Frank Sinatra – The Magnificent 60s

Sergeants 3 (1962) ***

There’s a terrific western directed by John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven, 1960) inside this Rat Pack offering, the second of four in the series. On the plus side are plenty twists on traditional scenarios, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin displaying a certain kind of easy screen charisma, and three exceptional and well-choreographed battle scenes. Sinatra, Martin and Peter Lawford play the eponymous sergeants, Lawford committing the cardinal sin of wanting to quit the regiment to get married, with Sammy Davis Jr. as a former slave, bugler (an important plot point) and horse-lover wanting to sign up, and Joey Bishop (television star and occasional movie actor) as their sergeant-major boss.

A fair bit of time is spent on the usual Rat Pack shenanigans, getting drunk, brawling, playing tricks on each other, and exploring odd comic notions such as playing poker with a blacksmith’s implements as chips. But when it gets down to proper western stuff, it fairly zings along, with a decent plot (a Native American uprising) and excellent action scenes. You could have had William Goldman writing the script for the number of reversals, where the picture keeps one step ahead of audience expectation.

For a start, rather than flushing out outlaws from a town, the troopers have to remove Native Americans who have taken it over. Instead of the cavalry pursuing Native Americans, it is mostly the other way round. It is the soldiers rather than the Native Americans who attack a wagon. Sinatra finds himself employing a bow-and-arrow and then a tomahawk rather than being on the receiving end of such weaponry. Instead of dynamite, the good guys make do with fireworks. Where Native Americans are usually pinned down, this time it is Sinatra’s merry band. And when it comes to resorting to serious violence, that, too is usually the remit of the Native Americans, not as here, Sinatra chucking man off a cliff.

When it sticks to action, the picture is very well done and involving. When Sinatra has to take charge instead of larking about, the movie has focus. Both Sinatra and Martin were undertaking serious roles around this time, the former in The Manchurian Candidate (1962), the latter in political drama Ada (1961) so this might have appeared welcome relief. The comedy isn’t along the laugh-out-loud lines of Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) or Blazing Saddles (1973) and the action of so full-on you wonder why anybody thought this required comedy at all, although there is a pretty good punchline ending. Action aside, it’s almost the equivalent of easy listening. The Rat Pack was a particular 1960s institution, the members joining each other on stage in Las Vegas or featuring in television programs, but there’s no real modern correlative.

It was interesting to see how the Rat Pack concept developed. This movie chucked out the idea of including a few songs as with Oceans 11 (1960) while the next one in the series, 4 for Texas (1963) was more of a serious straight western. But the final picture Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) went in the opposition direction and was a full-on musical as if by the time they came to making that picture everyone had realized the film would make more sense if it played to their inestimable talents. The series developed in other ways, too. Romance was minimal in Oceans 11, barely seen here, but was a major element of 4 for Texas – who would want to waste the talents of Ursula Andress and Anita Ekberg – but just as Andress is a smooth operator in 4 for Texas when it came to the last Rat Pack picture Barbara Rush was also a significant player for whom romance was merely a means to an end.

The Devil at 4 O’Clock (1961) ***

You took on Spencer Tracy (Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961) at your peril. Not even the best efforts of a volcano can wrest the screen from him. And certainly Frank Sinatra (The Detective, 1968) is put in the shade. And if you wanted to work with Tracy you had to cede, no matter how high-flying your career might be, top billing. Both names are above the title and if they were actually equally ranked they would appear in alphabetical order. And it wasn’t until a later disaster picture, The Towering Inferno (1974), that someone solved the tricky problem of designating equal billing by having Paul Newman’s name first on the left of the poster, but Steve McQueen’s name higher on the right.

Anyway, theoretically, nobody should be bothering much who is in a disaster picture when, again theoretically, the audience has come to gawk at the special effects – exceptional for the time but looking tame now. But Hollywood had learned from experience – and the same rules would apply in the disaster boom of the 1970s – that there was no point spending all that money on effects if there was not enough interest in the characters leading up to the disaster element, and also learned you needed stars to attract audiences in the first place.

*In the tradition of…previous Columbia hits.* *Contractual billing agreements referred to the placing of names not faces on the poster , so Columbia could stick Sinatra in the center and*
*there was nothing Tracy could do about it.*

So this scenario has old whisky priest Fr Doonan (Spencer Tracy) getting ready to leave a Pacific island, replaced by the younger Fr Perrau (Kerwin Matthews), while three convicts, led by Harry (Frank Sinatra), on the way to long prison stretches elsewhere make an unexpected pit stop. The rule is that Fr Doonan can make use of any prison labor so he hives them up the mountain to fix the hospital housing lepers that the authorities wish to keep a secret in case it scares off the tourists. Naturally, it’s not long before Harry is making a romantic pitch for blind nurse (Barbara Luna) but that takes second place to hatching an escape plan.

Running away is only foiled when the volcano begins erupting and as the island authorities begin the evacuation it’s up to the priest and the convicts – Harry’s romantic instinct overcoming reluctance – to fetch the kids in the leper colony. Fr Doonan could have come straight from Boys Town (1938), the kind of two-fisted man of the cloth who tells it like it is, has no compunction about upsetting anyone who gets in his way, but with right on his side generally wins the day. The Governor (Alexander Scourby) isn’t viewed as a bad guy so much by refusing to acknowledge the lepers – especially as by that time the disease was not contagious, priest and hospital workers haven’t caught it, though begging the question why young kids still did – as by allowing brutal treatment of the prisoners, sticking three overnight in suffocating heat in a hole in the ground intended for one.

