‘Golden Arm’ Is Also Golden Miss

“The Man With the Golden Arm” was touted as a clear-eyed look at the gutter life of a junkie when it released in 1955. This was the movie that would tell the truth about drug addiction, blowing away the delirious haze that hung over such silly attempts as “Reefer Madness.”

Good intentions (and good publicity) aside, this Otto Preminger-directed film turned out to have more in common with “Reefer Madness” than anyone cared to admit. While “The Man With the Golden Arm” did put the addict in a sympathetic light, not the hungry fiend we’d come to know, it was really just an excuse for heated melodrama, old-fashioned Hollywood style.

It was also a star vehicle for Frank Sinatra, who had left musicals behind and was croonlessly dedicating himself to “serious” acting. In “The Man With the Golden Arm” (screening Friday as part of UC Irvine’s “Films We Love to Watch But Were Afraid to Admit” series), he plays Frankie, a professional gambler and full-time junkie. All the lowlifes call his arm “golden” not because he fills it with dope but because he wins at poker.

The picture starts with Frankie returning to his seedy neighborhood after spending time in jail. Right off, we know these are mean people; a bunch of them are torturing a one-armed drunk, making him dance for a drink. The ringleader is Louie (Darren McGavin), the local pusher who comes across like a ghettoized Snidely Whiplash, complete with villain’s mustache and twirling cane.

The plot is campy-hilarious. Frankie wants to become a drummer (they taught him how to play in prison!) but has more than one monkey on his back. Besides dope, he frets about his wiggy wife (Eleanor Parker), who pretends she’s an invalid to keep him around. Down the hall is the foxy Molly (Kim Novak), a good girl who works at a strip joint and melts every time Frankie turns her way.

Frankie has one chance, and that’s to make good at the drum audition scheduled for Monday, right after a hellish weekend of gambling and cold turkey. There’s not much suspense; as soon as he eagerly accepts the tryout, you know Frankie’s doomed. Louie keeps turning up, dangling smack under his nose.

The movie is fun to watch, but for all the wrong reasons. While it might be nice to admire this clumsy attempt at junkie revisionism, “The Man With the Golden Arm” stands out as a striking example of how out of touch Hollywood could be when probing social ills. Preminger’s ham-fisted approach and Walter Newman and Lewis Meltzer’s thick-as-a-brick screenplay do inspire plenty of grins.

As for the acting, well, it’s wildly over the top. Parker is a series of crazy-eyed mannerisms mixed in with breathless line reading. McGavin is a kick, just because he’s so evil. Novak is the exception to all the big gestures; she ambles zombie-like through Sam Leavitt’s bleak cinematography. She does look great, though, even in a sleepwalk.

The best performance, easily, goes to Sinatra, who won an Academy Award nomination. Most of the time, he’s relatively restrained and shows some of the same coiled energy that made him a success in “From Here to Eternity” two years earlier. You suspect, however, that his Oscar nomination in “The Man With the Golden Arm” came for his hysterical cold turkey scene toward the picture’s end. It’s just a shriek or two from “Reefer Madness.”

What: Otto Preminger’s “The Man With the Golden Arm.”

When: Friday, Nov. 20, 7 and 9 p.m.

Where: UC Irvine Student Center, Crystal Cove Auditorium.

Whereabouts: Take the San Diego (I-405) Freeway to Jamboree Road and head south. Go east on Campus Drive and take Bridge Road into the campus.

Wherewithal: $2 and $4.

Where to call: (714) 856-6379.