Young Man With a Horn

Originally released in Britain as Young Man of Music, lest anyone got the wrong idea about Kirk Douglas' instrumentation, this Warner Bros biopic plays typically fast and loose with the life of its inspiration, legendary jazzer Bix Beiderbecke. Douglas' devotion to his (Harry James dubbed) trumpet drags him on to a stock melodramatic switchback, embracing booze and Bacall before submitting to a redemptive realliance with sweet-singing Doris Day. Hoagy Carmichael tells the tale from his time-honoured ringside seat, the piano stool; while the sound-track bops along nicely with jazz-tinged standards. (From a novel by Dorothy Baker.