Too much of everything

the audience applauded

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Doris Day, star of many light musical comedies, proves that she can REALLY act, as well as SING in this movie.As Ruth Etting, songstress from the 1920's, she meets small-time Chicago hood Marty Snyder (James Cagney) who meets Ruth at a "ten cents a dance" emporium. In his efforts to bed Ruth, Marty agrees to use his influence to manage her singing career. He even hires Johnny Alderman (Cameron Mitchell) to be her coach at Ruth's request. Remarkably, Marty learns the business quickly. With Ruth's talent and Marty's arm twisting she soon becomes a star, first in Chicago, then New York, on to Zigfield, then Hollywood. Along the way she agrees to marry Cagney. The film was nominated for 6 Oscars, winning for best writing. In my opinion, Cagney and Day both deserved Oscars for acting, and the musical score is wonderful. I will always remember this film for the fantastic talent displayed by Day, who sings as I never knew she could.

As someone who knew Doris Day primarily through her early 60s romantic comedies, I watched Love Me or Leave Me mainly because I couldn't see pairing her with James Cagney. Right from the start, it is a gripping film. The writing is excellent and performances incredible. I was also thrown by the classification as a musical. Make no mistake: this is not lighthearted fluff, but a potent drama with Doris Day revealing why she was a recording star.Her portrayal of Ruth Etting is done superbly, as a small town woman, but with big city wiles. She is happy to use the James Cagney character (Marty Snyder) to propel her career as long as she can keep him at arm's distance. When he finally pushes back, she loses control of her life.I found the entire film fascinating, from acting, singing and just how one attained fame during those days as a singer. (Selling records was only a small fraction. Besides the clubs it was the compositions of the songs: piano, horns, strings -- all very nicely done.)Love Me or Leave Me is one of the great surprises I've enjoyed watching the presentations from Turner Classic Movies. Powerful, taut and supremely enjoyable with a bit of a surprise ending, it is well worth watching -- and is far from being a "Chick Flick."

As a retired history teacher, I always look at the historical accuracy of films and often investigate this on my own before or after I see a film. According to a quote on IMDb, this film is half truth and half fiction. So what, then, is the real story? Well, after some reading, I found that I STILL don't know! I do know some of the film was embellished (for example, Ruth Etting was a headliner BEFORE she met Martin Snyder AND Martin's nickname was "The Gimp" yet his character walks just fine in the film)--but where is that line between truth and fiction and how far over did it go? I sure wish I knew.This is an odd film--a gangster musical. I like gangster films but frankly I felt there was a bit too much singing for my taste--though since the story is about a professional singer, I guess my complaint is very minor. Doris Day plays Etting and her husband is played with lots of gusto by James Cagney. The plot concerns him managing her career and its impact on their marriage. He's a bully and thug--and at first he's an asset. Later, when he alienates practically everyone, he's an obvious deficit and Day leaves him for a piano player. Cagney's reaction is bad--to put it mildly.I know this film has a very good reputation, but I found that after a while I got a bit tired of the movie. Cagney's 'big dumb jerk routine' got a bit old (how can a man YELL for an entire film?!) and Day's 'nice girl routine' seemed fake. At least to me, it was hard feeling sorry for the character, as she seemed to willingly make a deal with the devil--so to speak. Portraying her as a victim seemed disingenuous. So, rather one-dimensional and unlikable characters made this a bit hard to love. Still, the quality of the production was high--and I did enjoy it. I just didn't love it.

One of the more adult mid-'50s musicals, and it's surprising that it came out of MGM, which generally preferred happy-happy song-and-dance shows, and starred two big stars who had never before worked at Culver City. Day and Cagney are tremendous, she playing up Ruth Etting's unattractive ambition without flinching, and he bringing unexpected charm to a thoroughly unlikable gangster character. As a study of how bad relationships stay stuck in the groove, it's remarkably grown-up for its day, and you might not expect these two stars to play well off each other, but they certainly do. The downside: Ruth Etting had a small, chirpy voice, rather like her contemporaries Janet Gaynor or Nancy Carroll, and Day's vocal delivery is nothing like hers. She sings like... Doris Day. Nor are the arrangements anything like period--they're standard mid-'50s overkill. The costumes and hairstyles don't even pretend to be '20s. And though much is made of Miss Etting's film career--you'd have thought she was a great movie musical star--her Hollywood sojourn was actually brief and unimpressive. Finally, there's that audience depressant Cameron Mitchell as her love interest, and you can't get very interested in him, or root for him. After so many vacuous sunny-side-up musicals at Warners, Day must have relished this opportunity to show what she could really do, and it's very worth sitting through to watch the Day-Cagney fireworks. I guess an accurate portrayal of Ruth Etting and her times would be asking too much.