Most of Career is told as a flashback.  When it begins, Sam Lawson (Anthony Franciosa) is a waiter in New York.  He is late again.  We find out from Charlie (Frank McHugh) that Sam is often late when he needs to audition for a play.  Sometimes Sam quits work to be in a play, but it flops after a couple of weeks, and Sam has to come back to the restaurant, begging to get his job back.  Charlie warns him that the owner is out of patience, and if it happens again, he will lose his job for good.  Charlie tells Sam that he has been happy being a waiter all his life, but happiness is no argument for Sam.  He is driven by his need to succeed as an actor.

It is bad enough that Sam is a failure.  But when it is time to start waiting on tables, he sees a woman he used to know being seated.  It is obvious that he is ashamed to have her see him like this.  That is when the flashback begins.

We find ourselves in Lansing, Michigan, and the woman is Barbara (Joan Blackman).  Sam is saying goodbye to her so he can go to New York and be an actor.  She wants to go with him, but he says no, saying he will send for her.  He explains:  “Because time goes by too quickly.  I’m four years behind.  I spent four years with death, and they took four years of my life, Barbara.  And I found out then how precious life is. It’s got to be used for something worthwhile.  A man has got to do the thing that’s most important to him.”

So, while Sam has been fighting in Europe during World War II, Barbara has been waiting for him to come home and marry her.  She naturally thought that she would be the most important thing in his life.

Two friends of theirs, Allan (Jerry Paris) and Marjorie (Donna Douglas), show up to say goodbye.  They are happily married, and Marjorie is going to have a baby.  I believe this is the first Hollywood movie made since the introduction of the Production Code where it is obvious that a woman is pregnant.  Just to rub it in, Sam pats her on the tummy.

Allan and Marjorie have, or soon will have, what is essential for happiness in this movie:  home, marriage, children.  The word “home” can simply mean the place where you live, but as it is used in this movie, it has a sentimental connotation. To have a home in this sense, you must be married and own a house.  Perhaps I should say, “to have a home of your own.”  For those who are single, as well as for married couples that do not own a house, home is where they were born or where their parents live.  I once knew a bachelor who was in his thirties and owned a house.  He told me with amusement that someone asked him if he was going home for Thanksgiving.

Now, it is only the attitude of this movie that happiness depends on having a home, being married, and having children.  Certainly, there are many who would take exception to this.  As one guy put it, “I never knew what happiness was until I got married.  And then it was too late.”

In any event, the scene shifts to New York, one year later, where Sam is living in a cold-water flat on Third Avenue.  Elevated trains pass right by his window.  He has been living on his veteran’s rehabilitation allowance, but it runs out in a few weeks.

He has a reading for an off-Broadway group, the Actor’s Rostrum, located in the Old Seaman’s Mission on Houston Street.  The producer is Maury Novak (Dean Martin).  It turns out that Maury is just as hard up as Sam, and something of a mooch and a chiseler as well.  After getting Sam to pay for his hotdog, Maury asks him about girls.  When Sam says he doesn’t go out with girls, Maury becomes nervous.  But when Sam says he is engaged to one, Maury says, “What a relief.”  Now that he knows Sam is not a homosexual, Maury announces that he will be Sam’s roommate.  Of course, the purpose of this scene is to assure us that Maury is not a homosexual.

Eventually, Barbara follows Sam to New York.  When Maury walks in and sees them kissing, he tells Sam he will be moving out because he also has a “roommate”.  Whether he really does or simply realizes that three’s a crowd, we don’t know.  Sam and Barbara get married.  When she becomes pregnant, Sam promises her that if he hasn’t found work in a month, they will go back home.  However, she loses the baby.  Somehow, we feel that it is Sam’s fault, that if he had agreed to give up acting, go back with her to Lansing, and be a salesman like Allan, everything would have been fine.  When she first found out she was pregnant, she said, “It’s like something holy happening to us,” giving it religious significance.  As a result, her loss of the baby probably felt like God’s punishment.  Be that as it may, the miscarriage finishes things for her.  She goes back to Lansing by herself and files for divorce.

Sam and Maury put on plays at the Old Seaman’s Mission, the actors outnumbering the audience.  Maury tells Sam he has had an offer from Hollywood for a technical job, but before he leaves, he convinces Sam to show up for a casting call being held by Robert Kensington (Robert Middleton), a successful producer of plays.  While Sam is there, an agent comes in with Eric Peters, an actor that has star quality, that special something that sets an actor apart from those that merely have talent, like Sam.