Narrative edge is added by the obstracizing of the lepers – at the time people contracting various illnesses would be treated as lepers and anyone with a serious mental condition stuck away out of sight. But the characters don’t occupy the moral twilight of the later disaster pictures, where the unscrupulous were often offered redemption. Here, the best we’ve got is a rehabilitated sex worker acting as hospital matron and the convicts agreeing to help out.

Kind of suffers from not enough scenes between the priest and Harry, they almost occupy separate narrative threads, but then Frank Sinatra’s got enough on his plate to avoid looking creepy when making advances on a woman who can’t see him. In fact, there’s a serious scene-stealer, another convict Marcel (Gregoire Aslan), getting in the way, his jovial devil-may-care attitude lifting the gloom.

As ever, the main audience concern is who lives and who dies and here the makers throw a curveball and you could interpret the ending as both triumphant and downbeat. The special effects are still pretty good – sensational for the time if truth be told – especially for the pre-CGI era, but the earthquake aspects come in ahead of the rolling lava, which no matter which way you cut it always resembles slow thick soup, although the explosion, done for real using tons of TNT, makes a mark. Technically, the makers pull a fast one in ignoring the tidal wave that follows an eruption, thus allowing most of the islanders to escape by sea.

It being the jungle there’s always a tricky bridge to navigate – Indiana Jones encountered a similar trope decades later – but there’s no snakes or big beasts to cause a narrative diversion. Whatever it is about Spencer Tracy’s screen presence that allows him to inhabit characters with such ease he brings in spades to the priest. Sinatra looks as though he’s learning a thing or two because his Harry bears some similarities in the the down-at-heel unkempt appearance and the lack of scene stealing.

In case you’re wondering, the “four o’clock” of the title is a deadline but appears too late in the picture to create the required tension. Hollywood veteran Mervyn LeRoy (Moment to Moment, 1966) is at helm. Screenplay by Liam O’Brian (The Great Imposter, 1960), in his last movie, from the bestseller by Max Catto (Seven Thieves, 1960).

Worth it for Tracy and Sinatra and Aslan and to see how they managed sfx in ye olden days.

All-Time Top 40

Not my pick of the flicks, but yours, the films viewed most often since the Blog began in June 2020. Given that the number of hits for the blog has tripled over the last year, you might expect to see an entirely new Top 40. But that’s not been the case. Worth noting that the top five pictures star women. And some films have shown remarkable staying power with some stars – big round of applause for Ann-Margret, Angie Dickinson, Alex Cord, George Peppard, Gene Barry, Jean Seberg, Roger Moore, Alain Delon, Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas et al – featuring more than once.

The figures in brackets represent the previous year’s position.

(4) The Swinger (1966). All hail Ann-Margret. Bouncy sex comedy that manages a sprinkling of innocence.
(40) Stagecoach (1966). No prizes for guessing that it’s the presence of Ann-Margret (again) rather than Alex Cord that has hit a chord in this decent remake of John Ford’s famous western.
(1) Jessica (1962). Angie Dickinson as a young widow incurring the wrath of wives in a small Italian town.
(5) Fraulein Doktor (1969). Under-rated World War One espionage tale with Suzy Kendall out-foxing Kenneth More, grisly realistic battle scenes and a superb score from Ennio Morricone.
(New Entry) The Sins of Rachel Cade. Angie Dickinson as African missionary falling foul of the natives and commissioner Peter Finch. Roger Moore in an early role.
(3) Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). Sergio Leone masterpiece featuring the stunning cast of Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson and that fabulous Morricone score.
(New Entry) Fireball XL5. The famous British television series from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, now colorized. “My heart will be a fireball…”
(3) The Secret Ways (1961). The first of the Alistair MacLean adaptations to hit the big screen features Richard Widmark trapped in Hungary during the Cold War.
(10) Moment to Moment (1966). Nod to Hitchcock in twisty Jean Seberg thriller set in the South of France. Also starring Honor Blackman.
(New Entry) Vendetta for the Saint . Who cares if it’s two television episodes combined? Roger Moore tackles the Mafia.
(32) Baby Love (1969). Controversy was the initial selling point but now it’s morphed into a morality tale as orphaned Linda Hayden tries to fit into an upper-class London household.
(15) The Sisters (1969). Nathalie Delon and Susan Strasberg in complicated love triangle of love and betrayal.
(7) Pharoah (1966). Polish epic set in Egypt sees the country’s ruler at odds with the religious hierarchy.
(9) Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humpe and Find True Happiness? Self-indulgence reaches new heights as singer Anthony Newley invokes his inner Fellini that somehow involves bedding lots of women. Then-current wife Joan Collins co-stars.
(New Entry) The Best House in London (1969). That’s a euphemism for a brothel, let’s get that right from the outset. David Hemmings tries to do right by the sex workers.
(New Entry) Pendulum (1968). The George Peppard (or perhaps Jean Seberg) reappraisal continues. Here he is the cop accused of murdering unfaithful wife Seberg.
(6) Oceans 11. Frank Sinatra heads the Rat Pack line-up, inspiring a couple of remakes and with Tarantino ripping off one scene.
(36) Lady in Cement (1969). Sinatra again as private eye Tony Rome who takes on Raquel Welch (and that’s a stretch?) as a client.
(8) The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl (1968). French cult film with Daniele Gaubert as a sexy cat burglar.
(New Entry) Go Naked in the World (1961). Gina Lollobrigida finds that her profession (the oldest) and true love (with rich Anthony Franciosa) don’t mix. Great turn from Ernest Borgnine as a doting father.
(17) Pressure Point (1962). No escape for racist patient Bobby Darin when psychiatrist Sidney Poitier is around.
(New Entry) A Dandy in Aspic (1968). Cold War thriller with Laurence Harvey as a double agent who wants out. Mia Farrow co-stars.
(22) Deadlier than the Male (1967). Espionage with a sting in the tale as venomous female villains including Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina target Bulldog Drummond.
(New Entry) Once a Thief (1965). Change of pace for Ann-Margret as working mother whose ex-jailbird thief Alain Delon is forced into another job.
(12) Subterfuge (1968). Gene Barry-Joan Collins spy thriller set primarily in a dreary London.
(14) Fade In (1968). Not at all as bad as rising star Burt Reynolds believed – he disowned it. Romance set on a movie location.
(New Entry) The Girl on a Motorcycle / Naked under Leather (1968). Heavily-censored in the U.S., erotic drama with singer Marianne Faithfull as the titular fantasizing heroine. Alain Delon co-stars.
(New Entry) Some Girls Do (1969). Bulldog Drummond returns and a bevy of villainous women including Daliah Lavi and Beba Loncar await.
(New Entry) She Died with Her Boots On / Whirlpool (1969). Sleazy British film from cult Spanish director Jose Ramon Larraz sees kinky photographer Karl Lanchbury seduce real-life MTA Vivien Neves.
(New Entry) The Misfits (1960). Last hurrah for Clark Gable, fabulous turns from Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe in John Huston tale of losers.
(New Entry) Rage (1966). Glenn Ford and Stella Stevens combat pandemic in Mexican town.
(23) A House Is Not a Home (1964). Not when it’s a brothel. Shelley Winters is the madam. Raquel Welch has an uncredited role.
(New Entry) In Harm’s Way (1965). John Wayne and Kirk Douglas in Otto Preminger WW2 epic set in Pearl Harbor and after.
(New Entry) Istanbul Express (1968). Gene Barry faces Senta Berger in espionage thriller. Shown on television in the U.S., but gained a cinematic release elsewhere.
(24) P.J. / New Face in Hell (1967). George Peppard’s private eye finds client Raymond Burr too tough to handle. Gayle Hunnicutt is the femme fatale.
(New Entry) Beat Girl / Wild for Kicks (1960). Another sleazy British drama. Gillian Hills is the youngster tempted into the striptease game. Christopher Lee puts in an appearance.
(27) The Brotherhood (1968). Brothers at war Mafia-style with Kirk Douglas and Alex Cord.
(New Entry) The Invitation (2022). Gothic conspiracy starring Nathalie Emmanuel from Game of Thrones.
(New Entry) The First Deadly Sin (1980). Frank Sinatra’s last starring role as cop tracking serial killer. Faye Dunaway plays his dying wife.
(New Entry) The Family Way (1966). Hayley Mills sheds the child-star image with a vengeance, shedding his clothes in British family drama. Co-starring father John Mills and Hywel Bennett.

