Film history is filled with stars created by the studio system. Carefully controlled, modified, costumed and trained, these performers often became much more than originally met the eye. Many had natural talent, some only charisma, and others great beauty. Occasionally, however, a performer emerged who, against all preconceived odds of what a star should be or look like, knocked down the walls of convention by becoming nothing other than what they already were. Frank Sinatra was the embodiment of this fundamental truth.
An entertainer who acted, an actor who produced, and finally a producer who also happened to be a world famous singer, Sinatra proved to be a roulette wheel of constantly spinning talent, the likes of which Hollywood rarely matched on its own. His was a singular talent so profound that for decades when faced with changing times and attitudes, Sinatra effortlessly reinvented himself to fit the new ideas of cool.
Sinatra, instantly identifiable by just his last name, is the definition of a true star: a person who possesses the elusive qualities of innate likeability, charisma, talent and personal magnetism.
Rarely, if ever, stopping to savor success, Sinatra bulldozed a career like no one else’s. The legacy of his warp-speed life, work and leisure stand apart from many of his contemporaries, who were essentially fulfilling a highly specialized audience expectation, blown up and out for the big screen. Most of the great stars in cinematic history—like Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Bette Davis or Charlie Chaplin—based their performances on an extension of a core character type. The downside to this was often typecasting. Sinatra, however, was able to take his signature persona and translate it successfully into many film genres—first as the comedic song-and-dance man, then as the dramatic actor and romantic lead, and finally as the tough guy and action hero. He could do anything.
Sinatra also respectfully challenged contemporary ideals of acting technique. While being humble enough to learn from his peers, he kept his acting style fresh and instinctual, and earned an Oscar at a time when many actors were either classically trained or coached in the “Method”.
Sinatra, the smooth crooner, had an unhurried and meticulous way with a song. But as a movie star, he was in constant motion, an impatient actor in for a single take, maybe two. During the filming of Ocean’s 11 in 1960, Peter Lawford recalled, “I remember once the soundman kept complaining about an unusual number of low-flying airplanes which he was picking up through his earphones, and which were consequently being heard on the track. Well, after about the fourth take, which was unheard of for Frank, he said, ‘Aw, f … it! Everyone knows they’re airplanes!’ Indeed! But flying through a bathroom?” Despite the production being his project, his party, Sinatra couldn’t take the wait, having already moved past the scene in his mind. Moviemaking was a snail’s pace process; Frank was rapid-fire, at his best when everyone else was just getting started.
Golden Boy
In 1941, on the assumption that the young singer might generate box office numbers to match record sales and concert grosses, Paramount propped Sinatra in front of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra to sing “I’ll Never Smile Again” in Las Vegas Nights. MGM following suit the next year with the song “Moonlight Bay” in Ship Ahoy, no acting required. Reveille with Beverly (1943) at RKO featured a performance of “Night and Day”, about which the film’s star, Ann Miller, recalled, “A record would start to spin, then the camera would pan onto the record while the voice came on, and then to Frank’s face with a big band backing him. Even way back then he was great, his voice sent tingles up your spine.”
That same year the singer spoke his first lines on screen, “Good morning, I’m Frank Sinatra,” and played a version of himself in Higher and Higher. Crooning a few new songs selected just for him, he invited comparisons to Bing Crosby, his own idol, and received encouraging press about his screen potential. Physically, he had unlikely prospects for movie stardom, but was interestingly photogenic, with sharp cheekbones and large eyes to accompany The Voice.
A musicalization of the Marx Brothers’ Room Service, titled Step Lively, was released in 1944. Show business again the background, this time Frank played a character other than himself, a playwright named Glenn Russell. Sinatra was introduced to songwriters Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, landed his first screen kiss (with Gloria DeHaven) and received top billing, a status that would come and go through the next decade.
Next up for Sinatra was joining the Navy—the MGM Navy—for Anchors Aweigh (1945), which paired the best singer with the best dancer as two sailors on a four-day pass in Hollywood. Gene Kelly took on the task of putting Sinatra on his dancing feet, and very nearly succeeded. Sinatra, as wide-eyed puppy dog Clarence Dolittle, struggles to keep up with his buddy/idol, the wolfish Joe Brady, in lady-killing and toe-tapping, but sings “I Fall in Love Too Easily” to a Best Song Oscar nomination. Kathryn Grayson as Susan captures Clarence’s affections; she falls for Joe, Clarence ultimately hooking up with Pamela Britton, the girl from hometown Brooklyn. The story is so lightweight it could be done in by the slightest sea breeze, but Sinatra is endearing, continually adjusting the angle of his sailor cap to match Joe’s. There was some on-set trouble when Sinatra was vocal about his frustration with the sit-around-and-wait of moviemaking, as reported by columnist Louella Parsons, but his cast mates pledged their support to counter any future complaints.
