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I am NOT a fan of Doris Day - there is just something about her that annoys me. But in this movie she acted very different from the usual Doris Day movie. And the way she sang those ballads breaks your heart. But the acting job that truly amazes - and has through the years made me a fan - is that of James Cagney. One wonders if he had a parent that was abusive or an Uncle or someone he had intimately observed. Because from somewhere that man understood something about an abusive relationship and put it in his performance. It was positively beyond extraordinary. He deserved an Academy Nomination at the very least. While he was cruel, vile, despicable, certainly repulsive and yet you felt at the same time he was pitiful, sad, pathetic. It was an extremely complex performance. When I saw "Love Me Or Leave Me" as a teenager I didn't appreciate the subtlety of his acting. It wasn't until I saw it many, many years later and had gone through a lot of living that I comprehended the true magnitude of his performance.

Doris Day portrays singing great Ruth Etting in "Love Me or Leave Me," a 1955 film costarring James Cagney and Cameron Mitchell. The film tells the story, somewhat fictionalized, of Etting's rise to fame in the 1920s and her association and marriage to Marty "The Gimp" Snyder, a Chicago gangster. In the story, Etting is highly ambitious, and Marty helps her career after picking her up in a dance hall and realizing he's not going to get anywhere. He's hoping for the big prize - i.e., Ruth - at the end of the rainbow, but though she's grateful, she's never going to be THAT grateful. Finally, he becomes so angry that he rapes her (this is suggested in the film but the scene was cut by the censors). She marries him, though she's in love with a pianist, Marty Alderman.

This film was made about five years before Ross Hunter glamorized Doris and made her the #1 box office star in a series of comedies, three of which were with Rock Hudson. Before that, she was a pretty woman with a sweet, smooth voice and sturdy acting ability. And nowhere does she demonstrate all three qualities as she does here. And throw in a sensational figure in some stunning gowns to boot. Doris' Ruth is a young woman who looks and acts like sugar but has the determination of steel underneath. She speaks softly but has the glint of ambition in her eye. Day's voice and style are nothing like Etting's, but the producers and director weren't looking for an imitation. Doris looks and sounds fantastic, singing a huge amount of music, including "Ten Cents a Dance," the title song, "Chasing the Blues Away" and many others.

Cagney gives an extremely powerful performance as Marty, a pushy little man with a huge insecurity and a passion for Ruth. It is a fully fleshed out portrayal of an abusive, possessive man that you can hate and pity at the same time. Cagney deservedly won an Oscar nomination for the role of Marty. He and Doris' contrasting acting styles mesh beautifully as well.

Though there were liberties taken with the Etting story, if you read her bio, it sounds just like the film. Did the movie have a '20s and the '30s feel to it? Not really. But it doesn't matter. The film is in color and has a rich look, and what a score. What actors. A must see.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s musicals acquired a distinctly noir-ish quality, and the life of singer Ruth Etting was made to order.

Born in 1896, Etting was a hardknocks chorus girl when she caught the eye of small-time Chicago hood Martin "Moe the Gimp" Snyder, who married her in 1922 and proceeded to promote her career--occasionally, according to rumor, at gun point. By 1927 Etting was a popular singer and a major Broadway star, and when talkies arrived the couple moved to California, where Etting became a favorite for the musical shorts that were then in vogue. But the marriage was volatile, and when Snyder found Etting was having an affair with pianist Myrl Alderman, Snyder shot him. Alderman survived and Etting wasted little time in divorcing Snyder and marrying Alderman, but the scandal was so shocking that it effectively ended her career. She died, largely forgotten, 1978.

As you might expect, LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME plays fast and loose with the facts, presenting Etting as an innocent (she wasn't) and Snyder as a major crime figure (he wasn't); even so, it does seem to capture something elemental about both the era and the characters. Much of this is due to the on-screen chemistry between leads Doris Day and Jimmy Cagney, who spark and sizzle in a truly surprising way.

