The street-hoods are eagerly awaiting news of where Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra) is holding the illegal crap game. Nathan needs a thousand dollars to secure a location and doesn’t have the money. When big time gambler Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando) brags that he can pick up any girl, Nathan sees an opportunity and bets him a thousand that he can’t and points him toward Salvation Army Sergeant Sarah Brown (Jean Simmons). As Sky tries to seduce the prudish Sarah, Nathan attempts to hide his activities from his fiancée of fourteen years (Vivian Blaine) while keeping gamblers (B.S. Pulley, Johnny Silver, Sheldon Leonard, Stubby Kaye) interested.
A 
rating? Am I being a little rough on this bright, star-filled MGM musical. Nope. If I had a Black Plague rating, I’d give it that.
I love Guys and Dolls. Note that I’m referring to the Broadway musical, not the film. Based on the charming stories of Damon Runyon and set in his world of eloquent street hustlers and sexy dames, it is jammed with jokes, romance, and great songs by Frank Loesser. Luck Be a Lady and Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat are classics of American theater. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer people realize any of that because the show is remembered, when it is remembered at all, either from numerous high school productions or from this miserable, poorly paced flick. The high schools do a better job.
So, how did director Joseph L. Mankiewicz and producer Samuel Goldwyn ruin a quality musical? Removing three excellent numbers was only a minor mistep, though replacing them with bland forgettable ones was certainly a mistake. The very stagy sets don’t help. The entire production is claustrophobic, failing to capture the expanse of the Runyonesque world half as well as the smaller, black & white The Lemon Drop Kid had four years earlier.
Far worse is Mankiewicz’s sleepy direction. He had quite a reputation with dramas, but this was his first musical and he didn’t have the knack. It needed to be rapid fire, with the gags emphasized, but Mankiewicz seemed unaware that the conversations are supposed to be funny. There isn’t a single laugh in the picture. It’s clear where they should be, but the delivery is too languid to inspire a smile.
But the greatest flaw, the absolute death to the movie, is the casting. Jean Simmons is adorable (that is the proper word), but her singing is dubbed and not dubbed very well (she’s flat on If I Were a Bell). That’s a minor issue compared to the male leads. Sinatra was given the wrong part. He campaigned for the larger roll of Sky Masterson, feeling only distain for the marble-mouthed Brando. He had little interest in the secondary roll, and it shows. He’s never been worse, not bothering to create a character; he tiredly recites the convoluted dialog as if he’d never heard it before. His singing voice is in fine form (the only one of the leads where that’s true), but he doesn’t get to do much with it. As for Brando, it’s hard to guess what movie he thought he was in. He never comes close to the character of Sky Masterson although he does seem to enjoy randomly emphasizing words. And he can’t sing. Yes, the lead in a musical can’t carry a tune. Reedy is the nicest term I can come up with. During filming, Brando couldn’t get through a song, so his numbers in the finished movie are made up from multiple takes as the editors tried desperately to construct something in the right key.
Not only can’t Brando sing, he can’t dance. Neither Simmons nor Sinatra were known for their dancing either, so many scenes have dead framing as these three do little or nothing, standing about uncomfortably. I suppose you could consider this an avant-garde approach, but I think if you’re making a movie musical, it might be clever to hire actors who can sing and dance. Just a thought.
A few of the supporting players put in good performances. Both Vivian Blaine and Stubby Kaye were members of the Broadway cast, and demonstrate that they should be in the show. Kaye almost makes the film watchable, for a few minutes anyway, but it’s too much for one man to manage.
Guys and Dolls is a desecration of a great musical comedy. Skip it, and pick up the original Broadway cast album instead.