Young Man With A Horn has two - no make that three - major things going for it. The first is Ted McCord's low-key, back-lit, black-and-white photography. It has a luminosity and a beauty that has rarely been equalled, never excelled in black-and-white picturemaking. This is one of the top ten most artistically photographed black-and-white films of all time. In fact it is so consistently beautiful and lovely to look at and photographed throughout in the same consistently back-lit style, it's easy to pick out the two or three brief scenes Mr McCord did not photograph and were presumably added after the film was finished.
The off-screen narration - a popular device when the film was made (cf. Red Badge of Courage) - was evidently an afterthought - and a poor one at that. The narration does nothing for the film and the quality of the writing is even more hackneyed, cliched and given to overstating the obvious than some of the dialogue and, equally important, the obviously tacked on, upbeat ending.
The second major quality the film posseses is the trumpet-playing of Harry James, so skilled it needs no further backing here.
The third item is the quality of the acting - Douglas is ideally cast and Bacall, making a late entrance, comes across most convincingly in a rare unsympathetic part. The dramatic demands on Miss Day are much lighter but she too acquits herself honorably. Hoagy is good - his part has been built up, his one song being added after the film had already wrapped - but the film's outstanding support performance comes from Juano Hernandez who runs the emotional gamut from confidante and advisor to dependant and admirer with his usual dignity and assurance.
Cutiz's direction presents some admirable touches - the scene in which Bacall is introduced walking away from the camera and then having her face relected in a mirror as she turns around - but some of the acting is very obviously "staged" and stiff. The often florid dialogue doesn't help. Despite the earnestness of its acting, the film often lacks interest and conviction. Sometimes it seems terribly well-meaning but dull. It lacks that sense of involvement, the feeling that we are seeing not a staged picture but taking a vicarious and involving part in real-life drama. It's curious that a movie so well-made and artistically crafted in many departments, should present itself at the same time as so obviously just a film.
OTHER VIEWS: Love to have that soundtrack in my collection! Notice the way McCord's lighting switches from the stark gray tones in the early Doris Day scenes to the black in Lauren Bacall's episodes as well as frequent effective use of mirrors in these sequences. Yes, the craftsmen did their best to build up the film and it's not their fault that the script is just not as gripping in the Bacall interludes as it is in the childhood and Day scenes. Some great location filming (the kid crossing the railway tracks) contributes to making some of the film's most memorable images (Douglas dashing down the hospital corridor, collapsing on a street in New York, etc).
The off-screen narration - a popular device when the film was made (cf. Red Badge of Courage) - was evidently an afterthought - and a poor one at that. The narration does nothing for the film and the quality of the writing is even more hackneyed, cliched and given to overstating the obvious than some of the dialogue and, equally important, the obviously tacked on, upbeat ending.
The second major quality the film posseses is the trumpet-playing of Harry James, so skilled it needs no further backing here.
The third item is the quality of the acting - Douglas is ideally cast and Bacall, making a late entrance, comes across most convincingly in a rare unsympathetic part. The dramatic demands on Miss Day are much lighter but she too acquits herself honorably. Hoagy is good - his part has been built up, his one song being added after the film had already wrapped - but the film's outstanding support performance comes from Juano Hernandez who runs the emotional gamut from confidante and advisor to dependant and admirer with his usual dignity and assurance.
Cutiz's direction presents some admirable touches - the scene in which Bacall is introduced walking away from the camera and then having her face relected in a mirror as she turns around - but some of the acting is very obviously "staged" and stiff. The often florid dialogue doesn't help. Despite the earnestness of its acting, the film often lacks interest and conviction. Sometimes it seems terribly well-meaning but dull. It lacks that sense of involvement, the feeling that we are seeing not a staged picture but taking a vicarious and involving part in real-life drama. It's curious that a movie so well-made and artistically crafted in many departments, should present itself at the same time as so obviously just a film.
OTHER VIEWS: Love to have that soundtrack in my collection! Notice the way McCord's lighting switches from the stark gray tones in the early Doris Day scenes to the black in Lauren Bacall's episodes as well as frequent effective use of mirrors in these sequences. Yes, the craftsmen did their best to build up the film and it's not their fault that the script is just not as gripping in the Bacall interludes as it is in the childhood and Day scenes. Some great location filming (the kid crossing the railway tracks) contributes to making some of the film's most memorable images (Douglas dashing down the hospital corridor, collapsing on a street in New York, etc).