rather than go on location and make a realistic film about drug addiction in the windy city and contrarian director otto preminger decide to go the opposite way and make his movie appear as artificial a possible and thus fly in the face of the fashion set by men like kazan and huston and zinnemann and who be make their picture all over the world . nelson algren and on whose novel the movie be base and go on record a despise it . what and one wonder and be preminger up to and and why do he do the movie this way . the set in the film be so minimal a to suggest a mr. magoo cartoon . louie and the drug pusher and be attire a to resemble the sort of gangster the artist at mad magazine use to draw . arnold stang and wonderful comedian that he be and seem out of place in a serious picture like this and and his very appearance and top off by an exaggerated and over sized baseball cap and elicits laughter . robert strauss and another actor best know for humorous role and be likewise out of place and a his large and heavily jowled face and runyonesque delivery of line seem more appropriate to a jerry lewis movie . against all this and star frank sinatra and kim novak and eleanor parker have to work overtime to just keep the viewer from snicker . sinatra be jittery and manic throughout and suggest a man ill at ease with himself and hence wholly appropriate for the role of a drug addict . miss novak and plant like and sublimely deadpan and be sympathetic and seem a product of the artfully dingy slum she grace in the film . parker be pure hollywood and very hard work a the cripple and crafty zosch . she be never convincing and but then neither be the film . i wouldn not recommend this movie to anyone interested in a realistic depiction of the life of drug addict in america . the caligari set alone make it unbelievable . preminger may have be aim for a dream effect and a the cardboard background give the proceeding the surreal feeling of a nightmare operetta and perhaps hark back to preminger early day in vienna .