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Video Reviews and News : ****Excellent ***Good **Ordinary *Poor : <i> Recent releases, reviewed by Times critics.</i> : MOVIES

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<i> Compiled by Terry Atkinson</i>

** “Love Me Or Leave Me.”

MGM/UA. $19.95. 1955.

In 1955, when it was made by director Charles Vidor for producer Joe Pasternak, this musical biography of ‘20s singer Ruth Etting, manhandled and masterminded by a gangster named Moe (The Gimp) Schneider, seemed pretty raw stuff. Now, alas, only James Cagney’s unsparing, collectible performance as The Gimp rings true; Doris Day’s voice is great but her unsullied disingenuousness as Etting, accepting every favor that would further her career, awe-struck when a day of payment finally came, seems dishonest. Even her candy-box sweetness when singing low-down songs of love’s pain (“Ten Cents a Dance”) are as incongruous as some of the updates of ‘20s clothes and hair styles.

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