Young Man with a Horn (1950)

Rick Martin is a young boy who finds the love for music after his mother dies. The trumpet becomes his instrument, and he learns to play it from an old master called Art Hazzard. Young Man with a Horn from 1950 is directed by Michael Curtiz. Rick Martin is first played by Orley Lindgren, then by Kirk Douglas. Lauren Bacall plays his troubled wife Amy North. Doris Day is the singer friend Jo Jordan. Hoagy Carmichael is the pianist friend Willie 'Smoke' Willoughby. Juano Hernandez portrays Art Hazzard. The cast is quite superb. Douglas does excellent job in the lead. Especially when Rick starts having problems with the alcohol, then Kirk really has to act. And that he does really well! I think the movie becomes more interesting when it portrays all those problems this young man starts having. Problems with marriage, drinking. When it's not just about music and how good he is at it. Bacall's performance is very film noir, which works fairly good in this movie. Day is very touching in the caring she has for her friend. And she can really sing, which we all knew! If you're a fan of the main trio, if you like good music, if you like drama you should see this movie.

More or less fictional, this film tells the story of a lonely but musically inclined kid who grows up to be an ace trumpet player. Kirk Douglas plays Rick Martin, a guy with a one-track mind ... music. But whereas he could make a steady income playing in routine dance bands with their sing-a-long songs, Martin prefers the more free-form sounds of jazz.But jazz doesn't sell records, so Martin hops from one boring band to another, never finding satisfaction except when he's engaged with other like-minded jazz musicians. It's the old conflict of commercialization vs. art. Along the way Rick meets his true love, Jo (Doris Day), but gets sidetracked by a sultry academic named Amy (Lauren Bacall). And therein lies the main problem with this film.Amy is an annoying character. Since she relates not at all to music, every time she's on screen, we have to listen to her whine. She detracts both from Rick Martin and from the film's jazzy, moody style. These plot segments, which show up in the second half take us far away from jazz and into angst filled soap opera territory.Ted McCord's terrific B&W cinematography adds a lot. The lighting and interesting camera angles amplify the moody, downbeat tone, consistent with a 1940s urban visual style, helped along by effective sets and realistic costume design. Casting is acceptable except for Lauren Bacall, who is too overbearing. Doris Day is quite good. And Hoagy Carmichael does a terrific job, both in acting and in narrating the story.A satisfying film overall could have been rendered even better had the script kept the focus on Rick Martin and his love of jazz. That "Young Man With A Horn" didn't win any kind of award is unfortunate. It's a good film, especially for viewers who enjoy jazz and can appreciate the dreary, moody ambiance of 1940s urban America.

