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The Man With The Golden Arm (1955)
American Film Noir Drama.
The Man With The Golden Arm recounts the story of a drug addict who gets clean while in prison, but struggles to stay that way in the outside world.
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 Motion Picture Association of America originally refused to issue a seal for this movie because it shows drug addiction. The next year the production code was changed to allow movies to deal with drugs, kidnapping, abortion, and prostitution. The film was eventually assigned certificate #20011.
In 2020, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”
SPOILER ALERT:
In the original novel, Frankie did kill Louie and hanged himself in a cheap hotel room while on the run from the police.
This was changed for the movie; in fact, the movie plot is very different from that of the original novel.
| Directed by | Otto Preminger |
|---|---|
| Screenplay by | Walter Newman Lewis Meltzer Ben Hecht (uncredited) |
| Based on | The Man with the Golden Arm 1949 novel by Nelson Algren |
| Produced by | Otto Preminger |
| Starring | Frank Sinatra Eleanor Parker Kim Novak Arnold Stang Darren McGavin |
| Cinematography | Sam Leavitt |
| Edited by | Louis R. Loeffler |
| Music by | Elmer Bernstein |
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Production
company |
Carlyle Productions
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| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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119 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1 million |
| Box office | $4,350,000 (US) |