It will not surprise viewers that Cagney plays Snyder extremely well; he is, after all, best recalled for his numerous crime-drama roles. But it may surprise viewers that Day had the acting chops to match him. Today she is most widely remembered as a master of light comedy, but in truth Doris Day's films of the 1940s and 1950s were more often hard drama than fly-weight amusements, including such heavy-hitters as YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, STORM WARNING, and YOUNG AT HEART; she would continue her string of dramatic roles in such films as Alfred Hitchcock's THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. Her performance in LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME is often considered her high-water mark as a dramatic actress: she gives it everything she's got, and the sparks really fly when she and Cagney square off.

The look of the film, which was directed by Charles Vidor and sports art direction by the legendary Cedrick Gibbons, is beautiful, and the film moves at a smart clip; its one failing is that censorship issues of the era left several scenes--including a legendary rape sequence--on the cutting room floor. The music, drawn from Etting's most famous recordings, is also memorable, and Day pulls out all the stops for her songs. The DVD is not flawless, but you'll never notice it, and it includes several bonuses, two of which show us the real Ruth Etting. Recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

I never had to be convinced that Doris Day was a fine actress--from her first film ('Romance on the High Seas') which she stole from veterans like Jack Carson and Janis Paige--to 'Storm Warning' (her first dramatic role as Ginger Rogers' sister)--she never made a false move. But her real acting triumph came with this hard-hitting Ruth Etting biography in which she does an amazing job as the torch singer involved with a gangster boyfriend (James Cagney). Cagney has never been more impressive as the Chicago hood who manages her career--and Day manages to match him every step of the way with a gutsy, heart-felt performance.

Also shown to good advantage is Cameron Mitchell as an admirer with real affection for Day. Their scenes together have a poignant quality because you know how deep the feelings go on both sides. Day's rendition of a haunting ballad, 'I'll Never Stop Loving You', is one of the film's highlights--along with 'Ten Cents A Dance', 'Mean to Me', 'Love Me Or Leave Me', etc. She is simply brilliant.

The high quality of the Oscar-winning script (Best Story) is a tribute to the overall quality of the film itself. A highly dramatic musical, it makes you wonder what Day's career might have been like if she remained at Metro for more such films rather than the sugar-and-spice things she did at Warner Bros. Some of them were charming (the old-fashioned musicals with Gordon MacRae), but since she was a fine dramatic actress she could have done so much more. Day's voice is a sheer pleasure here--perfect pitch, warm tones and easy on the ears. Nobody could sing a ballad like Doris does here. 'I'll Never Stop Loving You' is my favorite.

Summing up: highly recommended as one of the best musical biographies you're ever likely to see.

Out of MGM, Love Me or Leave Me is directed by Charles Vidor and stars Doris Day, James Cagney & Cameron Mitchell. Written by Daniel Fuchs and Isobel Lennart, the film is loosely based on the true story of legendary 20s torch singer Ruth Etting (Day) and her rise to fame propelled by Chicago gangster Marty "The Gimp" Snyder (Cagney). It's shot in CinemaScope/Eastmancolor and features a number of Etting standards along with a couple of new tunes written especially for the film.

Vidor's movie was a box office success that earned six Oscar nominations, one of which was for Cagney in the Best Actor category. Most surprising on the nominations list is the absence of one for Day. Surprising since as good as Cagney is here (all snarly, bossy and maniacal gangster like), this most assuredly is Day's movie as she turns in arguably a career best performance. Etting herself wanted Jane Powell to play her in the movie, whilst Ava Gardner was courted, and courted back, for the role. But Cagney was sure that Day was right for the part, how right he turned out to be.

That Day would be able to carry off the tunes was a given, that she could immerse herself successfully in a character calling for a strong dramatic bent, still carried a question mark. Thankfully she delivers, even if her fluffy girl next door persona remains in tact. This comes down to much of the hard edge of the story from the source being absent or skirted over (Etting's battle with alcohol, pre-marital sex & infidelity), but Day and Cagney really manage to make the real life odd coupling come alive on the screen; and thus the dark aspects loom in the air just about enough to make us aware. She shows a naive, vulnerable, yet fame hungry streak, while he shows up to be a driven bully who literally will do what it takes to protect his "possession".