Directed by Michael Curtiz, "Young Man With a Horn" (titled "Young Man of Music" in some countries) stars Kirk Douglas as Rick Martin, a young jazz cornetist. The film's loosely based on the life of Bix Beiderbecke, an influential jazz soloist."Horn's" first act watches as Rick is tutored by jazz-man Art Hazzard, warmly played by pioneering black actor Juano Hernandez. Its latter sections watch as Rick mingles with two lovely ladies, one played by Lauren Bacall, the other by Doris Day. Bacall, uptight and overly analytical, resents Rick, who's carefree, improvisational and to whom great achievements seem to come naturally. Rick, meanwhile, grows to detest himself. He finds it impossible to reach "the high notes", and seems desperate to attain some intangible, transcendental greatness through music. The film then ends with Rick settling down with Day's character; a man must first learn to be a good man, husband and friend, Curtiz opines, before he becomes a great artist.The film's message is a false adage, but it's perhaps one which Curtiz believed in and which he perhaps believed applied to his own life. Curtiz, incidentally, would make over a hundred and fifty films, leading to some dubbing him the ultimate "studio hack". Academics and film aficionados have tried to rehabilitate him as an auteur, some looking for common themes in his work (your typical Curtiz flick hinges on a guy who unwittingly becomes a rebel, or becomes an outsider/rebel despite his best efforts), but it always seemed to me that Curtiz's speciality was this: the man knew how to direct the hell out of bars, restaurants and nightclubs. Indeed, Curtiz's filmography is filled with some of the finest bars and nightclubs in cinema history (Rick's bar in "Casablanca" is his most famous), with their moody lighting, sparkling ambient music and collections of well drawn bodies and faces. In "Horn's" case, we have a series of lower and upper class dives, the former frequented by gangsters, drunks and jazz bands, the latter fronted by an impeccably dressed Doris Day, glittery and with the voice of an angel.Bizarrely, Kirk Douglas' Rick shares the name of the hero of Curtiz's "Casablanca". A coincidence, perhaps, though both films feature similar love triangles. Regardless, "Horn" sees Curtiz operating at the height of his aesthetic powers, with some juicy, norish black-and-white cinematography (by Ted McCord), some good location photography, some von-Sternbergian expressionism and another ice-cool performance from Lauren Bacall, whose character feels at a loss as to which course to pursue in life. On the downside, the film becomes increasingly thin as it progresses, its first act overloads on boyish sentimentality and it has very little to say about jazz, the culture of jazz or even the aesthetic of jazz itself (the latter perhaps embodied best by Robert Altman, particularly with films like "The Long Goodbye").8.5/10 – See Howard Hawks' underrated "To Have and Have Not" and Vincente Minnelli's "The Clock" and "Some Came Running". Worth one viewing.

***SPOILERS*** We get the story of confused and wayward trumpeter Rick Martin, Kirk Douglas, straight from the horses mouth Rick's good friend and pianist Willie "Smoke" Willoughby,Hoagy Carmichael. It was Willie who witnessed as well as suffered through Rick's greatest and worst moments in the movie. By the time Willie starts talking, at the start of the film, were not quite sure that by the time he finishes his monologue that Rick would be either alive or dead to hear it!As well soon see Rick Martin was in love with music and the music of his choice was jazz. Blowing up a storm with his trumpet Rick made heads turn not in how good he played his trumpet but how he put a little bit of heart & soul into it that most true and traditional music lovers found to be almost blasphemous! It was his good friend and mentor jazz trumpeter Nat Hazzred Juano Hernandez, who took a young Rick under his wing and taught him everything that he knew about playing the trumpet. In the end Rick, who was too into himself to care about anyone else, turned his back on an old and sickly Nat that had the old guy aimlessly walk into a major thoroughfare in midtown Manhattan and end up getting himself killed!What really shook Rick up was his strange attraction to collage psychology student Amy North, Lauren Bacall, whom he ended up marrying. Amy a closet lesbian was not in love with Rick but only interested in his success in the music world and wanted some of it to rub off on her! When Martin found out that Amy was having an affair behind his back not with another man but woman young art student Miss.Carson, Katherine Krasch,he completely flipped out! By then Rick's music career was already on the skids in him alway doing it, playing his trumpet, his way or no way at all. But in the fact that he was dumped by Amy for another woman was just too much for Rick to take!***SPOILERS*** It was Amy's friend who in fact introduced her to him band singer Jo Jordan, Doris Day, together with Willie who came to Rick's rescue when he was on both life support and in the drunk tank at Bellevue Hospital. Looking as if he was on his deathbed Rick managed to pull himself together and finally get off the sauce,liquor, and went back to playing his trumpet that he in a drunken stupor had earlier discarded. As the movie ends we see Rick, as a member of the band, belting away with his trumpet and hitting the both high and low notes as band singer Jo Jordan or Doris Day sings a sweet and beautiful rendition of "With a song in my heart".P.S "Young Man with a Horn" is one of the few if not only movies, that I can think of, made over 60 years ago that still has it's top or leading actors-Kirk Douglas Lauren Bacall & Doris Day-still alive with us today!