Robert W. I have said before that sometimes stage plays, even great ones, don't translate well to film and sometimes they do. It really does depend on the screenplay and who stars in the film and a few other key details. Pal Joey has its ups and downs and is overall entertaining but mostly thanks to Frank Sinatra and his larger than life persona that is hard to ignore in any capacity. It has elements of romance and music and drama and a few genuinely funny moments. Ideally though this is a vehicle for Sinatra. With anyone else in his role it wouldn't have been even nearly as good. His charisma saves this from being a rather hum drum sort of romantic comedy/musical. I think the biggest problem I personally had with the film was the lack of chemistry between the leads. I think in order for this to be genuinely great you need a guy and two girls that have great energy opposite of each other. At the heart (pun intended) of the film is a romance and yet you don't really feel that. The main character is such an egotistical ladies man and you expect a full turn around but I'm not sure you ever get that. You are sort of left with he is who he is but she's gonna be with him anyways.I have very little experience watching Frank Sinatra on screen but I love the man for his albums, always have since I was a kid, so the highlight of this movie for me was seeing him perform. He is mesmerizing and it is easily the strong point in the film. Singing "Lady is A Tramp" to Rita Hayworth was definitely worth the price of admission. Sinatra is very good in this role and suits it to a T. He is perfectly believable as a street-wise ladies man with big dreams and his character actually is a complex guy and I'm not sure we get everything out of one movie. Kim Novak is beautiful of course and her role as Karen English is decent. I just didn't feel like she got a lot of depth nor did her and Sinatra have the right chemistry. They had some good scenes and some okay banter but the door is open here for this terrific love-hate rivalry that never really takes off. Rita Hayworth is also very good if not just a touch obvious as the aristocratic Vera Simpson who lures Frank's Joey into a relationship of necessity. Hayworth's character is not very likable though she has a very good turning point in the end. However, like Novak, her chemistry with Sinatra is okay at best and her and Novak don't share enough screen time.Like many directors of the time, George Sidney has done other musical to screen adaptations. I just think Pal Joey isn't necessarily the right stage play to adapt though I'd love to see a modern take on it (think Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan annnnd Julia Roberts in the 90's) but the chemistry was off, the pacing doesn't feel quite right and the music is a little underwhelming. Still, it is a classic for a reason and it was fun. Some of the dialogue (especially from Sinatra) was legendary. He was a fast talking sarcastic lout and he did it well. I would think for its time, Pal Joey was a touch racy and I actually liked that about it. Watching a classic with a little bit of an adult edge for its time made me feel a little naughty like I'm sure it did for them back in 1957. I can assure you that I will now check out some of Frank Sinatra's more well known roles so the movie is not a total loss. Its worth seeing if you love the classics but certainly far from the best out there. 7/10

AttyTude0 I never liked Frank Sinatra. Oh, sure, he's great to listen to when he sings. But, IMHO, his singing talent never could make up for the fact that, even in a tux, he was a skinny, unattractive and terribly common-looking little man ("half-pint imitation" describes him to a T). As a woman I never understood why beautiful women like Ava Gardner, etc., fell over like ninepins around him.OK, that's a bit off my chest.Now to the film. I usually like musicals and vintage Hollywood. But this one I had a hard time getting through. I always say that judging films (or anything else) made over 60 years ago by today's standards is stupid, bigoted and pointless. Things were different then and that's all there is to it. If you can't stand it, well, stick to Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston ... er, "comedies"? Having said that, this film is ruined by, among other things, some of the corniest, most cringe-worthy, Ugh!-inducing lines I have ever heard. Even for 1950s Hollywood.Apparently, the original Broadway show was duly sanitized when they converted it to the screen, which proves - once again - that censorship is NEVER a good idea, whether it's on moral or politically correct grounds. So we ended up with a film that can't quite make up its mind whether it wants to be a sleazy comedy with a romantic twist, or a romantic comedy with a sleazy twist. Kim Novak is absolutely gorgeous, but she's just not convincing as an ingénue. Someone here said that Rita Hayworth's role should have been more Norma Desmond-like and I really could not agree more. And I already said what I think of "Sinatra as Mr. Irresistible."All in all, unless you're a Frank Sinatra die-hard, just skip it. There are much better "classics" out there.

screenman I hadn't seen this movie for decades. But it was remembered (pretty vaguely) with affection. However, I recently purchased the DVD, and whilst even a large-screen television doesn't really do justice to some of the more expansive older movies, I confess to being a tad disappointed even so.The songs were great, pretty much as I remembered them. Frank Sinatra was on top-drawer sparkling form. Hayworth and Novak were all you could expect from the so-called screen-goddesses of the 1950's. Yet something was missing. There were shortfalls in between songs, during story development, that seemed to cause the whole plot to languish briefly. I confess to finding myself bored. It didn't happen very often. But it happened. Maybe the director imagined that the three leads, and the great songs would be enough to carry the production and so it wasn't necessary to try too hard with anything else. I don't really know.'Pal Joey' isn't remembered half so well as some other 1950's musicals. And perhaps there's a reason for that. I suspect it needed a couple more songs - good songs - and maybe a bit more excitement to the story-line. Fans of 'ol blue eyes will still be enchanted, but without him and the songs this would have been a complete non-event.

jc-osms I really wanted to like this colourful adaptation of one of Rogers and Hart's last and most successful shows and attracted by big names like Sinatra, Hayworth and Novak, thought I couldn't lose. Sheesh, was I wrong.Concerning ne'erdowell Joey (Sinatra's) self-obsessed attempts to get himself up the greasy pole to his own club in San Francisco and no doubt attendant fame and fortune, the film fails ultimately for a number of reasons. First Frank's character just isn't desperate enough, purportedly down on his luck, he always looks perfectly turned out, even before he becomes wealthy widow Hayworth's kept man. And the idea to give this hard-bitten Casanova a cute puppy dog is just wrong on so many levels. His character never seems to stop talking and often re-hashes the same stock phrases, which gets wearing after a while. As for Hayworth and Novak, both look fantastic, filmed in great clothes in great light, as befits two of the sexiest women to ever come out of Tinseltown, but the former lacks that dare I say it, Norma Desmond controlling, self-deluding and even slightly deranged conviction which would have made her character more rounded while Novak gets to play a whimpering simpering child, completely at odds with her overly sensual demeanour.Some of the scenes are ridiculously contrived too, like Novak's strip-tease, her later passing out on Sinatra when they're on Hayworth's yacht and Joey's dream sequence when both his loves sashay around him like bees to honey. Worst of all is Hayworth's "Sugar Mommy" backing out of the competition for Joey by personally fetching Novak for their hold-hands, run-at-the-camera, big love shot at the conclusion.On the plus side, as indicated, the stars all look great, Sinatra too, being in the middle of his classic Capitol series of recordings, even getting to quote one of his catch-phrases "Ring-a-ding-ding" at one point. The San Francisco locations are also easy on the eye and the musical numbers excellent, including "The Lady Is a Tramp", "My Funny Valentine" and "Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered" amongst them. Unfortunately, the movie dialogue too rarely matches the sharpness of Lorenz Hart's lyrics. Damon Runyan, this ain't.A missed opportunity them and I'm not sure I can tell quite why. Some shows may just work well on stage, I'm guessing this is one of them.