Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (June 24, 2024)
More than 40 years after his death, Raoul Walsh lacks “name recognition” among the general public. However, film buffs know his work, primarily for gangster flicks like 1939’s The Roaring Twenties and 1949’s White Heat.
Made in between those two, 1947’s The Man I Love. This one focuses on beautiful torch singer Petey Brown (Ida Lupino).
Petey travels from New York to Southern California to visit her family for Christmas. While there, she gets work as a performer at a club owned by underworld figure Nicky Toresca (Robert Alda).
Nicky makes many passes at Petey, which she avoids. Instead, she maintains a desire for struggling jazz pianist San Thomas (Bruce Bennett), a choice that leads to various complications.
Man often feels more like a showcase for Lupino’s talents than a full-fledged movie. We get ample scenes of her as a singer along with plenty of showy moments in which she gets to make a dramatic impact.
Beyond that, Man struggles to find much of interest. It really just becomes a dreary love triangle and not a lot more.
Actually, I guess Man offers a slight deviation from the formula in that both of Petey’s potential mates come with ample flaws. Normally a movie like this would place the lead in a dilemma where she must choose between a practical but boring suitor and the man she loves passionately who comes with major drawbacks.
In this case, both San and Nicky demonstrate considerable issues that make them less than suitable for Petey. Nicky is a philandering hood, while San is still hung up on a lost love and emotionally troubled.
Despite this potential twist, Man fails to find much of interest, mainly because Nicky offers such a one-dimensional lech. For a love triangle to work, the audience needs to accept both suitors as viable, and we don’t sense that here.
Perhaps because the basic plot of Man comes with these concerns, it dabbles in issues related to Petey’s relatives. We get a mix of concerns connected to their own personal lives.
These offer some cheap melodrama but don’t receive enough exploration to add depth to the movie. Instead, these scenes come across like simple stabs at emotion as well as filler.
Lupino offers a strong lead performance, even though she exhibits a film noir personality in a romantic melodrama. Still, despite the fact her character feels oddly disconnected from many of the others, Lupino gives the part bite that helps move along the flick.
Which it needs since the story and characters don’t offer a lot to captivate the viewer. Scattered and rarely especially compelling, Man I Love ends up as a mediocre romantic drama.