Dirty Dingus Magee (1970) ***

The boldest role ever undertaken by a major star of Frank Sinatra’s generation – and little thanks he got for it. Not only was he virtually unrecognisable under a slab of make-up that George Hamilton would have envied but the role was a complete reversal of his screen persona. Admittedly, he had flipped that persona for Tony Rome (1967) and as the cuckolded cop in The Detective (1968), but this was on a completely different level.

Sinatra was no Tom Hanks or Daniel Day-Lewis, known for inhabiting different types of characters, and, while he did have a vulnerability that he put to good use in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), he was best known on screen as the guy in charge.

That was far from the case here. Dumb and dumber might be more apposite. Dingus Magee (Frank Sinatra) is a scamp, an outlaw so useless he is worth only $10 in reward money, who steals the stash of old rival Hoke Birdsill (George Kennedy), triggering a revenge caper that is complicated by a host of unnecessary complications by director Burt Kennedy (Welcome to Hard Times, 1967) who has set his heart on some kind of satirical comedy western with a revisionist slant.

So we get a female mayor, Belle (Anne Jackson), who happens to own the local brothel, whose commercial prospects are endangered when the local Cavalry are called away to fight the Native Americans, an Indian chief Crazy Blanket desperate to trade his daughter for a rifle, and when that looks like not working out calling on any available squaw to seal the deal, predatory schoolteacher Prudence (Lois Nettleton) and a running gag involving a Brown Derby hat that results in a gunfighter (Jack Elam) being mistaken for Magee.

It’s a bit long on complications and short on satire and is rescued by the double act of Magee and Birdsill, who constantly get in each other’s way or try to pull a fast one. Birdsill, as it happens, is appointed sheriff, since that’s in the purview of the mayor, and, on the right side of the law for the first time in his life, makes an ill-fated attempt to do good.

Magee tries to help him along. In exchange for the sheriff turning a blind eye for a period of time to Magee’s nefarious activities, the reward for the outlaw will mushroom, permitting greater kudos for the sheriff on his capture.

The main problem is that Kennedy directs with a very heavy hand, very obvious musical cues for a start, and there’s not enough that’s intrinsically funny. Though there is a reversal of an obvious joke of Birdsall being sent to the brothel to locate the mayor, expecting to find a client not the owner.

But both Sinatra and George Kennedy (The Sons of Katie Elder, 1965) are a delight, the latter also playing against type rather than his usual dominating character. Their dumbness takes some beating. Sinatra just about gets the upper hand, but there’s not much in it.

The best thing about the picture is the sense of reality. The U.S. Cavalry spend more time in the brothel than out hunting Native Americans. Law and order can go to hell as long as everyone is having illicit fun. The respectable schoolmarm proves a skilled seductress. Peace is desirable because it is more profitable than war. And the bulk of the outlaws in the Wild West are far from achieving legendary status, just two-bit punks.

