Love Me or Leave Me [Blu-ray]

Overview

One of the gutsiest movie musicals of the 1950s, Love Me or Leave Me is the true story of 1930s torch-singer Ruth Etting, here played by Doris Day. While working in a dime-a-dance joint, Ruth is discovered by Chicago racketeer Martin "The Gimp" Snyder (fascinatingly played with nary a redeeming quality by James Cagney). The smitten Snyder exerts pressure on his show-biz connections, and before long Ruth is a star of nightclubs, stage and films. Ruth continues to string Snyder along to get ahead, but she can't help falling in love with musician Johnny Alderman (Cameron Mitchell). After sinking his fortune into a nightclub for Ruth's benefit, Snyder is rather understandably put out when he finds her in the arms of Alderman. Snyder shoots the musician (but not fatally) and is carted away to prison. Upon his release, Snyder finds that Ruth is still in love with Alderman; he is mollified by her act of largesse in keeping her promise to perform in his nightclub at a fraction of her normal salary. No one comes off particularly nobly in Love Me or Leave Me, even though the still-living Ruth Etting, Martin Snyder and Johnny Alderman were offered full script approval. The fact that we are seeing flesh-and-blood opportunists rather than the usual sugary-sweet MGM musical stick figures naturally makes for a more powerful film. In his autobiography, James Cagney had nothing but praise for his co-star Doris Day, and bemoaned the fact that she would soon turn her back on dramatic roles to star in a series of fluffy domestic comedies.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/13/2016
UPC:	0888574409647
Original Release:	1955
Source:	Warner Archives
Language:	English
Sales rank:	20,545

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Doris Day	Ruth Etting,Stage-Hand
James Cagney	Marty Snyder
Cameron Mitchell	Johnny Alderman
Robert Keith	Bernard V. Loomis
Tom Tully	Frobisher
Harry Bellaver	Georgie
Richard Gaines	Paul Hunter
Peter Leeds	Fred Taylor
Claude Stroud	Eddie Fulton
John Harding	Greg Trent
Audrey Young	Jingle Girl
Dorothy Abbott	Dancer
Phil Schumacher	Bouncer
Otto Reichow	Bouncer
Henry Kulky	Bouncer
Jay Adler	Orry
Mauritz Hugo	Irate Customer
Audrey Wilder	Jingle Girl
Veda Ann Borg	Hostess
Claire Carleton	Claire
Benny Burt	Stage Manager
Robert Carson	Mr. Brelston, Radio Station Manager
James Drury	Assistant Director
Chet Brandenburg	Chauffeur
Richard Simmons	Dance Director,Dance director
Michael Kostrick	Assistant Director
Roy Engel	1st Reporter/Propman
John Damler	2nd Reporter
Genevieve Aumont	Woman
Dale Van Sickel	Stage-Hand
Larri Thomas	Chorus Girl
Patti Nestor	Chorus Girl
Winona Smith	Chorus Girl
Shirley Wilson	Chorus Girl
Robert Malcolm	Doorman
Robert Stephenson	Waiter
Paul McGuire	Drapery Man
Barry Regan	Guard
Jimmy Cross	Photographer
Henry Randolph	Photographer
Chet Brandenberg	Chauffeur
Nicholas Broadszky	Composer
Percy Faith	Composer

Technical Credits

Daniel Fuchs

Isobel Lennart

Charles Vidor	Director
Daniel Fuchs	Screenwriter
Isobel Lennart	Screenwriter
Warren Newcombe	Special Effects
Joe Pasternak	Producer
Percy Faith	Musical Arrangement
Wesley C. Miller	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

An MGM musical remarkably free of sentimentality, Love Me or Leave Me (1955) features top-billed Doris Day as 1920s and 30s blues singer Ruth Etting and James Cagney as her sadistic gangster husband Martin "The Gimp" Snyder. A more bitter than sweet view of Etting's real life rise to fame and her twisted relationship with Snyder, screenwriters Daniel Fuchs and Isobel Lennart and director Charles Vidor present Etting and Snyder as equally ruthless in their professional and personal lives. Even as his adoration of Etting may humanize him, Cagney's Snyder is also psychotically violent; Day matches Cagney's intensity as the tortured yet emotionally cruel Etting. Punctuated by Day's performances of Etting hits like "Shaking the Blues Away," and the new composition "I'll Never Stop Loving You," Love Me or Leave Me became a box office hit, despite fan objections to Day's uncharacteristically licentious onscreen presence. Even though critics agreed that Day could hold her own dramatically opposite Cagney, only Cagney received an Oscar nomination for his fascinating performance as a most unsavory man. Also nominated for several other Oscars including Best Song and Score, Love Me or Leave Me won the Oscar for Fuchs's story.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola