It's impossible to pick just one Doris Day to movie to watch in your life, but if you have to choose only three, I insist you watch Romance on the High Seas, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Love Me or Leave Me. Even though she neither looks nor sounds anything like Ruth Etting, Doris Day gives an incredible performance in this biopic of the famous 1920s singer. Ruth started out in a dance hall, as described in one of her most famous songs "Ten Cents a Dance" before she was discovered by powerful mobster Marty Snyder, played in the film by James Cagney. I've seen this film many times, and while I had one impression of it at first, I've since learned to appreciate the other levels of the story and performances. The first time I watched it, my heart went out to my beloved James Cagney, and I started crying every time Doris Day would reject his advances and hurt his feelings. As I got older and watched it again and again, I absorbed the complex and cunning relationship between the two main characters-but it still makes me cry! Doris plays a conniving wannabe star, stringing Jimmy along with empty promises of her affections just so he'll help her career. I didn't pick up on her intentional meanness the first time through; I thought she was just being an idiot by not falling for him. Every word out of her mouth is intentional, and she knows the power she holds over him. Doris is so fantastic in this untrustworthy role that if you've never seen one of her movies, I wouldn't recommend watching this one first. You might forever after see her as a bad girl and never trust her again!On the other hand, Jimmy Cagney's character isn't as golden as I once thought he was. He notices Doris's body in her skintight dress and nothing more. He promises her stardom, but when she holds out her end of the bargain, his attraction grows. Although at first he's only interested in a one-night stand, Doris becomes his obsession and his reason to live, and he gives an incredibly heartbreaking performance. James Cagney's performance in Love Me or Leave Me is one of the greats I often reference in my disillusionment with the Academy Awards. He, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, and an un-nominated Robert Mitchum were all passed over in favor of Ernest Borgnine in Marty, one of the most ridiculous awards in Oscar history. When you watch Love Me or Leave Me and you finish drying your tears, you'll probably lose respect for the Oscars, too. Cameron Mitchell is supposed to play the antithesis of James Cagney's character: kind-hearted, honest, and easy to love. I don't think he's any of those qualities, so his scenes with Doris were easily the weakest in my opinion. I am admittedly biased; I don't know if anyone would have been easier to love than James Cagney in this film. On the upside, Robert Keith and Harry Bellaver are very likable and sweet in their supporting roles, so it's relatively easy to drown Cameron out and pretend he's not in the movie.Love Me or Leave Me is a fantastic movie, an essential for James Cagney, Doris Day, or musical fans. You'll probably want to familiarize yourself with their other films first, though. To make sure you can appreciate Doris's new dramatic talent, watch Pillow Talk or Romance on the High Seas first, and to make sure you're on James Cagney's side, watch Angels with Dirty Faces and The Strawberry Blonde first.

. . . says Marty "The Gimp" (James Cagney) early in LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME. This story takes place before AMER!CAN IDOL brought a measure of meritocracy to the U.S. music scene. Back in the 1900s, commercial success depended upon the Manager, the Mafia, and Payola bribes. Good managers, like Elvis' Col. Parker, flew their meal tickets around on safe planes; bad managers put singers such as Buddy Holly on planes that crashed. In LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME, the MGM studio courageously exposes the underbelly of American "success." Among the DVD extras are two films foisted off on the public back in the day by the gangsters behind the subject of this expose\Biopic, "singer" Ruth Etting. It's clear that she had little if any talent in her own right, and would have been kicked out of many church choirs. (Having Doris Day portray Ruth is like starring Eninem in THE LIFE OF TINY TIM, or having the Boston Pops present themselves as the River City School Orchestra.) Ruth operates here on the "If you give a mouse a cookie . . . " Principle. Use payola to allow her to assault the radio waves, and she wants to be on Broadway. Put her there, and she starts humming "California, here I come." Ruth and Marty's relationship is like a too-long episode of THE BICKERSONS. Having Doris Day playing gold-digger Ruth kind of obscures the crux of this sordid tale, which is the Real Life Ruth's total lack of entertainment ability and scruples. Sadly, Roseanne (Barr) was not old enough to play Ruth when this cautionary tale was in the works. She would fit this tawdry part perfectly.

