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(More customer reviews)Saloon singer Danny Wilson (Frank Sinatra) is always getting into trouble due to his quick temper and has to rely on his friend and pianist Mike Ryan (Alex Nicol) to get him out of these many scrapes. Danny is sacked from various singing jobs and his career is going nowhere when he meets Joy Carroll (Shelley Winters). She introduces him to crooked club owner Nick Driscoll (Raymond Burr) who can see that Danny has star quality and potential. Unfortunately, Driscoll is a hoodlum and gangster and ties Danny to an unfair contract which gives Driscoll 50% of all the singers future earnings. Danny and Mike reluctantly agree to these outrageous terms of the contract just to get started but soon have cause to regret it when Danny becomes successful.
"Meet Danny Wilson" was directed by Joseph Pevney in 1952 when Sinatra was going through a difficult period and finding it hard to get work. Personally, I enjoyed the film very much (in spite of the negative reviews it received at the time of its release) and it was in fact almost a mini biography of Sinatra's own life story. This was Sinatra's last film before giving his Oscar winning performance in "From Here to Eternity" which deservedly put his career firmly back on track. Alex Nicol and Shelley Winters give good support and Raymond Burr makes the most of his villainous part.
The film contained a marvellous selection of songs including: "All of Me", "She's Funny That Way", "When You're Smiling", "That Old Black Magic", "I've Got a Crush on You" and "How Deep is the Ocean". Sinatra puts all his songs over with confidence and style and in this film proves once again without question (to me) that he was the most outstanding and talented singer in Hollywood (and a pretty good actor too!).
Some favourite lines from the film:
Frank Sinatra (to Alex Nicol): "25 measly bucks to sing your fool head off all night for a bunch of creepy stiffs!".
Shelley Winters (to Sinatra): "Nice girls can't go in a bar and drink alone - and I'm a nice girl".
Raymond Burr: "Personally, I'm a Crosby fan". Sinatra: "That should make Bing very happy".
Winters (to night club audience): "Ladies and gentlemen - meet Danny Wilson!".
Shelley Winters and Sinatra seem to work well together and share a duet titled "A Good Man is Hard to Find" so it is hard to believe that the two stars did not get on during the filming as has been alleged in some recent biographies. To sum up although "Meet Danny Wilson" is not one of Sinatra's better known films it is nevertheless very entertaining with a brilliant performance by Sinatra and the songs are really fabulous. Well worth looking at.
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