sensha I am surprised at the reviews thus far posted, as they miss one of the major novelties of this movie. While Tony Curtis is never going to win any awards for his musicianship, the little "group" that he tries to join contains some pretty impressive "ringers", especially for a movie that isn't all that much about the musical side of things.Any group that contains the likes of Gerry Mulligan AND Sam Butera is going to raise more than a few musical eyebrows. As mentioned above, the music used in the film is nothing to get too worked up about, but these two icons (plus the other sidemen that surround them) are reason enough to consider this one "special".A musical note or two about Curtis is in order here as well. He also played a tenor saxophone player in the iconic Some Like It Hot. While his autobiography is silent as to his actual saxophone playing skills, some of the fingerings that he used in that film were right for the music being played (although out of sync with the actual film sound track). It is mentioned that he has some flute playing skills in the biography, so his being a sax player is not out of the realm of possibility.The horns that he is seen playing in this movie all appear to be Selmer instruments. When his horns get "lifted" by the boys in the band, Debbie Reynolds goes to bat for him and buys him a set of horns "to get by" on his cruise ship gig. However, the instruments purchased are Leblanc horns, recognizable by the distinctive tweed covered cases in which they came. But, when he is seen performing on the ship, he is again playing Selmer instruments. Since this was well before product placement in movies became common, it may be that he was playing his own horns and the Leblanc cases were used for their visual appeal.

JasparLamarCrabb One of the better Debbie Reynolds vehicles of the 60s, but still not particularly good. Reynolds plays a NYC dance hall girl living on the skids in Kay Medford's seedy apartment house. Through a depressing series of misfortunes, she ends up with struggling musician Tony Curtis as a roommate. Every crisis imaginable befalls the couple as they try to "make it" in the big city. Despite the presence of comics Medford and Jack Oakie (who together act as a sort of skid row Greek chorus), THE RAT RACE is pretty bleak. Director Robert Mulligan makes a point of avoiding any humor (except for the many verbal jabs Reynolds lobs at nice guy Curtis) and the lack of levity leaves the film dead. Norman Fell appears in a brief and very uncomfortable scene as a telephone repairman whom Reynolds convinces not to shut off her phone. In a very rare straight role, Don Rickles plays Reynold's sleazy boss.

Martin Pasko If Garson Kanin's stage version were successful enough to earn a movie treatment by producers Perlberg and Seaton, whose adaptation of Clifford Odets's "The Country Girl" is famously exquisite, one can only assume that the play was more honest and less preposterously disingenuous than this laughable adaptation.Written by Kanin himself, who must have swallowed a fair amount of bile at the bowdlerizing mandated by the Hollywood Production Code, the film addresses its central question, which appears to be whether "dance hall girl" Debbie Reynolds (!) is or isn't a prostitute, with pages and pages of jaw-droppingly elliptical dialogue that bears no resemblance to human speech -- lines on the order of, "I'd never think you'd...you know..." and "How could you think I'm the kind of girl you think I am?" Those are not necessarily exact quotes, but you get the idea.The film is sunk by other equally bizarre choices at every turn, including not only the female lead's spectacular miscasting but her co-star's as well. Presenting Tony Curtis as a Midwestern naif being conned by heartless Manhattanites produces such howlingly funny utterances as "And on my foist day in New Yawk!" '30s Paramount comedy star Jack Oakie and Kay Medford, Dick Van Dyke's mother in the stage version of "Bye, Bye, Birdie," comprise a kind of greasy-spoon Greek chorus, a bartender and his only barfly, Reynolds's landlady, whom we first meet sitting at the bar drinking orange soda! In this Times Square saloon which, like many other sets in the film, reveals the art director's painful fascination with red walls, there is more mugging going on than in Central Park.But all of this is topped by the grotesquely overwrought, bug-eyed and nostril-flaring performance of Don Rickles, who quickly demonstrates why he found his true calling in standup rather than film acting. You're better off reading the play, but only reading it, because no impresario has the bad taste to mount a revival of it any more.

glennsart Everytime I see this movie I am reminded what a fine big screen actor Don Rickles is. You tend to think of his small screen work and comedy routines as being the scope of his ability but that is not the case. Without Rickles' fine acting The Rat Race would have fell flat. In my opinion, he stole the show.