KarateParty.org - Pal Joey (1957)

1957
Directed by
George Sidney
Writing credits
John O'Hara (play)
Dorothy Kingsley (screenplay)
Cast
Rita Hayworth .... Vera Simpson
Frank Sinatra .... Joey Evans
Kim Novak .... Linda English
Barbara Nichols .... Gladys
Bobby Sherwood .... Ned Galvin
Hank Henry .... Mike Miggins
Elizabeth Patterson .... Mrs. Casey

"No Joey, you can't ride around in
my pouch."

Pal Joey started out as a series of short stories, was turned into a play, and then into a movie (with a lot of changes made along the way). It took around ten years from its initial planned filming to actually get made. In that time Rita Hayworth went from being considered for the role of the young Linda, to being cast as the older widow Vera. The resulting movie is a pleasant diversion with some great songs and attractive stars, but the romantic relationships don’t quite ring true, and it’s not as witty as it tries to be. It’s the sort of adapted movie that sends you, unsatisfied, back to the source material.

Frank Sinatra stars as Joey Evans, a night club singer drifting from town to town, picking up the occasional gig and breaking a lot of hearts. Fresh from being (literally) thrown onto a train heading out of a small town for messing with the Mayor’s daughter, he lands in San Francisco and starts casting his net wide for another gig. He eventually winds up (thanks to luck and chutzpah) as the headliner at the Barbary Coast night-club.

The musical theatre has come a
long way, thankfully.

Here he meets the pure and incorruptible chorus girl, Linda, played by Kim Novak. All the other girls are easy pickings, and Joey seems to having something going with all of them. Despite his old “friend” Ned Galvin (it’s never clear if this guy hates him or not, and he disappears about half way through the film), the bandleader at the Barbary Coast, being sweet on her, Joey makes it his mission to win her.

One night when Joey and the club’s band (The Galvinators) are performing at a private dinner party/charity auction, he comes across the final side of the love triangle: Vera Simpson (Rita Hayworth). She’s done what Joey dreams of, become respectable. A former night club singer, she’d married a wealthy man and given up the stage. In an act of, I suppose, petulance he grabs the mike at the charity auction and starts auctioning off a performance of her old night club routine. With a bid of $5,000 for the children’s hospital, she has to be a good sport and perform the song with the band, much to her chagrin.

Eventually, through a series of scenes where it seems they dislike each other but are actually attracted, they become an item. She agrees to bankroll his dream, a night club called (appallingly) Chez Joey. Now having him where she wants him, she demands he jettison Linda from the act, which he is reluctant to do.

Hello young lovers, wherever you
were ten years ago.

The degree to which you’d enjoy Pal Joey really depends on how much you like Frank Sinatra and old-style Broadway tunes. If you like the tunes there’s some great ones, notably “The Lady is a Tramp”, “I Could Write a Book”, and “My Funny Valentine”. If you can’t stand either then steer clear. But if you love them both you’ll still only be mildly entertained.

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