Not surprisingly, this was a massive flop and killed off Sinatra’s movie career for the rest of the decade – not that he was overly concerned, “My Way” having reignited his singing career and he was a Vegas regular. But it’s a shame the acting was so vilified, Roger Ebert blamed Sinatra rather than the director for its failure, in particular taking him to task for the one-take approach that Gena Rowlands previously exalted (but what does she know, she’s just an acclaimed actress and knows how a movie works better than a critic).

Well overdue for a reappraisal and if you go in duly warned you might even enjoy it, or at least the Sinatra-Kennedy double act.

Tony Rome (1967) ***

Effervescent mystery punching a hole in the traditional private eye caper. Look elsewhere for film noir as Frank Sinatra (The Manchurian Candidate, 1962) reinvents his screen persona. On the one hand he’s such a cool cat, living on a boat in Miami, you half expect him to burst into song just with joy. On the other hand, you wouldn’t cross him. Corpses tend to pile up in his vicinity.

There’s a surprising self-awareness that’s dealt with through considerable subtlety, not with the usual angst of film noir where flaws not only tend to be magnified but spill over and drench the plot. Addicted to gambling, Rome steers clear of marriage and any long-term relationship, knowing such a move would be disastrous for the other party. A former cop, he is touchy though about his father, also a cop, who blew his brains out when some murky deal went wrong.

High on the glamorous side, houses the sizes of small cities, women parading in either next to nothing or with the current year’s hot fashion items. You’d be surprised there wasn’t a horse-riding scene, or one set at a hi-hat ball. But this is pretty much a procedural as the canny detective probes the low life as much as the high, bars where go-go dancing is the least of the illicit activities, jewellers who act as fences, and plumbs the life of millionaire Rudolph (Simon Oakland), tough on the business side, dumb as donuts when it comes to romance with former cocktail waitress (a profession often bracketed with quote marks) wife Rita (Gena Rowlands).

And oddly enough, romance here turns out to be touching, sex coming with responsibility rather than a free-for-all as you are initially led to believe. A lesbian scene for once is not exploitative.

Begins with one of the humdrum cases that must consume the bulk of a gumshoe’s time – the hunt for a valuable diamond brooch, lost from the dress of married drunken heiress Diana (Sue Lyon). Turns out he’s not the only one, inexplicably, looking. He takes a beating from a couple of hoods.

When his ex-partner meets his maker in a bathtub, it’s a cinch Tony Rome is next, which means he has a lot of explaining to do to his endlessly frustrated ex-colleague Lt Santini (Richard Conte). If it was a question of whiling away the time, Rome could spend it in the arms of Diana or multiple divorcee Anne (Jill St John).

As you might expect, everyone has secrets they prefer to keep hidden, and happy to do so with violence. Otherwise, they’re going to be knocked sideways by the past. There’s no shortage of suspects including the elusive Nimmo.

I’m assuming the censor enjoyed a chuckle when Mrs Schuyler (Templeton Fox) appeared rather than pursing their lips in disapproval at the way Sinatra wrapped his lips around the word “pussy.” There’s a certain amount of light-hearted sexual jousting but if you were looking for predatory behavior it’s women you’d point the finger at, though given a free pass since in Miami, apparently, men were vastly outnumbered by men and lasses who had not developed a come-hither would be left on the sidelines.

To properly appreciate the picture, you’d have to cast your mind back to a time before there was a surfeit of television detectives and when the general mystery picture (also encompassing spy movies) had gone AWOL or awry with balderdash plot and outsize villains whose only satisfaction in life was holding the world to ransom. In fact, in retrospect, it’s refreshing to find a picture where the director doesn’t pull the wool over your eyes and your hero isn’t an arrogant preening bantam.

So what you’ve got is a properly-plotted plot, clues aplenty that only our clever private eye can unravel, and, inevitably, in the Raymond Chandler tradition some heavy bursting through a door with a gun, and, in this case, also a shovel. This private dick doesn’t fall into the hard-working category of legend, often favors a Bud over the harder stuff, and though he can knock out the cynical one-liners they often come with a tinge of truth or melancholy.

And for once the MacGuffin (Maltese falcon might be a more apt reference) bears significance to the plot.

One of the interminable pot-shots critics took at Sinatra was his preference for working in a single take, the impression given that he was a lazy sod and a bit more effort would have resulted in a better performance. On the other hand, you could just be in awe of an actor who can hit the button stone dead in a single take.

Co-star Gena Rowlands, with something of a hard-boiled reputation herself, found him to be a “wonderful actor; he could do a whole complicated scene in one take…there was nothing pretentious about him, he was just awfully nice.”

Sinatra is no Bogart but for a time afterwards audience were saying of other pretenders to the shamus crown “he’s no Sinatra.” Jill St John (The King’s Pirate, 1967) makes the most of a more interesting part, including delivering the stinger in the tale. Gena Rowlands (Machine Gun McCain, 1969) reveals the little girl under the glam, Richard Conte (The Lady in Cement, 1969) tones down his typical belligerence, Sue Lyon (Night of the Iguana, 1964) good as a young woman confused by sudden wealth.

The under-rated Gordon Douglas (Stagecoach, 1966) directed from a script by Richard L. Breen (A Man Could Get Killed, 1966) and Marvin H. Albert (Duel at Diablo, 1966), also author of the source novel.

The poster designer pulled a fat one. In typical titillating fashion, you think Sinatra is staring down at a half-naked corpse. But, in fact, no female was harmed in this picture.

Takes a little while to get going but once it hots up it’s perfect entertainment.

The Oscar (1966) ****

Don’t you just love a really good bad movie? Where redemptive character is outlawed. When over-acting is the key. In which everyone gets the chance to spout off about someone else, generally to their face, and then is permitted, in the cause of balance, a quiet moment of bitter self-reflection. And even the most minor character gets a zinger of a line. Welcome to Hollywood.