MGM then placed Sinatra in a 1946 fictionalized movie portrait of composer Jerome Kern. Draped in a white tuxedo and backed by a white-wardrobed full orchestra, Sinatra performs “Ol’ Man River” on a cavernous white-washed set for the finale of Till the Clouds Roll By. The production number struck many wrong notes and was called into question by critics, and perhaps by Sinatra himself.
A modest black and white musical followed in 1947, It Happened in Brooklyn. A much more assured screen actor this time out, Sinatra plays Danny Miller, an aspiring singer returning from service in WWII. He is first paired with Kathryn Grayson, but is supplanted in her affections by Peter Lawford in what is essentially a replay of the Anchors Aweigh plot, Frank being left this time with his wartime memories of military nurse Gloria Grahame. Good reviews and good will resulted from this project, as Lawford noted that Frank was “… a joy to work with, which surprised everyone from the prop man to L.B. Mayer, because of his reputation, which preceded him, of his being difficult to get along with.” A flash-forward of sorts to On the Town occurred in the picture when Sinatra’s rendition of “Time After Time” was shot on location at the Brooklyn Bridge.
More than a few years later the Sinatra/Kelly chemistry was re-kindled for a second effort, Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). Gene and Frank are a vaudeville song-and-dance team that moonlights as two-thirds of a baseball team’s triple-play kings, along with Jules Munshin. Confident Kelly pursues Esther Williams, the owner of the team, while Betty Garrett literally shoulders slender Frank. The songs are not up MGM par, but Sinatra concentrated on improving his dance chops with Kelly’s athletic oversight, and taking his turn as a real funny man, as if to make sure there would be a third act for this dream team.
And, of course, there was. Straight from Ball Game the boys were hustled into sailor suits once more for On the Town, Munshin as well. For 24 hours only, the three hit Manhattan in search of sights to see and love to make, “New York, New York” being “a wonderful town” (on Broadway it was allowed to be “a helluva town”).
The movie is stage-bound for much of its running time, but benefits enormously from its opening and closing sequences shot in open air on location, which, in the era of studio back lots, was a minor revolution. Kelly once more scores the beautiful girl while Sinatra, as the anxious, orderly Chip, submits to the secondary romance with Betty Garrett, an aggressive cab driver. Sinatra was again coached through his dance numbers by Kelly (who also co-directed with Stanley Donen), and was by now a decent triple-threat.
Just before the exuberant success of On the Town, two misbegotten productions seemed to dovetail with the maturing and shrinking of Sinatra’s young fan-base. The Kissing Bandit and The Miracle of the Bells (both 1948), gave the distinct impression that his movie career had derailed, studio chiefs aiding in the decline. Sinatra was miscast in both films and looks uncomfortable, as if he is wishing them over and done. Bandit places him opposite Kathryn Grayson for a third tepid go-round, while Miracle tries hopelessly to fashion him into a priest, all efforts tedious and wasteful.
Moving over to Universal, Sinatra made Meet Danny Wilson (1951), a showbiz tale told in noirish mode of a charming, brash singer, a hotheaded talent in too deep with a nightclub owner/racketeer and stuck on songbird Shelley Winters. Sinatra and Winters conjured no screen chemistry but plenty of on-set animosity as Sinatra insisted on making quick work of every scene. Caught during a downturn in his fame, Sinatra seems to be over-compensating, and slightly overplays the role. However, a definitive performance of “That Old Black Magic” is reviewed as being worth the price of the ticket.
Double Dynamite (1951) was unfortunately a bomb without a fuse. In this romantic caper with a song or two, slender and edgy Sinatra was mismatched with the curvy calm of Jane Russell. Groucho Marx had a bit of advice for his often-late costar, “I believe in being on time to work. The next time you show up late, you’d better be prepared to act for two, because I won’t be here.” A chastened Sinatra then paid strict attention to the daily roster, at least while Groucho was around.
Nevertheless, Sinatra’s career as a motion picture star seemed a fizzle just as his rocket was about to launch. But an important project was in the works and he was sure there was a part he must go after: a coveted dramatic role in a prestige picture.
Dramatic Turns
Urgently seeking an audition for a pivotal role in From Here to Eternity (1953), Sinatra signed more than a few pleas—to Columbia studio head Harry Cohn—with his would-be alter ego’s name, “Angelo Maggio.” Sinatra’s age, however, was a drawback. At 38 he was considered too old for the part of the scrappy G.I., and his crooner status stamped him as a lightweight actor. But his eventual audition impressed director Fred Zinneman, and his agreement to a low paycheck impressed Cohn. The part was his.
Almost all of Maggio’s scenes are duets with Prewitt, the lead role played by Montgomery Clift, the lauded actor who employed the “Method”. This acting technique grew out of the rigorous Stanislavski system in Moscow, imported to New York by Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Elia Kazan and others via the work of the Group Theatre and later, the Actors Studio. The Method was espoused in Hollywood through the classes of Michael Chekhov (nephew of playwright Anton), who was prominent in the Moscow Art Theatre. Clift, Marlon Brando and James Dean boldly carried the flag of Method acting in film, making use of controversial techniques like sense memory and affective memory to connect to a character through personal emotion. Sinatra had his own non-method: a completely instinctual, spontaneous approach.
