8:50 p.m.	Young Man with a Horn Michael Curtiz (U.S., 1950)

Loosely—very loosely—based on the life of cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, Young Man with a Horn tells the story of a boy born to play the music in his head, “a note no one’s heard before.” With his trumpet in hand, Ricky Martin is a passionate artist pursuing the elusive music of the imagination; without that trumpet, he’s shrunken and lonely. Smoke Willoughby (Hoagy Carmichael) tells this story in retrospect as though it were a fever dream, and for Martin (rendered in a tormented minor key by Kirk Douglas) it might as well be. Like any good composition, this also needs a counterpoint. Curtiz’s film has lounge singer Doris Day playing off of wealthy ne’er-do-well Lauren Bacall, one the steady but staid adorant, the other a flame of unpredictable heat. And here is the horn of a dilemma: Martin’s single-minded pursuit of the unheard note has made him unfit for human consumption. It’s not until he becomes a success as a man that he can become an artist.

—Steve Seid

• Written by Carl Foreman, Edmund H. North, based on the novel by Dorothy Baker. Photographed by Ted McCord. Music direction by Ray Heindorf. Kirk Douglas’s trumpet solos, Harry James. Juano Hernandez’s trumpet solos, Jimmy Zito. With Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Doris Day, Hoagy Carmichael. (111 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Warner Bros.)