Young Man with a Horn

Michael Curtiz's 1950 film adapts Dorothy Baker's novel, which was itself drawn from the life of the jazz trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke. Raised an orphan, Rick Martin learns to play alongside a Black musician and wants to make pure jazz, while having to earn a living in commercial bands. His marriage to a wealthy, distant woman wears him down further. The film puts the tension between artistic claim and survival at the centre and tells its protagonist's collapse through drink. Kirk Douglas does not actually play; the trumpet is Harry James, and the match with the fingering is notable. Doris Day appears as a singer in one of her first dramatic roles. The mentor played by Juano Hernández is treated with unusual respect for the period. Who it's for: viewers who like classic Hollywood drama about jazz. Who it's not for: anyone wanting an account faithful to real jazz history; the film follows the novel's invention.