Tale of an actor’s rise and not exactly fall because we leave Frank Fane (Stephen Boyd) at a pinnacle of his career, though, don’t you know, he’s empty inside and deserted by all his faithful companions. Lucky Frank has some kind of charisma or that he just fastens onto losers who see in him what they need because from the outset he is one mean hombre, living off stripper girlfriend Laurel (Jill St John), so dumb she switched to him from his so dependable best pal Hymie (Tony Bennett – yes, that Tony Bennett, the singer).

He hooks up with Kay (Elke Sommer), a designer who happens as a sideline to make costumes for off-Broadway productions. When King of Lowlife Punks Frank shows a pusillanimous stage actor what you do in a knife fight he strikes a chord with theater producer Sophie (Eleanor Parker), who happens to have a sideline as a talent scout for the movies.

She fixes him up with an agent Kappy (Milton Berle – yes that Milton Berle, the loudmouth comedian) and together they sell him to studio boss Regan (Joseph Cotten). The only good deed Frank does in the entire movie is to stand witness – not for marriage, but for divorce – for an ordinary couple, private detective Barney (Ernest Borgnine) and Trina (Edie Adams), he meets at a bullfight, huge fans, and thank goodness that action comes back to bite him.

The picture goes haywire in the third act. Fane’s career is crumbling in the face of audience indifference, exhibitor displeasure and, don’t you know it, a chance for revenge for Regan, who was stiffed in a previous contract. But instead of taking the traditional tumble into the forgotten category, his career is revived by an Oscar nomination.

*From top to bottom – a fully-clothed Stephen Boyd, then in various states of undress, Elke Sommer, Jill St John and Eleanor Parker. That’s how to sell a picture apparently*.

But that’s not enough for the ruthless Fane. Earlier in his life a corrupt sheriff had stuck him with charges of pimping. Using Barney, who seems to have the ear of the media, he plants a story about himself, hoping that Hollywood being the cesspool it is, everyone will assume one of his rivals did the dirty. “I can’t rig the votes,” rationalizes our poor hero,” but I can rig the emotions of the voters.”

What a scam. I was chortling all the way through this section and almost laughing out loud when it transpires Frank had misjudged how deep the cesspool is, because Barney then blackmails him. This gives everyone he has treated heinously over the years the chance to stick it to him. Nobody will lend him the dough to get this grinning monkey off his back. Salvation comes in the oldest of Hollywood maneuvers. Trina, who has always wanted to get into pictures, and is the kind of person who embodies A Grievance Too Far, supplies the information that will sink her ex-husband, in exchange for Frank using his influence to get her a small role.

There’s a brilliant climax. I should have said spoilers abound but I can’t resist telling you the ending it’s such a cracker. So there is Frank at the Oscars with Bob Hope (yes, that Bob Hope) as master of ceremonies and the audience studded with real stars like Frank Sinatra (yes, that…). Like an evil chorus – you can almost hear them hissing under their breath and they all fix him with baleful looks – are all those he treated badly.

The winner is announced. “Frank…” Assuming victory, Fane gets to his feet. “Sinatra.” The only way he can rescue his embarrassment is to make it look as he is giving the winner a standing ovation. But when the rest of the audience follows suit, he slumps to his chair, and in the only true cinematic moment in all the sturm and drang the camera pulls back from him sitting bitter, twisted and defeated in his seat.

Stephen Boyd (Shalako, 1969) is terrific because even when he was top-billed he tended to over-act and when he became a co-star or supporting player he was an inveterate scene-stealer, of the sharp intake of breath / vicious tongued variety. Here he shows both his charming and venomous side. If he was playing a gangster he couldn’t be more menacing – or charismatic. It’s a peach of a role – he can dish it out, dump women at will, and still embrace victimhood as “170lb of meat.”

Luckily, most of the rest of the cast take the subtle route. Although all disporting in various negligible outfits at one time or another, Jill St John (The Liquidator, 1965), Elke Sommer (The Prize, 1963) and Eleanor Parker (Eye of the Cat, 1969) and giving Frank his comeuppance wherever possible – St John slings him out – the performances are generally nuanced, Parker in particular evoking sympathy.

Tony Bennett is miscast, especially as he has to do double duty as an unwelcome voice-over, filling in bits of the narrative that, thankfully, has been skipped. But Milton Berle is pretty good as a quiet-spoken agent.

In the over-the-top stakes, Boyd has his work cut out to hold his own in scenes with Ernest Borgnine (The Wild Bunch, 1969) who revels in his scam, and Edie Adams (The Honey Pot, 1967) who is anything but a dumb blonde and delivers the most stinging of zingers.

Doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know about Hollywood except in one delicious scene where, early in his career, Frank has to squire around a female star who relishes putting him in his place.

It’s not badly made just pell-mell and over-the-top. Russell Rouse (The Caper of the Golden Bulls, 1967) directs from a screenplay by himself and Harlan Ellison (yes that Harlan Ellison, the sci fi author) from the bestseller by Robert Sale.

An absolute hoot.

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) *****

The most celebrated of the conspiracy thrillers and rightly so. But I’m not going to start with the Korean brainwashing, extraordinary cinematic sequence that that is, but with the scene on the train, the pickup scene as it might be known in those days, meet-cute now. There is little cute about this picture which stretches the bounds of normality. And I guess I was already so unsettled, and perhaps settling into film noir mode when an easily available woman was always to be distrusted, and thought that the sudden appearance of Eugenie (Janet Leigh) was a plant.

But that wasn’t in itself what lodged that scene in the caboose so firmly in my mind. But the superlative acting of Frank Sinatra as the investigative Major Marco. Sure, we’ve seen good, sometimes great acting before from Sinatra, generally under-rated due to the myth that nobody could seriously give a good performance after just one take, as if stage actors do not do this every night of the week. But this is above and beyond.

