncredited)
Robert Malcolm	...	Doorman (uncredited)
Paul McGuire	...	Drapery man (uncredited)
Patti Nestor	...	Chorus girl (uncredited)
Joe Pasternak	...	Film Producer (uncredited)
Henry Randolph	...	Photographer (uncredited)
Thurl Ravenscroft	...	Singer (uncredited)
Barry Regan	...	Studio Guard (uncredited)
Otto Reichow	...	Bouncer (uncredited)
Phil Schumacher	...	Bouncer (uncredited)
Charles Sherlock	...	Reporter (uncredited)
Dick Simmons	...	Movie Dance Director (uncredited)
Max Smith	...	Singer (uncredited)
Winona Smith	...	Chorus girl (uncredited)
Robert R. Stephenson	...	Waiter (uncredited)
Bob Stevens	...	Singer (uncredited)
Larri Thomas	...	Chorus girl (uncredited)
Dale Van Sickel	...	Stagehand (uncredited)
Wally Walker	...	Reporter (uncredited)
Shirley Wilson	...	Chorus girl (uncredited)
Herbert Winters	...	Reporter (uncredited)

Directed by
Charles Vidor

Writing credits
Daniel Fuchs		(screenplay) and
Isobel Lennart		(screenplay)
Daniel Fuchs		(story)

Produced by
Joe Pasternak	....	producer

Original Music by
Percy Faith		(uncredited)
George Stoll		(uncredited)

Cinematography by
Arthur E. Arling		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Ralph E. Winters

Art Direction by
Cedric Gibbons
Urie McCleary

Set Decoration by
Jack D. Moore
Edwin B. Willis

Costume Design by
Helen Rose

Makeup Department
Sydney Guilaroff	....	hair stylist
William Tuttle	....	makeup designer

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Ridgeway Callow	....	assistant director
Hank Moonjean	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Wesley C. Miller	....	recording supervisor

Special Effects by
Warren Newcombe	....	special effects

Editorial Department
Alvord Eiseman	....	color consultant

Music Department
Irving Aaronson	....	music advisor
Percy Faith	....	song arranger: Doris Day
Percy Faith	....	song conductor: Doris Day
George Stoll	....	music supervisor

Other crew
Alex Romero	....	originator: dances
Alex Romero	....	supervisor: dances
Hal Bell	....	assistant choreographer (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Distributors

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1955) (USA) (theatrical)
• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1972) (USA) (TV) (network premiere) (pan/scan)
• MGM/UA Home Entertainment (1988) (USA) (VHS) (pan/scan)
• Chapel Distribution (1997) (Australia) (theatrical) (35mm print)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1956) (France) (theatrical)
• Warner Home Video (2000) (USA) (VHS)
• Warner Home Video (2005) (USA) (DVD)
• Warner Home Video (2006) (USA) (DVD)

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:

According to an interview with Ruth Etting, she never actually worked as a dance hall hostess. This was dramatic fiction, to underscore the song "Ten Cents a Dance".

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 Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film (2008) (TV)

Soundtrack:

(What Can I Say) After I Say I'm Sorry?

As Ruth Etting, Day delivers knockout performance, equally matched by Cagney

Before she became America's top box-office star by playing its oldest virgin, Doris Day was an instinctive, if untutored, actress and an accomplished, popular singer. In Charles Vidor's Love Me Or Leave Me, she takes on the part of Ruth Etting, the troubled songstress from the jazz age, and her twin talents merge memorably. It's a faultless performance, all the more impressive for staying understated, scaled down.

Her co-star, James Cagney, takes the low road; as Marty (`The Gimp') Snyder, a lopsided fireplug of a man, he sizzles with resentment and ignites into rages. Strangely, his scenery-chewing complements Day's underplaying; the tension between their temperaments fuels this dark drama which occasionally resembles a musical but is closer at heart to film noir (Vidor, after all, directed Gilda).

A taxi-dancer in a Chicago dive, Day catches Cagney's eye (he holds the linen-laundering concession for the place). Finding she's not the quick pick-up he had in mind, he lands her a job in the kick-line at another nitery he services. When he finds out she wants to be a singer, he arranges for lessons with pianist Cameron Mitchell (who plays the thankless role of the loyal but shoved-aside lover). But Cagney, used to getting what he wants and to browbeating everybody around him into surrender, meets his match in Day. Her quiet determination proves every bit as strong as his bellowing bluster. When it looks like her star is in ascendancy, he becomes her manager, puts her on radio, and snares her a spot in New York as a headliner in the Ziegfeld Follies.

They settle into a grudge-match of a marriage, with guerrilla warfare erupting from both sides. (Cagney's Snyder is a marginally less disturbed version of his Cody Jarrett in White Heat.) One of their flashfire fights takes place in her dressing room after a show. Cagney knocks a vase of flowers across the room; Day extends her arm for him to unclasp a bracelet. They bicker some more, with Cagney losing the argument while Day nurses the drink that has become her ally. He leans over and tells her `You oughtta lay off that stuff – you're getting to look like an old bag.' It's the chilliest moment in the movie.

In the last third, Day answers a call from Hollywood, which lays the foundation for the unravelling of this messy, nerve-wracking relationship. And if the wrapping up grasps toward the sentimental (with a detour into the melodramatic), it doesn't quite take. Cagney, actor and character, hangs on like a bulldog with a bone. The Marty Snyders never change, and Cagney knows it; he stays the self-deluded small-time hood he started out as, who can't accept that he's driven away a woman he can't believe he loves so much.

Day, however, rises to a magnanimity that rings hollow. Her steely self-confidence about where her talents would bring her, and her casual callousness in using Cagney to help her get there, make her final gesture improbable. But when she takes the spotlight, singing `Mean to Me' or `Ten Cents A Dance' (with her feet planted provocatively – defiantly – apart), Day, actress and character, takes it by natural right. The voice isn't quite right – Etting's was reedy and tremulous, Day's big and secure – but the assurance and style are dead on.