Michael Curtiz proves there’s no genre he can’t handle with this music filled fictional biography of tightly wound jazz trumpeter. Kirk Douglas plays the eponymous Young Man and plays him much like the brash pugilist in Champion, which just preceded this film. And as in any good tale of morals there is good (Doris Day) and evil (Lauren Bacall). Acting as Muse, holding the whole lurid tale together is composer-lyricist-singer-pianist-actor Hoagy Carmichael.