However, the blend of a musical, gangster basis and biography never fully works. In fact, even tho the songs are a joy (particularly a sultry Day warbling Ten Cents a Dance), there's too many numbers used. Many times when the film threatens to really break out into bold territory, a number is inserted and the dramatic ark hits the buffers. This also gives off a feeling of repetition as time and again Cagney goes ape about something, Doris sighs and then she sings, and on it goes. All told the film is an odd fusion of intents, as odd as the central relationship of the piece in fact. In lesser hands it could have been a misfire (credit to good performances from Mitchell & Robert Keith too), but even tho it has faults, and suffers from the absence of daring, the lead actors make it a hugely enjoyable movie regardless. 7/10

Before she became America's top box-office star by playing its oldest virgin, Doris Day was an instinctive, if untutored, actress and an accomplished, popular singer. In Charles Vidor's Love Me Or Leave Me, she takes on the part of Ruth Etting, the troubled songstress from the jazz age, and her twin talents merge memorably. It's a faultless performance, all the more impressive for staying understated, scaled down.

Her co-star, James Cagney, takes the low road; as Marty (`The Gimp') Snyder, a lopsided fireplug of a man, he sizzles with resentment and ignites into rages. Strangely, his scenery-chewing complements Day's underplaying; the tension between their temperaments fuels this dark drama which occasionally resembles a musical but is closer at heart to film noir (Vidor, after all, directed Gilda).

A taxi-dancer in a Chicago dive, Day catches Cagney's eye (he holds the linen-laundering concession for the place). Finding she's not the quick pick-up he had in mind, he lands her a job in the kick-line at another nitery he services. When he finds out she wants to be a singer, he arranges for lessons with pianist Cameron Mitchell (who plays the thankless role of the loyal but shoved-aside lover). But Cagney, used to getting what he wants and to browbeating everybody around him into surrender, meets his match in Day. Her quiet determination proves every bit as strong as his bellowing bluster. When it looks like her star is in ascendancy, he becomes her manager, puts her on radio, and snares her a spot in New York as a headliner in the Ziegfeld Follies.

They settle into a grudge-match of a marriage, with guerrilla warfare erupting from both sides. (Cagney's Snyder is a marginally less disturbed version of his Cody Jarrett in White Heat.) One of their flashfire fights takes place in her dressing room after a show. Cagney knocks a vase of flowers across the room; Day extends her arm for him to unclasp a bracelet. They bicker some more, with Cagney losing the argument while Day nurses the drink that has become her ally. He leans over and tells her `You oughtta lay off that stuff – you're getting to look like an old bag.' It's the chilliest moment in the movie.

In the last third, Day answers a call from Hollywood, which lays the foundation for the unravelling of this messy, nerve-wracking relationship. And if the wrapping up grasps toward the sentimental (with a detour into the melodramatic), it doesn't quite take. Cagney, actor and character, hangs on like a bulldog with a bone. The Marty Snyders never change, and Cagney knows it; he stays the self-deluded small-time hood he started out as, who can't accept that he's driven away a woman he can't believe he loves so much.

Day, however, rises to a magnanimity that rings hollow. Her steely self-confidence about where her talents would bring her, and her casual callousness in using Cagney to help her get there, make her final gesture improbable. But when she takes the spotlight, singing `Mean to Me' or `Ten Cents A Dance' (with her feet planted provocatively – defiantly – apart), Day, actress and character, takes it by natural right. The voice isn't quite right – Etting's was reedy and tremulous, Day's big and secure – but the assurance and style are dead on.

This film pre-dates & set the standard for films like Barbra Streisand's "Funny Girl" & Diana Ross' "Lady Sings The Blues", two other great films which showcased singers in acting roles playing real-life people. "Love Me Or Leave Me" was Doris Day's MGM "extravagaza" (after several formula, cookie-cutter musicals at Warner Bros.) playing Ruth Etting a torch singer from the 1920's. She is at her dramatic best & never looked sexier. Her voice is as pleasing as ever & the songs are very enjoyable ("At Sundown", "Love Me Or Leave Me", "Shaking The Blues Away", & "Mean To Me", among others). Some of Doris' fans were distraught to see her drinking & scheming to climb her way to the top, but the fact of the matter is she was playing someone else & she was very convincing. James Cagney was grating as Marty "The Gimp" Snyder the Chicago gangster who helped Etting attain her show biz goals. This film displays all that Doris Day could have been if she had continued to find meaty roles to her acting advantage. When most people think of her, they think of the fluffy bedroom comedies she did with Rock Hudson, Cary Grant & James Garner.("Pillow Talk", "Lover Come Back", "That Touch of Mink"...), the virginal persona, the freckles, etc. If you're only familiar with those films you should see this & you'll be impressed. (I recently heard Jennifer Lopez wants to re-make this film, God help us all!!)

