Love Me or Leave Me

Doris Day plays Ruth Etting, the twenties singer, and James Cagney plays Marty Snyder, the Chicago man who made her a star by force. The film is not about Etting's rise but about what the rise cost: as the career advances, control over her life passes entirely to him. For Doris Day it was a break. An actress known for sunny parts taking a role this dark drew praise from critics and letters of protest from fans. Cagney was nominated for Best Actor. Its relationship with the facts is loose. Etting is presented as an innocent, which she was not, and Snyder as a major criminal, which he was not. Even so, Daniel Fuchs won the Oscar for Best Motion Picture Story, and the film picked up five further nominations. Charles Vidor directed. Who it is for: viewers interested in classic Hollywood musicals and in Doris Day's dramatic register. Who it is not for: anyone seeking biographical accuracy, or disturbed by scenes of domestic coercion.