- Raoul Walsh's The Man I Love is a dopey melodrama that at least has the good fortune to star Ida Lupino, who helps every movie she's in. Here, Lupino plays Petey Brown, whose sisters (Andrea King, Martha Vickers) and brother (Warren Douglas) find themselves in bad need of relationship and job advice. She also tries to lend a hand to the neighbors (Don McGuire and Dolores Moran), who are in the midst of some marriage problems. Complicating matters is a smarmy nightclub owner (Robert Alda), who spends the entire movie coercing women into dating him, and Petey's piano-playing love interest San Thomas (Bruce Bennett).
- I had approached this film with some trepidation, fearing (correctly, as it turns out) that it would be much too sappy to qualify as a traditional film noir. While the film wasn't terrible, it was boring enough that I found myself drifting off while marveling at the strong resemblance between Alan Hale, who plays the nightclub manager, and his son Alan Hale, Jr. (not in the movie, but famous for playing the Skipper from Gilligan's Island). Likewise, I was struck by how little Robert Alda resembled his son Alan Alda. When the film's tagline says that "There should be a law against knowing the things I found out about men!" I seriously doubt that it was referring to the degree to which actors resemble their parents.
