OVP: Pal Joey (1957)

Film: Pal Joey (1957)
Stars: Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, Barbara Nichols
Director: George Sidney
Oscar History: 4 nominations (Best Art Direction, Film Editing, Costume, Sound)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

It wouldn't be a week devoted to the category of Best Sound at the Oscars without us having at least one musical, and that comes to us this Wednesday, as we tackle the 1957 film Pal Joey.  For those who are familiar with the original Broadway show (spoiler alert-I was not), the film takes a bit of a departure from the original, particularly with the lead character, turning him from an anti-hero into a more traditional stand-up guy, which makes sense considering in 1957 there were few matinee idols who could approach Frank Sinatra.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is basically a love triangle, and not with a lot of twists.  We have Joey, a womanizing singer who has dreams of opening up a club called "Chez Joey" that will be successful because they do it "his way," but he doesn't have the money to finance the club.  Just as he's starting to make something happen with romancing a beautiful chorus girl named Linda (Novak), an old flame of Joey's walks into the picture: Vera (Hayworth), who was once a showgirl but is now a society matron, a wealthy widow who doesn't want to admit her seedier past, but is also madly in love with Joey.  She starts financing Joey, but Joey can't get Linda off of his mind, so she gives him an ultimatum-pick Linda or Chez Joey.  After much hemming-and-hawing (and the mandatory stormy breakup scene), he goes after Linda & real love.

As you might already be able to tell, I didn't like Pal Joey.  For starters, the movie is too long, and frequently doesn't know what to do with its two female leads, which is a bummer because Kim Novak & Rita Hayworth are far more intriguing screen presences than Frank Sinatra, who always plays some version of Frank Sinatra.  Novak, just a year away from giving one of the truly great performances of the 1950's in Vertigo, plays her Linda as a bored showgirl, someone who has seen a guy like Joey a dozen times...and yet she falls for him pretty quickly.  Vera is the more intriguing character, but she's ancillary to the plot.  Despite Hayworth getting top billing (Sinatra graciously gave it to her since she'd gotten it on every film she'd made at Columbia for a decade), she's not important to the plot, and doesn't get the sort of wry moments that Hayworth was so good at nailing.

The film won four Oscar nominations, including of course for Best Sound, which was by far its most warranted citation.  Sinatra might not be breaking the mold as an actor here, but he was in the best years of his singing career, and is breathtaking crooning "The Lady is a Tramp" or "I didn't Know What Time It Was."  Musicals get de facto nominations for Sound specifically because of films like Pal Joey, which do a great job modulating and calibrating each number & scene to be perfectly balanced & bring forth the great serenading that's happening onscreen.

As for the rest, I'm less-impressed.  The sets are weirdly claustrophobic.  This isn't a bad thing, but for a film that has the budget & the star power to ensure that we don't feel like it's a staged play, it shows its Broadway roots in a way few musicals of the era did, and I thought that was at once creative and perplexing.  The costumes are fun, if here a bit repetitive-oh look, here's another shot of Hawyorth or Novak in an evening-length gown with a body that looks like a track at Daytona...there's no look in the film that feels classic even from two fashion staples.  And the editing...Pal Joey could have trimmed twenty minutes off and no one would have missed it (the film's biggest problem is it drags & repeats)-the musical numbers aren't impressive enough visually (even if they sound good) to warrant this based on those pieces alone.