The funny thing is, Peters is played by Chuck Wassil, a bit player you probably have never heard of, as opposed to Anthony Franciosa, who does have star quality.  It reminds me of The Last Hurrah (1958), in which Spencer Tracy plays an old-style politician who realizes that the role of television in campaigns will be the end of politicians like him.  We are expected to believe this even though Spencer Tracy is nothing if not telegenic, while his opponent in the campaign for mayor is played by Charles B. Fitzsimons, an actor with a bland, forgettable face that might actually lose votes in an election once he is seen on television.

The agent that represents Peters is Shirley Drake (Carolyn Jones).  She is jaded and cynical.  She says she once had talent as an actress, a lot of it, but then it all just came to an end, and she didn’t work for almost three years.  Maury told a similar story about himself.  So, even when you make it in this business, it may not last.  Anyway, she says she became an agent because she had to support her mother, whom she does not like very much and who does not like her very much.  Also, her mother has a cat.  Shirley doesn’t like the cat, and the cat hates Shirley.

Shirley takes a liking to Sam and is able to get him a part in a play with a road company that will tour the country.  It will pay starvation wages, and Sam will only be an understudy of the second lead.  He takes it.  When the road company gets to Hollywood, Sam looks up Maury, who has made it big as an agent.  He takes Sam over to the set where Eric Peters is making a movie.

Maury says he has hopes of getting Peters to be in a play on Broadway.  (Hollywood is all right, but Broadway has snob appeal.)  Sam asks Maury if he has time to come see him in the play he is in, but Maury makes a lame excuse, saying, “Look, next time you’re in town, you stay with me, you understand?”  Not this time, mind you, but next time.  It’s like when someone says to you, “We’ll have to get together sometime.”  You know you can forget about that ever happening.

Sam is beginning to realize that Maury is not a true friend.  When they are both back in New York, Maury tells Sam he wouldn’t be right for the play Maury is producing because Sam doesn’t have what it takes to be a star, talented though he is.  This rejection makes Sam hard and ruthless.  When the opportunity presents itself, he marries Sharon Kensington (Shirley MacLaine), daughter of Robert Kensington, even though Maury said that she and her father hate each other.  In fact, Kensington tells Sam just that, letting him know the marriage won’t get him anywhere.

Nevertheless, now that Sam is Kensington’s son-in-law, the connection enables Shirley, his agent, to get him parts in radio plays.  She reads to Sam from a gossip column, about how while Sam is in New York, Sharon is in Hollywood, fooling around with Maury.  Sam dismisses it, probably because he doesn’t care.

It is unfortunate that Shirley and Sharon both have names beginning with the letters “sh”.  To make matters worse, the character named Sharon is played by an actress named Shirley.  I wish one of them had a name like Adeline or Hortense.  As it is, I keep forgetting who’s who.

Anyway, Shirley takes a liberty as Sam’s friend:  “I’ve seen you when times are tough but I’ve never seen you like this….  You’re miserable and I know why.  You’re a good human being but you’ve stepped out of character.  From the day you married Sharon, you became the worst thing a person can be, a self-deceiver.”

Sam replies, “Self-deceiver?  Oh, that’s the last thing I am.  Now wake up, Shirley.  The whole world’s full of people who’d give anything to sell their souls to the devil.  The only trouble is the devil doesn’t want them….  The only difference between me and the rest of the world is that I got off lucky.  The devil has made me an offer.”

“And has it made you happy?” she asks.

He sneers at the question, doubting that anyone is truly happy.  But then he says, “Well, maybe it will. Maybe it’ll make me very happy.”

Sharon comes back from Hollywood.  She tells Sam she is in love with Maury and is going to have his baby.  She wants a divorce so she can marry Maury.  Sam refuses to give her one.  While they are arguing about it, Maury walks in.  He knows what Sam is up to.  He offers Sam the lead in the play in exchange for the divorce.  Sam agrees.

During a rehearsal, Kensington comes in with a telegram for Maury.  He asks how Sam is doing.  Maury says he is going to be great.  But then he reads the telegram:  Eric Peters had a fight with the studio and is now available for Maury’s play.  Maury reneges on the deal he made with Sam and tells him he is replacing him with Peters.  After everyone leaves, Sam is reduced to tears.

A few days later, Shirley brings Sam some good news, telling him she has found him a job as she hands him a script.  But Sam tells her he already has a job:  the Korean War has broken out, and as a reservist, he has been called back to active duty.