Sinatra, referred to often as “One-Take Charlie”, was anything but a Method actor. Yet he was wise enough to recognize Clift as the finest actor with whom he had ever been paired, and decided to absorb some of what Clift brought to the set each day; he would need to add emotional musculature to his work just as Gene Kelly had required of him new physical muscles to learn to dance. Sinatra and Clift became good friends in much the same way Maggio and Prewitt bonded in the film.
The results were unanimously praised. Both actors received Oscar nominations, Sinatra taking home the gold statuette on one the biggest nights of his life, which he downplayed, but privately savored as the comeback he’d been envisioning.
Before From Here to Eternity was released and Sinatra’s storied comeback was officially underway, a minor film noir flooded with daylight offered an opportunity to further establish some serious acting credentials. John Baron, a highly-strung, malicious assassin for hire, has his rifle trained on the president of the United States in Suddenly (1954).
The movie is a taut 75-minute thriller, heavy on the melodrama and tough-guy talk, which Sinatra rises above. As in Eternity, the character is killed, but here it’s a release rather than a tragedy. The movie’s premise forced a re-examination after the events of November 1963, when Sinatra felt compelled to use his influence to have Suddenly pulled permanently from broadcast television.
Not As a Stranger, directed by Stanley Kramer for release in 1955, cast 40-year-old Sinatra as med student Alfred Boone, third-billed to Robert Mitchum and Olivia DeHavilland. In this soapy hospital drama, Sinatra provides some comic relief, stealing scenes and arguably the picture as well.
A card dealer, a drug addict, and a would-be drummer make up the parts of the sum that is The Man With the Golden Arm—the triple-entendre title of the 1955 movie Sinatra chose to continue his run as a serious actor. Oscar on his mantle, Sinatra had only to add some personal research to his arsenal, something he had rarely, if ever, done.
Against standard practice, he was permitted to observe a young heroin addict in the midst of withdrawal at a rehabilitation facility. Quite shaken and feeling he did not wish to see more, Sinatra felt suitably “armed” with the compassion to play, and behavior to authenticate, the role in which he was so interested. Hollywood legend has it that Sinatra far surpassed director Otto Preminger’s expectations for the detox scene, nailing it in one take.
Each having a combative nature and dark reputation, Sinatra and Preminger were forecast to combust on a daily basis. In fact, they got along quite well, teaming up to assist the insecure Kim Novak through some difficult scene-work.
Preminger brought other invaluable collaborators on board: Saul Bass, who designed the spare, pulsing title sequence, and Elmer Bernstein, who composed the jazz score, all rumble and dissonance. The jazz sequences were recorded by Shorty Rogers and His Giants, with percussionist Shelly Manne, who coached Sinatra on the drums.
On a bus returning him from rehab, Sinatra as Frankie Machine steps down into a bottomed-out streetscape meant to suggest, but not mimic, an urban but small-time ghetto of no return. Preminger, having been a student of the influential stage director and impresario Max Reinhardt in Vienna, kept the setting conceptual—cramped, claustrophobic, devoid of realist detail. In the film’s first minute, Frankie pauses before the ironically capsule-shaped bar window, gazing inside, seeing old friends and enablers. The camera moves through the door and swivels to face Frankie, who breaks the cinematic “fourth wall” by looking directly into the camera lens, just for an instant, as if there were a story he knows but has yet to experience, personally challenging the audience and inviting them to witness this cautionary fable.
Sinatra’s newfound dedication and daring portrayal was rewarded with a Best Actor nomination, but the Oscar was lost to his Eternity nemesis, Ernest Borgnine for Marty. On more than one occasion Sinatra wondered aloud, given his rave reviews and personal commitment to his role, if he had actually won the award for the wrong picture.
Sinatra chose a western as his initial foray into producing, placing himself in the title role of Johnny Concho (1956). The cowardly Concho goes after revenge and redemption against the gunslingers who murdered his brother. Phyllis Kirk replaced initially-cast Gloria Vanderbilt in the subplot romance. Reviews for Sinatra were decent but not enthusiastic; the movie itself was panned and failed at the box office.
A biopic next benefited from Sinatra’s multiple talents when he bought the rights to the true story of show business legend Joe E. Lewis, a cocky nightclub singer mixed up in roaring ’20s gangland rivalries. As payback for disloyalty, his vocal cords are slashed and Lewis makes his tortured, alcoholic way back by re-inventing himself as a club comedian, three dames lending comfort through the turmoil. Here Sinatra played an anti-hero before the concept had a designation, and poured much of himself into his multi-dimensional portrayal. The success of The Joker is Wild included an Academy Award: Best Song to Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn who wrote “All the Way” for the film and for Sinatra.
