← Back to Reviews
in
The Man I Love, 1947
Petey (Ida Lupino) comes to LA to visit her family, and ends up working in a nightclub where low-level gangster Nicky (Robert Alda) doggedly pursues her. But Petey’s affections belong to San (Bruce Bennett), a jazz pianist who has fallen on hard times. Meanwhile, the couple next door, Johnny (Don McGuire) and Gloria (Dolores Moran), are dealing with marriage woes after the birth of their first child.
A slightly extraneous crime element can’t dampen an electric character study.
There’s nothing like a film where so much of the story and so many of the characters feel deeply human, even despite circumstances that feel very Hollywood.
Petey is such a phenomenal, easy-to-watch character that I could have spent three Jeanne Dielman-like hours watching her balance her checkbook or whatever. While what we get is far more sensational---gangsters! guns! love affairs!---Petey is the beautiful heart at the center of it all. As she tries to navigate her own feelings and keep the people she loves out of trouble or danger, she holds onto a sense of self that is really inspiring to watch.
As the sleazy Nicky makes one of his many inelegant passes at Petey, he remarks that she’s a bit too “independent,” to which she retorts a simple, “yeah.” Petey knows exactly who she is, which is why it puts her in such a fluster to realize just how hard she’s fallen for San. You can tell that Petey is the kind of person who always finds a way, but even she can’t be sure that her affections will pull San from his self-imposed exile. She is such a straight-shooter, and so obviously a person who is used to fixing the problems of her loved ones, that you feel that she is entirely deserving of finding someone to be a real partner to her.
And there are plenty of problems to fix, that’s for sure. Setting aside San’s depression (the result of a marriage that ended in a bitter divorce), Petey’s little brother Joe (Warren Douglas) is working for Nicky and engaging in increasingly slimy behavior. And next door, the callous Gloria is pressuring Johnny to return to work despite a serious injury, often leaving him alone to care for their little baby or leaving the baby with Petey and her sisters. Watching Petey give sensible advice to both Johnny and Gloria reveals her compassion for both of them, and maybe a little something about her own past history. There is a moment late in the film where Petey handles a man on the edge of a terrible decision with a stern compassion that is breathtaking.
I had only two complaints about the film. The first is that I was never 100% sold on San. It’s not that he’s a bad guy, and it’s not that love isn’t mysterious, but the way Petey falls head over heels for San didn’t totally track for me. And while it makes for a pretty thrilling last act, I had mixed feelings about the way that some of the crime/gangster stuff takes the forefront toward the end of the film.
A solid drama-thriller with an unforgettably fantastic character at its center.
The Man I Love, 1947
Petey (Ida Lupino) comes to LA to visit her family, and ends up working in a nightclub where low-level gangster Nicky (Robert Alda) doggedly pursues her. But Petey’s affections belong to San (Bruce Bennett), a jazz pianist who has fallen on hard times. Meanwhile, the couple next door, Johnny (Don McGuire) and Gloria (Dolores Moran), are dealing with marriage woes after the birth of their first child.
A slightly extraneous crime element can’t dampen an electric character study.
There’s nothing like a film where so much of the story and so many of the characters feel deeply human, even despite circumstances that feel very Hollywood.
Petey is such a phenomenal, easy-to-watch character that I could have spent three Jeanne Dielman-like hours watching her balance her checkbook or whatever. While what we get is far more sensational---gangsters! guns! love affairs!---Petey is the beautiful heart at the center of it all. As she tries to navigate her own feelings and keep the people she loves out of trouble or danger, she holds onto a sense of self that is really inspiring to watch.
As the sleazy Nicky makes one of his many inelegant passes at Petey, he remarks that she’s a bit too “independent,” to which she retorts a simple, “yeah.” Petey knows exactly who she is, which is why it puts her in such a fluster to realize just how hard she’s fallen for San. You can tell that Petey is the kind of person who always finds a way, but even she can’t be sure that her affections will pull San from his self-imposed exile. She is such a straight-shooter, and so obviously a person who is used to fixing the problems of her loved ones, that you feel that she is entirely deserving of finding someone to be a real partner to her.
And there are plenty of problems to fix, that’s for sure. Setting aside San’s depression (the result of a marriage that ended in a bitter divorce), Petey’s little brother Joe (Warren Douglas) is working for Nicky and engaging in increasingly slimy behavior. And next door, the callous Gloria is pressuring Johnny to return to work despite a serious injury, often leaving him alone to care for their little baby or leaving the baby with Petey and her sisters. Watching Petey give sensible advice to both Johnny and Gloria reveals her compassion for both of them, and maybe a little something about her own past history. There is a moment late in the film where Petey handles a man on the edge of a terrible decision with a stern compassion that is breathtaking.
I had only two complaints about the film. The first is that I was never 100% sold on San. It’s not that he’s a bad guy, and it’s not that love isn’t mysterious, but the way Petey falls head over heels for San didn’t totally track for me. And while it makes for a pretty thrilling last act, I had mixed feelings about the way that some of the crime/gangster stuff takes the forefront toward the end of the film.
A solid drama-thriller with an unforgettably fantastic character at its center.