Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

An action-packed slog

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Director/producer bad boy Otto Preminger enjoyed giving the Hollywood Production Code the finger throughout the 1950s, and he did it again with this pretty harrowing movie about a heroin addict trying desperately to thwart his addiction.This was strong stuff for 1955. Good Lord, two years earlier Preminger's "The Moon Is Blue" had been denied a seal of approval from the Production Code for including the word "virgin," so I can only imagine what audiences at the time made of this. It's of course pretty tame by today's standards, but this movie had some major cajones to tackle the subject of heroin addiction, including a scene showing what it's like to detox, so frankly.Speaking of Frank, Sinatra proves himself to be a damn fine actor in this, and scored himself his second Academy Award nomination for his performance. Knowing the Academy, it's his showy scenes, like the detox one mentioned above, that wowed them, but it's his quieter ones, where you can see the struggle within him happening in his eyes only, that are more impressive. Darren McGavin, a long way from "A Christmas Story," is both terrifying and mesmerizing as a dealer who keeps Sinatra wanting a score. I could have done without a far-fetched side plot involving Eleanor Parker as Sinatra's enabler girlfriend (or wife? I was never sure) that feels like something from a different movie. On the other hand, this film's art direction and score (by Elmer Bernstein) are sensational, and both were also singled out by the Academy. The set in particular is impressive, a meticulous recreation of a seedy city block, which serves as a constant visual reminder of the cage Sinatra's character lives in and which he has to break out of if he ever has a chance of going clean. Grade: A

I haven't seen this film since 1971, but then it made e such an impression, that it stuck for life, and I felt no need to see it again, as the memory of it was sharp enough. Just for curiosity, I decided to renew its acquaintance after 44 years just to see what would happen, - and the impact was repeated and as good as new. This is probably the best junkie film ever made, in its naturalistic and actually horrific realism, with Frank Sinatra (100 years just the other day) in his best performance in the lead as the junkie with a crippled wife in a wheel- chair (Eleanor Parker, splendid acting on her part too,) and Kim Novak as the saving angel - it stands clear from the beginning that only she can save him, and she does, in also one of her best performances, actually better than in "Vertigo". The triumph however is the direction combined with the music by Elmer Bernstein. It's asphalt jungle music all the way, hard and merciless in its ruthlessly importuning rough disharmonics and nightmare style (with a few exceptions for a change), and Sinatra is even convincing as a failed drummer. Otto Preminger stands for the direction, one of many original films of his, and they are many, but this black-and-white social documentary naturalistic gutter nightmare is perhaps the one most sticking out - you recognize much of this half slum humdrum environment as he returns to it in "Porgy and Bess" three years later. In brief, it's a triumph of a film, completely naked in shocking social realism with as perfectly convincing and natural performances as in any Italian neo-realistic masterpiece. It was a perfectly enjoyable nightmare to see it again after 44 years to observe it had lost nothing of its timeless actuality - this could happen to you.

This was a fantastic, truly seminal movie at the time it was released, as it dealt with taboo subject matter (heroin addiction) deemed "unsuitable" by the Review Board and certainly outside 1955's "Father Knows Best" squeaky-clean societal norms and standards.As I watch TMWTGA for the dozenth time and note some of the career risks that were taken by the actors, I am beginning to question if Otto Preminger ever made a "bad" movie....because it seems that he always got the very best performances out of his actors. It also seems many of his movies pushed boundaries and challenged societal assertions and beliefs.How so? Well, in Preminger's "In Harm's Way"...Preminger introduces audiences to the somewhat risqué idea that not only is casual, non- committed sex "OK" in polite society, it happens quite frequently between consenting unmarried adults (operating in the harsh circumstances and environs of WWII warfare). "In Harm's Way" also included an incredibly controversial forcible-rape sequence, both violent and nasty, which results in both the attacker and the victim's committing suicide to avoid public condemnation and consequences.Or, in Preminger's "The Moon is Blue".....where two men are pursuing one woman, not for marriage, but for sex.In "The Man with the Golden Arm", moviegoers got a firsthand taste of what it really means to be an addict; the unmitigated cravings, the self-deceptions, the pains of withdrawal, the unavoidable destruction of relationships and loved ones, etc. Although Sinatra was magnificent in this movie, so was Eleanor Parker, along with great performances by Arthur Strang, and notably, Darin McGavin, who creates an especially nasty, reprehensible drug pusher who knows exactly how to pull the strings and make the addict Sinatra "dance".Although films aren't Black and White anymore, and the 1950's won't ever return, the concepts and characters in this movie still exist in full force here in present-day 2014. Just peer down a dark side-street, out behind the bowling alley, or in the parking lot of your closest seedy motel. You can find the same set of REAL players revolving around money and drugs on a corner of Your Town, USA, or any place where desperation and shattered dreams are laid bare, and pain is mitigated via the needle, the pill, the puff, or the snort.

This movie has dated.....and dated badly. The fact that the whole movie is made in the studio doesn't help. (Frank Sinatra did not like working on location). It has the feel of an old "Play of the Week" about it. The thing that sinks this from the very beginning is the terrible acting of Frank Sinatra. I got the feeling he was really trying----but you can act----or you cant act. Frank Sinatra was a great singer. But..he could not act. Kim Novak is very good in this, cautionary tale about drug addiction. In its day....The Man With The Golden Arm caused quite a stir....indeed it was one of the very first films to tackle this subject. The Lost Weekend starring Ray Milland, made a few years earlier is about alcoholism. It is vastly superior to this movie.