What makes this so outstanding is the depth. Whatever he is saying, that’s not what he’s thinking. He is so dislocated his mind is elsewhere.

Now you give an actor punchy dialog and that’s the way he’s going to treat it, like a punchball, zing zing zing, but that’s not the case here. You can see from his expression that while he is responding well enough to this apparently sympathetic dame that his mind is not completely gone, but that he is barely holding himself together. Another actor would have shown greater signs of mental collapse, signs of a tear perhaps or using an artefact for support, a glass to crush in his hands. But not here. It’s all in the face.

He’s helped of course that the dialog is all about identity. Who is Eugenie? Not as in, who is she really, which would be a good question to ask at this point in the proceedings, but how does someone cope with a name like Eugenie and so the dialog rambles around the various shortenings of her name, while at the same time, recognising he desperately needs a port in a storm, she ensures she knows her address.

The way this movie is going that could be code, too, or a trigger, or that when he turns up at her apartment he’s going to encounter some obstacle, but it doesn’t turn out that way either, even though this is a movie where no one is what he or she seems. Insanely ambitious politician’s wife Eleanor (Angela Lansbury) double crosses her country, the Koreans double cross her by turning her son (rather than any old grunt) into an assassin, and in the end the son, the rather effete Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), turns on the mother in the most murderous way imaginable. Much as she loves her son, she is willing to sacrifice him for the chance of becoming the President’s wife and when she does will exert her revenge on the Koreans.

The “exchange” is an old industry term, literally like a library, meaning where you would take the movie you had just screened and swap it for your next movie. You would pick up all your advertising material and campaign manual at the same time. Certainly saved on the postage. And the exchange manager, meanwhile, would try to sweet talk you into taking another movie you had never heard of.

I’ve gone on before about the beauty of the single-take movie (Grenfell, 2023) but here I’m in raptures at the single scene, how a movie pivots on superb acting. I could have used the brainwashing as an example, but that’s not about acting, but about directing, about perception, about how the audience as much as the participants is being led around by the nose by director John Frankenheimer, who would return to questions of identity and voluntary brainwashing in Seconds (1966).

But back to the brainwashing. This hits the mother lode. A troop of captured U.S. soldiers face an audience with a ringmaster demonstrating just how much they are under his command and can be hypnotised into carrying out any order, even cold-blooded murder. But each of the soldiers sees a different audience. That’s the cinematic coup. I would have loved to have been part of the original audience back in the day, brought up on war movies or thrillers that followed a straightforward narrative arc. Even critics singing the praises of the French New Wave would have never seen anything like this.

Anyway, it soon occurs to Major Marco that his ongoing nightmares are part of a deeper problem especially as his memory of Shaw does not tally with what he finds himself saying about his troop leader.

We follow two parallel stories, Marco trying to get to the truth before he fries his brain, and the audience being let in on much of the truth by tracking Shaw, who, to spite his hated mother, has taken a job with, effectively, the opposition and has fallen in love again with Jocelyn (Leslie Parrish), the daughter of one of her husband’s most implacable foes.

You couldn’t get a more twisty movie, set against the backdrop of the Communist witch hunt, when a politician could garner headlines just by pretending to name Communists in high office. The political element is just as cynical as the same year’s Advise and Consent and savage as the ineffectual Senator Iselin (James Gregory) is, he’s not much worse than the clowns in the Preminger picture. So it all rings true.

There’s scarcely a moment wasted as the movie screams towards a terrifying climax. The built-in control trigger I didn’t see coming, and Shaw’s transformation from strict man-in-charge to bumbling romantic fool is a joy.

Frank Sinatra (The Detective, 1968) gives the performance of his life, Laurence Harvey (Life at the Top, 1965) proof of the power of love, Angela Lansbury (In the Cool of the Day, 1963), the mother from Hell, are all outstanding. The support cast includes Janet Leigh (Psycho, 1960), Henry Silva (The Secret Invasion, 1964) and John McGiver (Breakfast at Tiffanys, 1961).

Frankenheimer directs with elan from the script by George Axelrod (Breakfast at Tiffanys) based on the Richard Condon (The Happy Thieves, 1961) bestseller.

An absolute must.

The First Deadly Sin (1980) ****

Highly under-rated. Mostly because star Frank Sinatra has the audacity at the age of 65 to play an older cop as an older guy, with none of the wisecracking or physical zap of his previous crime movies like Tony Rome (1967) and The Detective (1968). Deliberately downbeat and surprisingly compassionate with a gallery of unusual and realistic supporting characters.

Sure, we start off with a cliché, cop Delaney (Frank Sinatra) about to retire sniffs out a serial killer operating across New York. But that’s about as far as the cliches go. His boss (Anthony Zerbe) is highly territorial and doesn’t want Delaney doing work that might benefit any precinct other than his own. On top of that an operation on artist wife Barbara (Faye Dunaway) has gone seriously wrong and now she’s hooked up to all sorts of machines in hospital, Delaney sitting by her bedside reading from a book.

Unable to use the department’s facilities, Delaney is forced back on improvisation and enlists a museum curator Langley (Martin Gabel), an expert on weaponry, to find the specific type of tool the assailant is using to crack open heads. Langley is old, too, lacking in either wisecracks or physical zap, likely to doze off at inopportune moments.

Delaney isn’t above taking the law into his own hands, gaining admittance by devious means to the apartment of suspect Daniel (David Dukes) only to be told in no uncertain terms that not only has he no just cause to arrest Daniel, a high-flying executive with legal connections, but that any judge would immediately throw out the case thanks to the cop’s law-breaking.

