The Man with the Golden Arm was directed by Otto Preminger and stars Frank Sinatra
Trying to tackle drug addiction at the time was pushing the boundaries, particularly in the US. The production code in the US had issues with theme of drugs within the film; however, it is intriguing to note that the code changed in 1956 which enable the theme of narcotics to be acceptable.
When first watching the film, I found the beginning part very interesting as the title sequence (the music in particular by Elmer Bernstein) had a James Bond-esque feel to it and even parts of the animation reminded of the early James Bond sequences.
Another part I found interesting was at the beginning where the camera follows Sinatra while his walking on the streets. Here you really get a feel for the street which is where a lot of the action happens. For example, as we can not watch Sinatra take drugs, the street view is commonly used to show Sinatra going into his dealer's home to infer what can not be seen.
One of the other shots I found intriguing was when Frankie and Arnold are in jail and then Sinatra's former boss comes to visit them. The shot shows Frankie and Arnold through the bars and then the former employer on the other side, so as an audience member we are on the outskirts of the jail. I found this interesting because we as the audience could just be in jail with Sinatra but it has been planned so that Sinatra is in the jail and we not. This could symbolically represent how the character is trapped by his former employee and represent the pressure that he has to go back to working as a card dealer again.
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