Shirley MacLaine had a lot to be hopeful and thankful for when Sinatra selected her as the good natured girl-for-hire Ginny in the cast of Some Came Running (1958). Dean Martin had already placed himself directly in Sinatra’s field of vision at a party, as a result landing the role of the gambler Bama. The trio, soon great pals, accompanied director Vincente Minnelli to Madison, Indiana for the long location shoot. To survive the small-town quiet and confinement, Sinatra invited Dean to join him in nightly revels after the day’s work was done, Shirley essentially keeping house for the drinking, card-playing duo, an arrangement that mirrored the film’s story.
In the midst of delivering a fine performance as Dave Hirsch, a WWII vet returning home after his Army discharge to write, Sinatra was feeling anxious and impatient with Minnelli’s careful, no-detail-too-small-or-large style. He not only voiced his displeasure but took the step of chartering a plane, rustling up Dean and flying back to L.A. well before shooting was completed, returning only when he felt his point had been made. The movie and the role are placed high on Sinatra’s critical list, but the overt accolades went to MacLaine. At Sinatra’s insistence, the picture’s ending was rewritten to have Ginny shield Dave from a fatal bullet, thus, in Sinatra’s real-life scenario, assuring Maclaine of an Oscar nomination. It played out just like that.
Broadway Mellow-dy
Riding the wave of a refreshed career in recordings and movies by the mid-1950s, Sinatra joined Doris Day in Young at Heart, a remake of Four Daughters (1938). In the John Garfield part, here named Barney Sloan, Sinatra is a pianist/arranger for a composer. He slumps, smokes, dons the fedora that will become a personal logo, and brings the movie to a climax with a suicide attempt. Yet, he sensitively sings “One for My Baby” and the title tune, and duets with Doris on “You, My Love”. The attractive teaming of Sinatra and Day was a solid hit for Warner Bros. in 1954, and was the last of his small-scaled show business fables with music, Sinatra playing the gifted outsider.
Sinatra then let it be known: He was the obvious and only choice for the role of gambler Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, the part zoot-suiting him perfectly, and was resentful when it was handed to Marlon Brando. Sinatra had to settle for Nathan Detroit, crap game proprietor and perpetual fiance to showgirl Miss Adelaide. The instant Broadway classic by Frank Loesser, by way of the Times Square tales of Damon Runyon, was destined to be one of the big movie hits of 1955. Sinatra nursed his grudge throughout production, every opportunity taken to refer to Brando as “Mumbles.” The ill will seemed to limit his performance. Even as he expertly sings the title song, he wished instead to be performing “Luck Be a Lady”, which went to Brando. The director Joe Mankiewicz, despite the masterful All About Eve on his resume, contrived a strange hybrid, delivering to critics an uninspired un-musical that nevertheless was a box office hit.
High Society (1956) was not Broadway-born, but had a potent Broadway pedigree with The Philadelphia Story as its source, and Cole Porter tunes to make it sing. Sinatra seems an unpromising counterpart to James Stewart as journalist Mike Connor. Even more unlikely is Bing Crosby (age 53) in the Cary Grant role as the ex-husband of Tracy Lord, aka Katharine Hepburn, here played by Grace Kelly (age 26). Sinatra, however, was eager to play opposite Crosby, the idol of his adolescence, and Grace, the aristocratic beauty. All are charming, but the extra wit and zip necessary to make this an entertainment classic are missing. Everyone apparently had a nice time working together, but after Louis Armstrong jazzes up the proceedings, his absence is palpable. A situation full of irony came about when a duet by Bing and Grace, the ballad “True Love,” sold in platinum-record numbers while Sinatra scored no hits at all from the movie. And Grace Kelly had never sung on camera before.
Moving over from MGM to Columbia in 1957 for Pal Joey provided Sinatra with a signature characterization: the singing, swinging, can’t pin-me-down, eternal bachelor opportunist Joey Evans. The Broadway Joey was a dancer, but this crooning Joey is much more on target with its cynical balladeer on the make for the heiress Vera (Rita Hayworth) and exotic dancer Linda (Kim Novak). Classic Rodgers and Hart songs on tap, Sinatra immortalizes his hip, cool, snappy man-about-town, a lovable cad, coat draped over one shoulder, fedora angled, always on his way out the door. A perfect fit, the role won him a Golden Globe Award. Yet he was 42, and it was not a very good year—Sinatra was suing Look magazine, good friend Humphrey Bogart passed away, and his television variety show failed.
In 1959, Sinatra was again on a sound stage, this time at Twentieth Century-Fox, for a Broadway-to-Hollywood makeover, Can-Can, with a score by Cole Porter and again costarring Shirley MacLaine. The company was in the middle of production when Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev and his entourage visited Los Angeles. A gala luncheon was hastily arranged, hosted by Sinatra, with 400 of the Hollywood elite in attendance, after which the Premier and his wife were treated to an energetic performance of the French revue dance, the movie’s centerpiece. Amid flashing petticoats, girls in flying splits, bloomers unveiled, Khrushchev feigned outrage. The presentation was swarmed by national and international press, featured in both Look and Life. However, that was as good as it got for Can-Can. That publicity far outsold the finished product; it was a dance film whose male star didn’t dance a step, sang too few songs, and whose badly-conceived wardrobe was far more ring-a-ding than period-perfect.