"Love Me Or Leave Me" has been critically lauded and publicly supported. I can only concede it's a very fine music/drama/biopic.

What's so unique about this film is it's skillfully combining the "gangster" element with the "musical" genre. The bio-based storyline plays out like somewhat like a crime drama, while the musical portion rings forth with twelve complete full-bodied numbers.

The casting is truly inspired: what a coup getting Doris Day, at the peak of her physical, acting and vocal powers to be cast in a real-life role, while snaring the brilliant, often breathtaking James Cagney--forever at the peak of his powers--as the indestructible "Gimp."

Together they create fireworks, playing off one another's sweet 'n' sour characterizations with great relish. How amusing it is to see Cagney having fun with his deft limp-walk and grueling thug-character, complemented by Day's equally enjoyable, contrastingly lovable persona.

The songs are all very beautiful, and expertly rendered by Day in this, a wonderful tribute to her vocal talent and impressive musicianship.

The script is well-written to utilize the stars' individual gifts, and the widescreen production is a delight to watch. After all these years, "Love Me Or Leave Me" holds its own, thanks to the contributions of two now-legendary stars.

Love Me or Leave Me looks great and comes with great production values. As a biopic film it falls a little flat though as the two main characters aren't really fully developed enough to create the desired tension the story needs. This in turn weakens the relationship between the two leads as its hard to understand why Day's character has fallen so hard for her thug boyfriend, played a bit one note by Cagney. Day looks stunning, sexy and sounds great in the musical numbers. She does a wonderful job interpreting the classic Etting songs. I think the one dimensionality of the Cagney character is the central weakness here, but Love Me or Leave Me is still a film worth checking out, particularly if you're a Doris Day fan.

The 3 stars are for the good singing. The songs are great. Even with the great leads, I find the film dull and overreacted. I also find Doris Day's costumes to be very distracting. As beautiful as they are, they were not made to portray the era in which the film was to take place. The styles were very much if the current time in which the film was made in, the 1950s. None of her gowns or wardrobe look like the silhouettes or cuts of the 20s or 30s.

I enjoy this movie, this is what good entertainment is all about, Hollywood today should learn lessons from movies like this.

Well, as all of us classic movie fans know that the 1950's was the era of movies about real-life vocalists who rose to fame but had a hard price to pay that ruined them. Lillian Roth's story "I'll Cry Tomorrow" portrayed by Susan Hayward, The Helen Morgan Story, The Country Girl, then "A Star Is Born," and countless of other fictional or non-fictional films on vocalists who pay the ultimate price for fame. We never get enough of seeing movies about fallen stars who left a place in our hearts.

This particular movie always interested me, I saw this movie on Turner Classic Movies and fell in love with the singing of Doris Day, I didn't know there was a real Ruth Etting, I didn't know she was really portraying a real life singer, I didn't check out the real Ruth Etting until 2 years ago, I saw her for the first time in "Hips Hips Hooray" on Turner Classic Movies and was kind of shocked the real Ruth wasn't anything like how Doris Day portrayed her. Doris Day's portrayed Ruth as a sexy and sassy performer and sung with a strong, jazzy, bluesy voice, when I saw the real Ruth perform in the movies and in 2 shorts, she wasn't sexy and sassy, she was reserved, the type of performer to stand still and sing with great emotion and feeling, she wasn't the wiggling hips type like Doris Day portrayed and Ruth's voice was so light, airy, powerful without being loud and aggressive, you don't hear the blues, jazz in Ruth's voice yet she was a torch singer. I see why she was popular she was a one of a kind. She didn't have to shout and sing various notes to get a song across, she knew how to put over a number without all that fancy stuff, singers today could learn a lot about singing from Helen Morgan, Lillian Roth and Ruth Etting, they didn't have to jump around, move around, shake their butts, be overly blatantly sexual, they weren't loud and annoying to make you cover your ears, they just sung their songs, each word with feeling, they didn't do all that oooh, ahhh, ooohwoooyeah stuff. The two things that Ruth and Doris did have in common was they both sing with great feeling and emotion.

