Young at Heart

Gordon Douglas's 1954 film follows three sisters in a musical family and their entanglements. The youngest daughter's life is complicated by the arrival of a charming composer and a cynical music arranger. Doris Day's brightness and the bleakness of Barney Sloan, played by Frank Sinatra, form the film's two poles. The character Sinatra plays is among the darkest of his career: self-pitying, unsuccessful and expecting nothing from life. The ending, changed by the studio, was argued over at the time: a more optimistic finish was shot at Sinatra's insistence, weakening the logic of the story. The songs, One for My Baby in particular, have lived on as recordings independently of the film. Who it's for: viewers interested in classic Hollywood musicals and the work of Doris Day and Frank Sinatra. Who it's not for: anyone who will find the melodrama excessive, or the ending forced.