So the movie settles into two parallel stories, both, if you like about observation. Delaney follows the suspect and he watches his wife die, in both instances unable to intervene, not able to prevent the murderer killing again unless he should happen to catch him in the act and as far as the hospital is concerned having to listen to a doctor (George Coe) tell him that doctors aren’t infallible and often get it wrong. Even his only ally, forensic expert Dr Ferguson (James Whitmore), is warning him off.

And where you might expect in another film a bit of romance between Delaney and witness Monica (Brenda Vaccaro) that doesn’t go anywhere either because he is a faithful husband and doesn’t need any distractions from a dying wife and she’s not the kind of woman that often turns up in crime pictures to form an adulterous relationship. If anything, she turns her attention to mothering Langley.

So this isn’t a fast action tough-talking crime picture of the kind audiences had been familiar with from the late 1960s/early 1970s, there’s no car chase to add entertainment heft. In fact, Delaney is an old-fashioned cop, I don’t think you even see him in a vehicle, he’s mostly pounding a beat of one kind or another.

And it’s oddly compassionate. There’s a lot of cross-cutting between the two narrative strands, and it soon becomes pretty clear that this is a different kind of killer, not one carefully planning his next murder, or taking sexual delight from the agony he inflicts, and he isn’t into abduction either, nobody corralled away in a basement or attic, night-time providing murky cover for his activities.

What we’re actually witnessing, it turns out, is a killer’s meltdown, as he hunkers naked in a bath or hides under bedclothes in a closet. And Delaney recognizes that insanity and that this is someone who needs treatment rather than being locked up in a prison. Daniel justifies his acts as a kind of purity. His victims are “all living inside me, I love them and they love me.”

The idea of sacrifice is embedded in the initial image of a neon-lit cross hanging above a street, the crucifix cross-referenced in several other scenes, and Xmas wet and miserable rather than Hollywoodized snow and ho-ho-ho.

So get your downbeat boots on and join the trudge and don’t start complaining this is lazy acting from Sinatra when actually he is delivering one of his finest performances. Nobody complained that Tom Hanks was lazy when he acted old in A Man Called Otto, where sorrow is similarly repressed, or that Hanks had a shade too much zest for a man his age. Faye Dunaway (Three Days of the Condor, 1975) has made an equally bold decision to play a woman who never gets out of bed and she makes no attempt, as an actress, to invoke your sympathy, there’s none of the cuteness you might expect from doomed romance. Critics, in general, have been put off by the fact that she plays a dying woman as if she is actually dying rather than about to spring into a song-and-dance.

You might be surprised to learn that director Brian G. Hutton (Where Eagles Dare, 1968) came out of a self-imposed seven-year retirement to make this picture, in some respects a companion piece to the equally down beat Night Watch (1973). And he makes a terrific virtue out of keeping characters realistic. Add Martin Gabel to the principals for playing old and slow when age dictates he’s old and slow. Screenplay by Mann Rubin (The Warning Shot, 1967) from the Lawrence Sanders bestseller.

Thoughtful, brooding picture, fitting finale to Sinatra’s career. This is the last hurrah without any forced Hollywoodized hurrah.

“It won’t be the same without you,” says the reception desk cop as Delaney hands in is papers. “It’s always the same,” retorts the world-weary cop.

But please go into it with your eyes open and not in expectation of the more typical 1970s crime movies.

Incidentally, I had thought this one of the lost movies, out of circulation due to legal shenanigans, so was pleasantly surprised when it popped up on YouTube.

Year End Round-Up 2022: Top 30 Films Chosen By You

As is by now traditional (well, it’s the second full year) this isn’t my choice of the top films of the year, but yours, my loyal readers. This is a chart of the films viewed the most times over full calendar year of January 2022 – December 2022.