The Color Orange
The long first scene, essentially Act One, of The Tender Trap (1955) is a bliss of mid-century Hollywood modern. This dream of a bachelor pad, all low-slung levels backed by a spectacular floor-to-ceiling view of the Brooklyn Bridge, is accented in delicious shades of peach, tangerine and orange, as if Frank Sinatra himself had thrown the pillows. His daughter Tina pointed out before Sinatra’s passing, “My father is very sensitive to light and shadow and color. To him, colors enhance life. He loves bright colors. Orange is his favorite.…”
The stage was thus set for a swinging, martini-clinking bachelor in 1950s paradise, in this case Charlie Reader, a Manhattan theatrical agent. He has a woman (Celeste Holm) among many, an envious best friend (David Wayne), and a charming new client (the very young Debbie Reynolds), who subconsciously primes her “tender trap.” Director Charles Walters found himself with highly musical actors and a mandate to film this straight comedy in CinemaScope. He would take advantage of his cast and justify the widescreen format by shooting Sinatra alone from an extreme distance in a pre-credits sequence. Earth and sky bisecting the frame, Sinatra sings the title tune as he and the camera approach one another. The other three join him for a reprise of the number at the close, bookending the story. Sinatra performs just the one song, adeptly demonstrated his appealing skills as a comic actor.
United Artists had “high hopes” for another free-wheeling bachelor comedy starring, as Playboy magazine put it, “sex idol” Sinatra. Set in citrus-colored and sunlit Miami and directed in 1959 by Frank Capra, A Hole in the Head presents Sinatra as Tony Manetta, a comic dreamer, a fantasy risk-taker, but also the father of a pre-teen son. Tony squares off against his older brother, played by Edward G. Robinson, over the fate of the boy Ally, the conflict echoed on-set as Sinatra and Robinson locked horns over rehearsals and multiple takes.
Sinatra impressed audiences once more with his relaxed comedy rhythms, and charted a big pop hit with “High Hopes,” which won the Oscar for writers Cahn and Van Heusen. With newly-minted lyrics, the song helped position Jack Kennedy as the front-runner for President in 1960.
Sinatra further confirmed the public’s perception of him by turning Neil Simon’s Come Blow Your Horn into a swinging Sinatra vehicle in 1963. Big-time NYC bachelor Alan Baker, hi-fi in the background, cocktail in hand, serially seduces Connie, Peggy and Mrs. Eckman (Barbara Rush, Jill St. John and Phyllis McGuire). Alan’s younger brother Buddy (Tony Bill) wants in on the life and the style, setting up a domestic crisis with their parents. Sinatra cruises through his part, commanding the proceedings wearing an alpaca sweater in his favored orange.
The antithesis of all that swinging and girl-chasing came in 1965 with Marriage on the Rocks. As though to prove he could—and/or as a nod to advancing age—Sinatra signed on to play advertising executive Dan Edwards, a very settled suburban husband and father. To maintain Sinatra’s comfort level, Dean Martin appears as best friend Ernie, and to add a bit of class, Deborah Kerr plays Valerie, the bored, unsatisfied wife. Nancy Jr. steps in for a delightful turn as daughter Tracy. Un-marital but not hilarious adventures ensue, and the picture is unfortunately not worthy of the talent involved. The hijinks on set may have been more entertaining, as Sinatra and Martin christened the statuesque Deborah “The Jolly Green Giant” when she was costumed in jade-toned chiffon.
Clansville
It would be a gas! Show up at the Sands Hotel in Vegas. Shoot a caper flick all afternoon with a loose script. Do two shows a night in the Copa Room with no script at all. Drinks, chicks, bed at four, maybe five. A few winks till noon. Rinse & repeat.…
That was the formula for a lot of fun, some bucks, and big box-office in 1960, when Sinatra gathered the Rat Pack for his preferred subtitle for the project, “The Summit at the Sands”. Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, Angie Dickinson—“the innest in-group in the world”, as Playboy called them—took a gamble on Ocean’s 11. At his most relaxed and self-assured, Sinatra as Danny Ocean schemes with his ten buddies to hit five casinos simultaneously on New Year’s Eve, without guns, without experience. This is almost slice-of-life Sinatra, as he takes charge of the heist and the show.