Three years pass.  Sam returns to New York, and it looks as though he will be perfect to star in a show on television.  There is just one problem.  He used to be part of the Actor’s Rostrum, which means he used to know Maury Novak, who once was a member of the Communist Party.  (Maury never really believed in communism, but he saw it as an opportunity to meet people who might be useful to him.)  As a result, the studio cancelled Maury’s picture contract.  Given his association with Maury, Sam is denied the part in the television show, despite the fact that he served in World War II and again in the Korean War.

When Shirley explains all this to Sam, he becomes indignant, asking who is accusing him.  Shirley replies, “Sam, these are very responsible, patriotic people.  They’re just trying to protect their country.”

This surprised me at first.  We like and respect Shirley.  Why is she defending the witch hunts of the House Un-American Activities Committee?  But then it occurred to me it might be a case of virtue signaling. This movie was based on a play by James Lee, produced in 1957.  Lee probably put those words into Shirley’s mouth as a sop to HUAC, so that he wouldn’t be blacklisted himself.  Even as late as 1964, in my first year of college, I had to sign an oath stating that I was not now nor ever had been a member of the Communist Party, so this kind of thing would still have been a problem when the play and later this movie were made.

When Shirley asks Sam what he is going to do, he replies, “There’s only one thing for me to do.  Survive.”  He does that by taking a job in a restaurant as a waiter, while still trying to find work as an actor.  One night as he steps out into the street, he sees Maury, who looks down and out.  He tells Sam about a play he is trying to produce, back at the Old Seaman’s Mission.

Sam says he’s not interested:  “I don’t need you anymore, Maury.  I’ve got something. Something steady, comfortable and respectable.  I’ve got a job.”

Another movie might have ended with something like that, where Sam gives up his foolish dreams, his bargain with the devil, which never paid off.  Throw in a girl for him to marry, and we get a happy ending.  But not so here.

The flashback ends.  Sam steels himself and goes to the table where Barbara is sitting with her husband.  She is glad to see Sam.  After her husband has excused himself to allow them to chat, she says, “I’ve been very happy, Sam.  I have everything I ever wanted.  A home, husband, children.”

Then she says, “I’ve thought about you many times these past years, Sam.  I’ve wanted to talk to you, to apologize.”  He says there is no need for that, but she continues, saying she realizes now what he was trying to do, to contribute something by being an actor, saying that she is proud of him, even though she knows he still hasn’t made it big yet.

Barbara’s words are an inspiration to him.  He quits his job as a waiter in order to be in Maury’s play.  It turns out to be a success, soon to be moving up to Broadway, with Sam’s name in lights.  Shirley tells him that there is even an offer for Sam to be in a movie.

She tells Sam that her mother died as did the cat.  But then she went out and bought a cat of her own, which she named Prudence.  So, she now fits the stereotype of an old maid.  Then she starts crying.  “It suddenly just seems like…so rotten… such an awful one-sided bargain.  No life, no family, no home, just existence.  And all those precious years, for what?  A name on a marquee….  Sam, tell me something….  It doesn’t matter now.  It’s over and done with.  But tell me, was it worth it?”

He slowly smiles.  The light shines on his face as he prepares to walk out onto the stage to a packed house, full of applause.  “Yes,” he says, “it was worth it.”

A man sacrifices the essential features of happiness—home, wife, children—for success and says it was worth it!  It was standard in a movie that if a man pursued success or fame, he must realize in the end that it is love that is important.  Well, he did make a date with Shirley to get some coffee and a sandwich after the play, so we are left with the hope that they will become a couple and find happiness too, letting us have it both ways.

However, the second time I watched this movie, something bothered me.  While Sam is getting ready to go out on the stage, he walks over to a table where there is a .38 revolver.  He flips open the cylinder and spins it to make sure it is empty.  As he does so, we see the bullets lying on the table.  He then walks out on the stage, which is made to look like a courtroom, a judge striking his bench with his gavel.  Sam places the gun on the table, presumably as evidence.  The play in this movie, “A Day of Darkness,” is not real.  It was made up for this movie.  Nothing required this set up.  So, why this instead of any number of made-up plays that could have been imagined?

We naturally think of what Anton Chekhov had to say about putting a gun in a play.  Of course, we can imagine that the gun in this fictional play, “A Day of Darkness,” will actually be fired at some point.  But what about the role of the gun in this movie?  Earlier, we saw Sam looking in a mirror, worried about how he was starting to lose his looks as he grew older.  And both Maury and Shirley told of how fame can be fleeting.  The gun portends something ominous, undermining what we at first took to be a happy ending.