“Voice in the Mirror” (1958) is one of my favorite all-time "art" movies, and happily one black and white movie that Ted Turner hasn't turned his colorizing goons loose on yet. It features as an extra bonus the incredibly sultry vocalist/actress/sexpot of her day, Julie London (once married to Jack Webb!). Greasy-haired Richard Egan plays her hubby, a recovering alcoholic ad agency art director trying to make a comeback in the big time New York advertising scene.

My favorite scene: He gets his big break, and his first morning on the job, poor Richard's forced to sit there and do layouts for a liquor account! Believe it or not, they actually set up a liquor bottle on a little Grecian "art" pedestal for him to draw "comps" from. By lunchtime, he's really got the shakes, so when everybody does lunch, he asks a bullpen old timer who's stayed behind to brown-bag it, something like, "Say, you wouldn't tell anyone if I slipped a drink from that bottle, would you? You know, first day on the job nerves..." "Go right ahead, son. I understand." The old fart even gets the poor sap a glass, and when Richard pours a stiff one and downs it, he does the Danny Thomas coffee spit... it was a prop bottle filled with tea! The old timer laughs, as if Richard has learned a well-deserved lesson, not realizing that if anything will drive you to drink, it'll be a job as an agency art director!

With Troy Donahue, Arthur O'Connell, and Walter Matthau, along with Mae Clarke, the actress who got James Cagney's grapefruit squashed in her face way back in "Public Enemy" (1931)

Egan is probably best-known for his starring role along with Elvis Presley in Elvis' first film, "Love Me Tender" (1956).