Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Young Man with a Horn Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson January 4, 2022

Young Man with a Horn (1950) was one of Hollywood's earliest Jazz biopics based on the life of one of its style's greatest musicians, Bix Beiderbecke. Author James Robertson has compiled the most detailed (albeit brief) production history in his book, The Casablanca Man: The Cinema of Michael Curtiz. According to Robertson, producer Jerry Wald urged Warner Bros. to purchase the screen rights to Dorothy Baker's 1938 novel of the same name for John Garfield. However, even though Garfield departed the studio, that didn't stop Wald from seeing that the picture got made. In late 1946 Wald clashed with Warner's executive Steve Trilling over a screenplay by Stephen Longstreet (Imposter) and even contemplated withdrawing as the producer. Edmund H. North penned a new script that retained Baker's original ending while Carl Foreman tried his hand at a separate script that featured a more commercial ending. Foreman wrote the dialogue and made revisions to North's draft. Trilling wanted to cast character actor Dane Clark in the lead. Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan also were considered. It was Kirk Douglas's performance in Champion (1949) that convinced Jack Warner to ultimately pick him. The Mirror (Los Angeles, CA) reported that Douglas practiced the trumpet for "some eight hours a day," an instrument biographer Michael Munn notes took him three months to learn. In the movie Douglas only mimes the instrument. The actual notes are performed by legendary trumpeter Harry James. The Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle's Jack Lait reported that Lauren Bacall returned to the Warner Bros studio to join Douglas in the cast follow­ing a 16-month maternity leave after she gave birth to Stephen Hum­phrey Bogart. My research indicates that Bretaigne Windust (June Bride) was originally slated to direct but instead committed to Perfect Strangers (1950). Michael Curtiz replaced Windust. Robertson notes that Curtiz personally interviewed 132 boys between the ages of 8 and 10 for the bit part of Douglas as a boy.

As Young Man with a Horn opens, Curtiz uses the then-uncommon device of direct address with piano player Willy "Smoke" Willoughby (played by Beiderbecke's friend Hoagy Carmichael) speaking to the camera about the life of trumpet player Rick Martin. The film flashes back to orphan boy Rick (Orley Lindgren) ambling into a Salvation Army church service. Here, the music appeals to Rick as he later plays the church piano. Rick works at a bowling alley so he can save enough money to buy a trumpet. One evening, Rick enters a nightclub where Art Hazzard (Juano Hernandez) and his black band are practicing tunes. Art becomes a paternal figure and mentor to Rick. The movie flashes ahead where a now-adult Rick (Kirk Douglas) meets Smoke and plays in a band with Jo Jordan (Doris Day) as lead singer and her boyfriend, Jack Chandler (Walter Reed), as conductor. It seems that Rick truly wants his own band. He plays a jazzy piece in a nightclub while Jack is away, who fires Rick after he returns. Jo remains pals with Rick and later introduces him to her friend, Amy North (Lauren Bacall). Rick remembers the advice that Art gave him, which is not to remain married to your musical instrument forever. Rick wants a wife and potentially a family so he marries Amy. The new couple live in a swank place but while Amy is academically smart (she's studying to be a psychiatrist), she's jealous of Rick's musical gift and would do anything to find her own niche. Amy and Rick's marriage begins to fall apart.

The trumpet player with the two women in his life.

Young Man with a Horn is about a lonely figure obsessed with his craft who's trying to find his way in society and within himself. Kirk Douglas is magnetic and bristling with energy. Lauren Bacall has a dark beauty that's a foil for Douglas's exuberance. In Lauren Bacall: Her Films and Career, author Lawrence Quirk considers Bacall's performance in this film not only his favorite, but also "her all-time best." He writes that her work in the film "far surpasses anything she had done before, and presages her great work on the stage decades later." I wouldn't go nearly that far. First, Bacall doesn't enter until almost midway through so her screen time is already curtailed. I wouldn't rank this supporting turn as high as the pictures she starred in opposite her husband. Juano Hernandez delivers a memorable and sensitive performance as the "Pops" to Douglas. Curtiz's direction is sharp as he elicits uniformly solid performances from his cast. The screenplay does fall into melodramatic moments for the home-life scenes between Rick and Amy, though.