Jessica (1962). Angie Dickinson plays a young widow who turns so many heads in a small Italian town that their wives seek revenge. The film had debuted at No 30 in the previous year’s chart so showed remarkable staying power.
Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). Sergio Leone’s masterpiece now acclaimed as the greatest western ever made. Top class cast – Claudia Cardinale, Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda and Jason Robards – and one of the greatest scores ever written courtesy of Ennio Morricone.
The Swinger (1966). Ann-Margret sparkles as author reinventing herself by writing a sex novel.
Fraulein Doktor (1969). Suzy Kendall as German spy outwitting the British during World War One.
Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humpe and Find True Happiness? (1969). Fellini-esque musical with abundant nudity as writer-director-star Anthony Newley tries to unravel the meaning of life.
Father Stu (2022). Under-rated biopic with Mark Wahlberg as unlikely priest.
Blonde (2022). Andrew Dominik’s controversial reimagining of the life of Marilyn Monroe with Ana de Armas
For a Few Dollars More (1965).Sergio Leone re-teams with Clint Eastwood in the second in the spaghetti western trilogy with Lee Van Cleef as a rival bounty hunter.
A Place for Lovers (1968). Faye Dunaway and Marcello Mastroianni in Vittorio De Sica doomed romance.
Fade In (1968). Burt Reynolds disowned this romance filmed against the backdrop of making the Terence Stamp western Blue but it’s better than he thinks.
The Secret Ways (1961). Richard Widmark in spy thriller set in Hungary during the Cold War and adapted from the Alistair MacLean novel. Senta Berger has a small role. Top film for 2021, so demonstrating the ongoing popularity of films based on the author’s works.
The Sisters (1969). Complicated menage a trois that borders on the semi-incestuous starring Nathalie Delon and Susan Strasberg.
Pharoah (1966). Epic Polish picture about political shenanigans in ancient Egypt. Another film with legs – it was No 3 in the 2021 annual chart.
Water Gate Bridge / Battle at Lake Changjin II (2022). Another epic, non-stop action from the Chinese point-of-view in a sequel to one of the most famous battles of the Korean War.
Harlow (1965). Carroll Baker as the blonde bombshell who rocketed to fame in 1930s Hollywood.
Baby Love (1969). Morality tale as orphaned Linda Hayden tries to fit into an upper-class London household.
Moment to Moment (1966). Hitchockian thriller set in the South of France with adulterous Jean Seberg suspected of killing her lover.
Secret Ceremony (1968). Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow and Robert Mitchum in atmospheric Joseph Losey drama.
Lady in Cement (1969). Gangster’s moll Raquel Welch steals the show in Frank Sinatra’s second outing as private eye Tony Rome.
Subterfuge (1968). Suzanna Leigh steals the show as a sadistic henchwoman trying to prevent Gene Barry uncovering a mole in M.I.5.
P.J. / New Face in Hell (1967). George Peppard taken to the cleaners as down-on-his luck private eye.
The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl (1968). Cult French movie starring Daniele Gaubert as a sexy cat burglar. This was No 6 last year.
The Gray Man (2022). Spectacular Netflix misfire with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans as rival assassins and Ana de Armas adding some spice.
The Brotherhood (1968). Martin Ritt Mafia drama sees siblings Kirk Douglas and Alex Cord falling out.
Some Girls Do (1969). Richard Johnson returns as Bulldog Drummond battling archvillains Daliah Lavi and Beba Loncar.
Pressure Point (1962). Prison psychiatrist Sidney Poitier treats racist patient Bobby Darin. Very unusual imagery.
The Double Man (1967). C.I.A. operative Yul Brynner battles Russian espionage in Switzerland with Britt Ekland providing the glamor.
Operation Mincemeat (2022). Re-telling of “The Man Who Never Was” World War Two plot that duped Hitler over Sicilian invasion plans.
Orgy for the Dead (1965). Bizarre cult horror tale where most of the female characters appear to be auditioning for a nudie film.
Texas Across the River (1966). Alain Delon acts against type in Dean Martin comedy western.

Come Blow Your Horn (1963) ***

Wonderful upbeat performance from Frank Sinatra lifts this out of a misogynistic pit where women were either dumb, desperate to get married or passive-aggressive harridans. Bachelor playboy Alan (Frank Sinatra) has more women on a string than there is string. When younger brother Buddy (Tony Bill) moves in, Alan introduces him to the fun ways of the world, not expecting Buddy to be such an apt pupil.

Alan keeps main squeeze Connie (Barbara Rush) dangling while, pretending to have Hollywood connections, making hay with actress wannabe Peggy (Jill St John). He also keeps customer Mrs Eckman (Phyllis McGuire) sweet in transactional sex fashion and there’s no shortage of other women liable to appear out of the woodwork.

Meanwhile, his boss, apoplectic father Harry (Lee J. Cobb), goes around screaming at everyone, berating Alan for his lifestyle and moaning at harassed wife Sophie (Molly Picon). Most of the time it looks like it’s going to swerve into a more typical English farce with various women being hidden out of sight from various other woman or Harry or an equally apoplectic cuckolded husband (Dan Blocker).

But, with considerably more sophistication than that, the story takes the more interesting tack of character development. Alan, who might appear to be sitting pretty, woman at his beck and call, a glorious modern apartment, cocktails on tap, is brought up sharply by his brother’s delight at such a shallow life. Alan gets to play Hollywood honcho with Peggy while Connie delivers an ultimatum that threatens to bring Frank to his senses though, naturally, he believes it’s all hooey.

The fraternal business is well done, instead of the normal rivalry genuine affection and the older sibling offering guidance, though primarily in how to get drunk and get off with women rather than anything that might otherwise stand him in good stead. Though you might argue that being shown how to dress, and how converse with women, and organise a fun party might be as much education as a young gentleman in the Big Apple required.

*The only thing better than one Frank Sinatra picture is two Frank Sinatras so to scoop up some extra cash these were paired for a speedy reissue.*

Playwright Neil Simon, the toast of Broadway at this stage, exhibited such a keen sense of structure that the story never sagged. Any time that appeared a remote possibility, instead of a stranger coming in a la Raymond Chandler with a gun, it’s Harry stomping all over the place. There are some good catchphrases, genuinely funny moments, and some great lines, the best, I have to confess, from Peggy who bemoans the fact that she was stranded in a hotel room with Alan at a ski resort by all the snow outside. Redeeming factor: her homely kind of dumb serves narrative purpose, making the otherwise unbearably charming Alan come across as a heel.

This is quite a different Sinatra, like he’s channeling his record persona, none of the anguish, dramatic intensity or Rat Pack bonhomie he brought to other pictures. Often you hear of actors just playing the same character or a variation thereof, but this ain’t a Sinatra persona I’m familiar with and brings verve to the whole shebang.

Lee J. Cobb (Coogan’s Bluff, 1968) gives in to overacting. You can see how that loud style might work on the stage, but it’s less effective here. Jill St John (Tony Rome, 1967) is very good as the uncertain beauty, who could be incredibly seductive if only she could work out how, and not quite a victim either, and still managing vulnerability. Barbara Rush (Robin and the 7 Hoods, 1964) is wasted, though. Set up as a modern woman, she collapses at the first sniff of marriage, though framing her eyes in a mask of light in a taxi cab is about the only compositional mark of any note.

Quite what possessed director Bud Yorkin (Divorce American Style, 1967) to stick in the title song in the middle of the picture is anybody’s guess. Norman Lear (Divorce American Style) wrote the script but you can hardly go wrong with a Neil Simon template.

End up: it’s mostly about family and people coming to terms with themselves and each other.