The real Ruth Etting seems frail and too sweet, she's adorable, which makes me wonder why she hooked up with a gangster anyway but then again looks can be deceiving, I heard she wasn't the sweet, girl next door type in the first place and she wasn't so naive and a pushover like Doris Day portrayed her. Doris is very curvy and plump in this movie, she looks tough and looks like she could let the limping Cagney have it and run so he couldn't catch her yet Doris portrays Ruth as weak, so it makes me wonder what the real Ruth Etting was really like, the real Ruth looks so frail and innocent, she looks as though you could knock her over with a feather but I hear she was tougher than Doris portrayed her but I guess the movie was more interesting portrayed Ruth as naive and gullible. You know how Hollywood is, they never tell the whole truth, they either leave something out and put in what they want. Ruth Etting didn't like this movie, she said many things were false and she was going to sue but told not to by Walter Winchell. Ruth Etting was one of the top singers in her prime, the definition of a torch singer. She was quite unique and powerful yet with a little voice and a little body but you believed everything she singed, her adorable face and presence would naturally make you feel her pain, behind the pretty face that was a lot of hurt that was obvious through her singing. She was a true artist who makes you stop and listen.

Not being a great Cagney fan, I didn't have high hopes for this film when I first saw it. The only reason I did watch it was Doris Day. Boy, am I glad I did. Anyone who questions Day's acting abilities should take a look at this film. Personally, I've always thought she was one of Hollywood's few singers who really could act. Look at the lackluster acting of Kathryn Grayson or Jane Powell sometime. Doris Day runs circles around them. If you're still in doubt after seeing this film, watch "Julie" sometime. Another one of her best films.

Also, Day is in fine voice in this film. All of the songs are wonderful. "Ten Cents A Dance" and "Shaking The Blues Away" among the best. I have heard the real Ruth Etting's rendition of both these numbers, and they are nothing like Day's performances. Obviously, they weren't going for mimicry here, but it works fine just the same. Highly recommended.

Brilliant engaging from start to finish. Every scene with Cagney and Day is compelling. All the songs are great, and Doris Day's sing of the jazzy numbers is outstanding. One that can be watched over and over again.

"Love Me or Leave Me" is the fictionalized but essentially accurate biopic of Ruth Etting (Doris Day), popular vocalist from the 1920s and 30s. It's a tragic story about an ambitious but principled young woman who attracts the attention of a gangster, Marty Snyder (James Cagney), with an inferiority complex and a need for control.

Cagney plays his part with such conviction that the film is not enjoyable to watch. His Marty Snyder never ceases to dominate Ruth with his smothering attentions and a jealous eye.

Day displays her singing voice, some dance moves, a killer body that is often overlooked because of her prim portrayals, and a strong dramatic performance. Ruth's sad story, in reality, is much as the film depicts. The ending of the film is a concession to neat Hollywood endings, but dramatically it serves its purpose.

There have been other films about women who were dominated by men wanting to capitalize on their talents (see "Star 80"), with destructive results. This one is convincing, thanks to its two stars. Fans of either will want to see this film.

Curiously enough after I viewed my VHS copy of Love Me or Leave Me, I went to the movies and saw Walk the Line. One of the things that struck me was that while Joaquin Phoenix had a much tougher job because Johnny Cash was performing almost up to the end and had a distinctive sound that I didn't think anyone could match, Phoenix did a very good job in capturing him.

On the other hand Ruth Etting had not been seen in films for over 20 years, nor had she made a record in that length of time either. She was living very quietly in retirement. So except with older members of the public, Doris Day did not have to compete with an image people had in their minds.

Also people left out of this story include Martin Snyder's first wife and his daughter from that marriage. Also the fact that Snyder was Jewish. My guess is that MGM did not want a false issue of anti-Semitism raised.

