Loosely-very loosely-based on the life of cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, Young Man with a Horn tells the story of a boy born to play the music in his head, “a note no one's heard before.” With his trumpet in hand, Ricky Martin is a passionate artist pursuing the elusive music of the imagination; without that trumpet, he's shrunken and lonely. Smoke Willoughby (Hoagy Carmichael) tells this story in retrospect as though it were a fever dream, and for Martin (rendered in a tormented minor key by Kirk Douglas) it might as well be. Like any good composition, this also needs a counterpoint. Curtiz's film has lounge singer Doris Day playing off of wealthy ne'er-do-well Lauren Bacall, one the steady but staid adorant, the other a flame of unpredictable heat. And here is the horn of a dilemma: Martin's single-minded pursuit of the unheard note has made him unfit for human consumption. It's not until he becomes a success as a man that he can become an artist.