“Pocket handkerchiefs are optional, but I always wear one, usually orange.” This is Sinatra’s advice for black-tie dressing, on display nightly at the Sands during the Ocean’s location shoot. Personal wardrobe was always an essential consideration for Sinatra, especially during the Clan/Rat Pack years. Highly-polished shoes, the right hat at a rakish angle, cuff links but no other jewelry—these were hallmarks of his sixties style. Robert Wagner adds, “For a long time Frank liked his suits to be made by Sy Devore.… Sy loved shine—rayons and mohairs and shark skins. At some point in the sixties Frank had 150 suits.…” The Pack followed his lead, Dean Martin in particular, until Devore haberdashery filled the wardrobe trailer for Ocean’s 11.
The tag line could have read “The Summit Goes West” for the 1962 remake of the remake of Gunga Din, retitled Sergeants 3, with Sinatra reuniting with Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin and The Clan. Native Americans, a massacre, a town called Medicine Bend, the U.S. cavalry, and Lawford and Bishop all mixed it up for a mildly funny comic western. Sinatra’s M.O., to have great fun with friends, and by the way, make a movie, resulted in some seat-of-the-pants filming. “It was all so nuts,” Sammy Davis, Jr. remembered. Sinatra “was told, ‘This movie is too long.’ So Frank grabbed the script and pulled out a fistful of pages and tore them up. ‘There,’ he said. ‘It’s shorter now.’”
4 For Texas (1963) quickly brought back Frank and Dean as Zach Thomas and Joe Jarrett in a business/romantic rivalry set in Galveston, for which Ursula Andress and Anita Ekberg lend bosomy support. As Sinatra was often on the outs with director/screenwriter Robert Aldrich, the best lines were given to Martin, and more screen time as well.
A musical version—by Cahn and Van Heusen—of the Robin Hood legend, transported to gangland Chicago in the Roaring ’20s, was proposed, and Frank was in, with Sammy and Dean backing him up, for Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). Also joining this musical mob were Bing Crosby, Peter Falk and Barbara Rush. Principle photography began in late 1963, but was briefly and abruptly halted by the assassination of President Kennedy in November, and Frank Jr.’s kidnapping two weeks later. The dire events delayed but did not stall the production; Falk and Davis made lively, even endearing gangsters, and Sinatra had the occasion to sing “My Kind of Town”, and hoof a little with Bing and Dean.
But the times they were a-changin’. Six weeks after the opening of 7 Hoods, A Hard Day’s Night was released, and The Beatles ushered in a new brand of musical and cinematic cool for the sixties.
A Man in a Uniform
Frank Sinatra may have been prevented from serving in the military during World War II, but he “served his country” on screen over and over. Sinatra played a soldier in extremis (From Here to Eternity), and in combat beyond the battlefield (Kings Go Forth, None But the Brave). He was a post-war vet, returning home (Some Came Running), on to new endeavors benign (It Happened in Brooklyn), or nefarious (Ocean’s 11, Assault on a Queen), or undercover (The Naked Runner), or a warrior mentally damaged (Suddenly, The Manchurian Candidate). And then, of course, there were the singing, dancing sailors in Anchors Aweigh and On the Town.
Costuming Sinatra in period clothing was always a problem; his was a thoroughly contemporary persona. So no one should have been surprised at the outcome of The Pride and the Passion, in 1957, when he took on a role that fit him as poorly as the black wig and ragged peasant uniform required to play it. In addition to Sinatra, Stanley Kramer enlisted Cary Grant, Sophia Loren (in her English language debut), and thousands of Spanish locals to tell the epic story of a massive, abandoned seven-ton cannon laboriously maneuvered to gain advantage against the invading army of Napoleon in 1810 Spain. Producer/Director Kramer agreed to shooting Sinatra’s scenes first, explaining, “[He] is a tremendously talented man, intuitive and fast, which is good for him but not always good for the other actors.… He didn’t want to rehearse.… or wait around while the crowd scenes were being set up.” Once his scenes were in the can, Sinatra hastily retreated back to L.A., awaiting the company’s return to complete the film on sound stages and the backlot.
Sinatra did double-duty on Never So Few (1959) as star and producer. A Pacific Theater WWII story told with location shooting in Burma, Ceylon and Thailand, the film places Sinatra, as Col.Tom Reynolds, opposite Italian bombshell Gina Lollobrigida and in action with Peter Lawford, Charles Bronson and Steve McQueen, a television star Sinatra promoted to the movie forefront. Sinatra turned in a respectable performance, both on and off-screen.
Almost immediately after Ocean’s 11, Sinatra indulged in a little more criminality via the single-named Harry in The Devil at 4 O’Clock (1961). Together with Spencer Tracy as the unpriestly Father Matthew Doonan, Sinatra’s dangerous convict rises to the occasion when an erupting volcano threatens leper colony children at a school on the South Pacific island of Kalua, ground zero for serial disasters of biblical character and size, complete with a heavenly chorus. Sinatra felt privileged to be sharing the screen with the revered Tracy, but still subverted the location shooting schedule in Hawaii with his island-to-island campaigning for JFK in a chartered plane.