Interesting and revealing how many of the reviews here are written by Cagney fans who do not generally like Day and vice versa, so hidebound are we by styles and maybe gender. They would never have made this movie in this genre-obsessed age where actors and films must remain consistent and predictable. Here, Cagney, one of the greatest of all cinema actors, whose cocky, little man bravura is usually found in gangster vehicles (where his vulnerability beneath the sociopathic veneer always comes as a delightful surprise), combines with Day, whose sensuality and strength of feeling, though betrayed by her voice, were to be smothered in syrup in those bubblegum romcoms. Both are magnificent performers. Day plays it low-key. She keeps the passion for the singing, which is superb. Cagney's boyish swagger and confusion are heartbreaking. This is a nigh unique melodrama which defies genres and could only have worked in so wholehearted and apt a melding and transcendence of stereotypes.

As a performer, Doris Day had it all from the start. Beautiful, sexy, and gifted with one of the loveliest voices ever to grace the silver screen, she also had an enormous gift for light comedy that made her a superstar at Warner Bros in a series of lighter-than-air musicals as good as anything MGM and the Freed unit ever produced. And later on, her talent for comedy would make her a legend in three unforgettable, hilarious films co-starring her pal Rock Hudson; the first of these, PILLOW TALK, would garner Day her only Oscar nomination.Now a talent for comedy is not to be despised; in fact, any actor will tell you that in many ways comedy is harder to do than drama. But it seemed to come so easily to Day that when she made the 1955 biopic of 1920's singer Ruth Etting, LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME, some of her fans were shocked. For while LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME has plenty of music in it, sung only as Day could sing, it was a far cry from the lightweight stuff people associated with her.LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME is a slightly fictionalized biography of Ruth Etting, who was quite a big singing star in the 1920s and who actually made a couple of film appearances in the early sound era. And it marked a huge departure for Day, playing a broad on the make with questionable morals who gets mixed up with Chicago gangster Martin "The Gimp" Snyder, played with his customary intensity by the legendary James Cagney.Day does not pull any punches in this film. Etting is no innocent girl from the country. She is an ambitious singer who wants to go places and is not too scrupulous about allowing Snyder to help her career along. That he does so because he is smitten with her she is fully aware of but she tries to pretend she doesn't notice. But Snyder, though a thug, is not a fool, and he is most definitely not accustomed to being denied what he wants. So when Ruth finally gets her big break in the Ziegfeld Follies, and Marty is barred from backstage, he throws a huge fit, breaks her contract with Ziegfeld, and rapes Ruth in a shockingly obvious scene for a 1950s film. Next thing we know, she has married him.Ruth is a woman who is great on the stage but cannot stop making bad choices in life. Marrying Snyder out of a sense of obligation, she does not love him and it isn't long before she is in utter misery, particularly when she goes to Hollywood and reunites with old flame Johnny Alderman (Cameron Mitchell), who she still carries a torch for but does not dare to get close to for fear of what her insanely jealous husband will do.This is by far the hardest-hitting film Doris Day ever made, and pitted against the immortal Cagney, she reveals a set of acting chops as sharp and as hungry as his. She matches him scene for scene and moment for moment, and their scenes together grow in intensity until the final confrontation when she demands a divorce, which devastates her husband and drives him to seek revenge.It would be unfair to reveal too much more. This is without a doubt my very favorite of all of Doris Day's movies, an unflinching look at a woman who isn't always sympathetic, and Day has no problems showing Etting's true nature, warts and all. And when she is working with Cagney the screen threatens to catch fire.Brilliant, intense, disturbing, and with gorgeous music. What a package.