YOU’RE SO VEIN

Want to talk about pictures with all-star lineups? Meet the 1955 New York Yankees of cinema: producer-director Otto Preminger helming an adaptation of a Nelson Algren novel smudged with Ben Hecht’s fingerprints, accompanied by a searing Elmer Bernstein jazz score executed by Shelly Manne and His Men, featuring a luscious pre-Vertigo Kim Novak and, batting cleanup, Frank Sinatra in an Oscar-nominated performance as a heroin-addicted jazz drummer named — wait for it … wait for it — Frankie Machine. Think you can top that? Demonstrating that Ol’ Blue Eyes had serious acting chops in addition to that velvety voice, The Man With the Golden Arm screens today at 1:30 p.m. in the Durwood Film Vault at the Kansas City, Missouri, Central Library (14 West 10th Street). Admission is free to all movies in the Sinatra retrospective “Dramatic Range,” continuing each Saturday in March. See kclibrary.org for more information.— Brent Shepherd

Sat., March 14, 2009