The principals weren't that high on Young Man with a Horn. While Douglas says he "loved doing the movie" in his memoirs, The Ragman's Son, he thought there were structural problems and issues in authenticity. In her autobiography, By Myself and Then Some, Bacall recalled that "[Kirk and I] worked well together, liked each other, talked over old and new times, and flirted — harmlessly. Unhappily, the movie was nowhere near as good as it should have been." In her memoirs, Doris Day: Her Own Story, Day writes that this movie was "one of the few utterly joyless experiences I had in films...Kirk was civil to me and that's about all. But then Kirk never makes much of an effort toward anyone else. He's pretty much wrapped up in himself."

While the movie received stellar reviews in 1950, some critics frowned on how Baker's novel was translated to the screen. Theresa Loeb of the Oakland (CA) Tribune called it "neither a good adaptation of the novel nor a convincing movie for those who really know jazz." Boyd Martin of The Courier-Journal (KY) observed how the film departs "a great deal from the novel...[but] to those who never read the book it probably will appeal very strong­ly." Ann Helming of the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News liked it more than Loeb and Martin and revealed a telling anecdote about Bacall's speaking manner: "While the audience at the Warner Hollywood laughed at some of [Bacall's] dialogue, it seemed less because it struck them funny than because it made them nervous."

Young Man with a Horn Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Warner Archive Collection's Blu-ray of Young Man with a Horn is struck from a 4K scan of original nitrate elements. The pictures appears in its Academy ratio of 1.37:1 on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 (disc size: 43.57 GB). The transfer is nearly flawless with crisp blacks (sans any crush) and outstanding grayscale. The aliasing that was present on the DVD is gone. I particularly like how Curtiz and cinematographer Ted McCord use top lighting in the performance hall (it's reflected on the floor in Screenshot #15) and shafts of light from a barroom window in #19. McCord also adeptly lights the smoky pool halls. Warner has encoded the feature at an average video bitrate of 34991 kbps.

Warner has provided forty scene selections for the 112-minute movie.

Young Man with a Horn Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Warner has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono (1781 kbps, 24-bit). I didn't have trouble hearing any of the dialogue. The monaural mix does more than an adequate job of delivering the bluesy music. Some of the film's original music is courtesy of Max Steiner but Ray Heindorf deserves primary credit for supervising and directing all of the music. "Melancholy Rhapsody," the main theme, is a standout with trumpet the primary instrument in the fore. Doris Day sings that and about eight other ballads. Day recorded an LP of some of the songs for Columbia and the album sold well. Kirk Douglas sings two duets with Hoagy Carmichael. The track is free of any audible defects.

Optional English SDH accompany the feature.

Young Man with a Horn Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The disc includes three Warner cartoon shorts from the Merrie Melodies series, a radio dramatization of Young Man with a Horn, and a trailer.

• Hillbilly Hare (7:25, 1080p)

• Homeless Hare (7:06, 1080p)

• Hurdy-Gurdy Hare (6:58, 1080p)

• Lux Radio Theater (3/3/52) broadcast (54:49) - this radio adaptation features Kirk Douglas reprising his role as Rick Martin. Doris Day and Lauren Bacall did not return, however. Their roles were filled by Jo Stafford (a recording artist contracted by Columbia at the time) and Patrice Wymore. Sound on this vintage recording is very good. The compressed narrative follows that of the film closely. A newspaper blurb at the time heralded this as "radio's No. 1 dramatic show." In English, not subtitled.

• Theatrical Trailer (2:20, 480i) - a holdover from the 2005 Warner DVD, this original trailer appears in decent shape but is interlaced and windowboxed.

Young Man with a Horn Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Young Man with a Horn tells a classic story of an obsessive artist who reaches the peak of his profession, falters in his personal life, and tries to find his way back towards redemption. I've watched the picture twice and rank it high among musical biopics. WAC's transfer is almost impeccable in how it captures so clearly Ted McCord's gorgeous black-and-white photography. The radio adaptation of YMwaH is a solid addition but there's no substantial extras about the film beyond that. I would have loved to hear a commentary from a film historian. Still, fans of Douglas, Bacall, and Day should add this to their collections. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.