There sure were enough issues anyway. Ruth Etting, a girl from the sticks with lots of singing talent, is determined to succeed. So she latches on to a small time Chicago hood named Martin Snyder who gets her career started and in gear.

I remember reading that in her life with Snyder, Etting found it impossible to socialize due to Snyder's boorish behavior. One of the few other show business personalities that she did socialize with was her co-star in Kid Boots on Broadway, Eddie Cantor. Cantor who was brought up on the Lower East Side of New York, lived with guys like Snyder in his youth so he was used to it and put up with him. Very few others would.

Incidentally the title tune Love Me or Leave Me comes from the score of Kid Boots.

In Love Me or Leave Me, we don't have Doris doing an imitation of Ruth Etting, we have Doris singing like Doris which is just fine for me. She sings the songs that were identified with Etting very well. The album for this film sold very well for her.

James Cagney made his third and final trip to the Oscar Derby with his portrayal of Martin "the gimp" Snyder. In its way Snyder is as complex a role as Cagney's Cody Jarrett. He's an uneducated kid from the slums who made it in the rackets, but feels terribly inferior around all the show business creative types that his wife now by necessity has to associate with, where ironically due to his drive has pushed her there. Cagney lost the Oscar race to Ernest Borgnine for Marty. Ain't that a piece of irony itself.

Cameron Mitchell as Johnny Alderman (real first name Myrl) does very well as the man who eventually became her second husband as does the rest of the cast.

All three of the people that Day, Cagney, and Mitchell portray were still alive at the time that Love Me or Leave me was being filmed. All signed off on the picture, I assume all parties were satisfied with it.

And so should you.

One of the more adult mid-'50s musicals, and it's surprising that it came out of MGM, which generally preferred happy-happy song-and-dance shows, and starred two big stars who had never before worked at Culver City. Day and Cagney are tremendous, she playing up Ruth Etting's unattractive ambition without flinching, and he bringing unexpected charm to a thoroughly unlikable gangster character. As a study of how bad relationships stay stuck in the groove, it's remarkably grown-up for its day, and you might not expect these two stars to play well off each other, but they certainly do. The downside: Ruth Etting had a small, chirpy voice, rather like her contemporaries Janet Gaynor or Nancy Carroll, and Day's vocal delivery is nothing like hers. She sings like... Doris Day. Nor are the arrangements anything like period--they're standard mid-'50s overkill. The costumes and hairstyles don't even pretend to be '20s. And though much is made of Miss Etting's film career--you'd have thought she was a great movie musical star--her Hollywood sojourn was actually brief and unimpressive. Finally, there's that audience depressant Cameron Mitchell as her love interest, and you can't get very interested in him, or root for him. After so many vacuous sunny-side-up musicals at Warners, Day must have relished this opportunity to show what she could really do, and it's very worth sitting through to watch the Day-Cagney fireworks. I guess an accurate portrayal of Ruth Etting and her times would be asking too much.

Having seen The ten cents a dance number I believe on one of the that's entertainment movies, I've always wanted to see this film and finally did it. I can't believe that somehow Doris Day developed a virginal image, based on this performance. She is incredibly hot and talented with a fabulous voice. She just passed away and I'm sorry that she has gone.

I just watched this film again on TCM, and it just isn't very good. Doris Day considered it her best performance, and it might well be. It showcases both her acting and her singing; I've always considered her almost criminally undervalued as both an actress and a singer. It certainly has plenty of MGM gloss and great production values. If you look at the trivia file here on the film, you will see that it was heavily censored for things which today would not be censored, but celebrated.

However, it's a chore, not a pleasure, to watch, and the blame rest largely on James Cagney's shoulders. I realize that I'm in a minority in considering Cagney a very limited talent. He's very effective when the film matched his talents, as a hyperkinetic song and dance man in Footlight Parade, or a hyperkinetic thug in his early gangster films, or a hyperkineitic psycho thug in White Heat, or even a hyperkinetic business exec in One, Two Three. But it's all variations on a theme (there's also the sentimental streak in some of his films, but the less said of that, the better) and in this film it degenerates to mannerisms and attitude. His performance is painfully one-dimensional.

Without Cagney, I might rank it a six. Day is great; the production looks good; but overall it really is a formula picture, and not the best formula to boot.