Army Major Bennett Marco has been eerily “washed and dry-cleaned” by North Korean communists as The Manchurian Candidate begins. The 1962 film, skillfully and intelligently put together by director John Frankenheimer and his collaborators, became the high point of Sinatra’s career in motion pictures. Marco’s—and his fellow soldiers’—bizarre nightmares cue the puzzle-piece psychological thriller that has something to say about conspiracy, power, madness, and covert wars in peacetime, the Cuban Missile Crisis having eerily played out not long before the film’s release.
The assassination plot resonated with Sinatra, who had portrayed a would-be assassin less than a decade before in Suddenly. He must have pondered the origins, the stakes, the consequences of such dire actions, his worst fears realized in November 1963 when the Dallas tragedy took place. Following Kennedy’s death, Sinatra felt personally responsible to make the films unavailable to the general public. Suddenly simply disappeared; The Manchurian Candidate became for a time a lost classic.
In this now reclaimed masterpiece, with stellar support from Angela Lansbury, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, and Henry Silva, Sinatra counters his “swinging cool” image, hand-tooling a performance ticking with tension and fevered fatigue, in a picture for which edgy superlatives are not sufficient. Sinatra was immensely proud and humble, in turn, about his contribution.
He revisited the Second World War for Von Ryan’s Express in 1965, first set in a German POW camp in Italy, then on a commandeered troop train chugging through the countryside. The role of Lt. Col. Joseph Ryan was a good fit for Sinatra as his lines were abbreviated and the action sequences did not necessarily require his immediate presence. Suspenseful, but also punctuated with comedic moments, the movie succeeds despite some rough cutting and awkward staging. Sinatra, as a producer, had the “feel good” ending revised, adding shock and substance to the climax in which Ryan is gunned down before he can rejoin the moving train after a successful showdown with the advancing Nazi forces.
A Rod Serling screenplay lured Sinatra back to double-tasking as producer/star. Assault on a Queen (1966) casts him as ex-submarine officer Mark Brittain, now the owner of a charter boat business. A deep-sea treasure hunt develops into a major heist involving a sunken German sub, $1,000,000 in gold, and the Queen Mary. New star Virna Lisi appears as an additional golden enticement and the movie features some nice chemistry between Lisi’s treasure hunter and Sinatra’s sea captain.
John Wayne had a project in mind—which would become Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)—that he pitched to Kirk Douglas, about the Israeli War of Independence. Wayne and Douglas would take the lead roles, supported by an all-star cast. “We got Sinatra to play a small part (Vince, a pilot),” Douglas remembered, also mentioning Yul Brynner, Angie Dickinson and Senta Berger. “As a matter of fact, there were too many stars in it. It took away from the significance of the piece.” The overloaded epic came to be known as “Cast a Giant Shudder”.
Law and Disorder
Sam Laker, a former WWII officer/ marksman and now a businessman in London, is recruited to assassinate (the word and the deed arise again) a freed political prisoner before the Kremlin can probe his secrets. Sinatra’s Sam in The Naked Runner (1966), is a man in too deep in Cold War fallout, the life of his son being used as leverage to force his hand. The movie, chasing some then-fashionable James Bondian cool, failed to impress, but Sinatra’s mature control in espionage-land was praised. However, Sinatra was not taken with swinging London, hurrying his director and crew and managing an early escape.
Back on familiar turf in Miami, U.S.A. for Tony Rome (1967), Sinatra plays a private detective with police and underworld connections, living out of his boat, driving a convertible heap, but still attracting the ladies (Jill St. John, Gena Rowlands, Sue Lyon). A simple favor for a paying client sends Rome down a slippery rabbit hole of kidnapping, blackmail and murder. Many guns, several dead bodies, a lot of lies and secrets, and a few invitations to bed later, Rome drives off alone, the convoluted case another done deal. A semi-prototype for some TV detectives to come, the movie was received politely. Sinatra, however, scored points for playing his age with a certain amount of rumpled, hard-edged grace. The fedora got good reviews as well.
The Detective (1968) was Sinatra’s dip into the style of seamy, gritty, adult realism that was reshaping American cinema in the late 1960s. Det. Joe Leland, NYPD, is double-tracking a wealthy gay man’s brutal murder amid allegations of corruption involving politicians, developers and the police. Lee Remick plays his wife Karen, while other roles are filled by exciting newcomers Jacqueline Bisset and Al Freeman Jr., young character actor Robert Duvall, and old character actor Jack Klugman. Sinatra bears the brunt of the shocking subject matter, speaking the raw dialogue (perhaps mainstream cinema’s first mention of the words “penis” and “semen”), while, as he said, “… always trying to keep a little tenderness in it somewhere.”
Tony Rome played a return engagement in 1968. Lady in Cement is a more comedic take on the Miami P.I., the plot focusing at first on the discovery of a corpse—a woman, her feet in concrete, found off the coast by scuba divers. The heiress Kit Forrest (Raquel Welch) may or may not be a suspect, but her spectacular body is thoroughly investigated as the case continues. Richard Conte (a favorite Sinatra supporting actor), Dan Blocker and Lainie Kazan show up to help or hinder. To stay put and stay interested, Sinatra booked a gig at the Fontainebleau Hotel showroom to coincide with the shooting schedule, lightening his mood and thus lending the refreshed Tony Rome a lot of casual throwaway style. In the end Tony gets the girl, and the movie an R rating (nudity/violence), a first for a Sinatra picture.
The comedy-western, Dirty Dingus Magee, became Sinatra’s swan song in 1970, when he announced his first retirement. Sinatra saddles into the character Magee, a grizzled old grifter hoping for a last loot of gold, and a hightail across the border into the cartoon sunset. A talented cast without star names labored to elevate the material, but the critics and audiences wouldn’t go along for the ride.
Sinatra came close to taking the Clint Eastwood role in Dirty Harry in 1971, a wrist broken while shooting The Manchurian Candidate ultimately taking him out of the running. The accident left him unable to comfortably and convincingly handle the weighty magnum pistol that would become an Eastwood signature weapon.
A made-for-TV movie, Contract on Cherry Street, in 1977, brought Sinatra back to New York, his Frank Hovannes a deputy police inspector investigating the Mob and its numbers-running. Hovannes turns vigilante when a close friend and colleague is killed in the street, and the bodies pile up from there, leaving the critics wondering what drew Sinatra to the violent material as his first dramatic foray into television.
After ten years away from the big screen, Sinatra agreed to return for a movie of one of Lawrence Sanders’ series of crime novels, and the possibility of a film franchise with his name and fame attached. The First Deadly Sin, a 1980 release, again positioned Sinatra with the NYPD, this time as Edward X. Delaney, a soon-to-retire Captain with a terminally ill wife. An intriguing duo, Frank Sinatra and Faye Dunaway act their touching scenes in hospital hush, against the contrasting mayhem stalking the streets of the city. A serial murderer is viciously striking down his random victims with an ice axe. Graphic images of surgery and slaughter jump-start the story, while menacing hints of noir style counter the hopeful lights of the Christmas season. Sinatra expertly underplays, his face a tale of hard times.
Actively Engaged
One indelible conviction that informed Sinatra’s life, from his first sung notes to his final bows, was his profound commitment to the cause of human equality. Racial, religious and cultural exclusion and persecution hurt him personally, Sinatra having been brought up in a close Catholic family on the rough streets of Hoboken, New Jersey. Sammy Davis, Jr. paid tribute to his friend and colleague with these words, “During three decades, along all the highways of my youth, Frank has always been there for me.” Sinatra was a champion of Sammy’s prodigious talents well before the emergence of the gang of five, but casting him in three popular movies made an even broader, louder statement of embrace in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. Sammy and Frank were brothers, directly from the heart.
Back in 1945, with prompting from director Mervyn LeRoy and support from RKO, the young Sinatra literally lent his voice to the cause, in a short film called The House I Live In. He sings a fervent anthem and speaks to a gang intent on harming the Jewish boy in their midst, declaring that a bully has no ground on which to stand, as “God didn’t create one people better than another.” An Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences seconded the praise from the Hollywood community, or its liberal contingent at least. Gene Kelly congratulated his friend, “I’m proud of you Frank, ’cos that short will make a big contribution to the cause of tolerance.”
Kings Go Forth (1958) addressed American attitudes with a multi-genre fable: war story, melodrama, buddy picture. In WWII France, Sinatra and combat pal Tony Curtis both fall for Natalie Wood as a girl with a black father, her mother a widow. The casting of the Caucasian Miss Wood in some ways represents a failure of nerve, an opportunity wasted, but a message was delivered, however blunted and blurred. Sinatra’s Army captain in Never So Few (1959) is compelled to speak up, to strongly object to a U.S. colonel’s repeated prejudice: his lack of regard for the Native Americans (“Indians”, at the time) under his command, and his disrespect of the indigenous culture and people of the country serving as his host and base of operations.
Sinatra’s sole outing as a director, None But the Brave, in 1965, afforded him the chance to humanize a bygone American enemy. On an island in the South Pacific, the world war already over, American and Japanese combatants find common ground and community before the Japanese are all killed by a late-arriving U.S. destroyer, only five Americans surviving. Tatsuya Mihashi narrates the film in accented English, maybe a first, while the Japanese soldiers speak their own language, subtitled, a strategy ahead of its time. The film concludes with a simple anti-war message: “Nobody wins.”
“Tolerance is a theme that’s close to his heart,” a summation from Sinatra’s daughter Nancy tells us a great deal of what we need to know about her father. Sinatra the humanitarian was a lifelong determination, and he knew that a movie could be much more than an entertainment; it could be enlightenment.
Serving as enlightenment for more than just the moviegoing public during his lifetime, Sinatra’s films have been remade and recast to much fanfare and financial success. However, as with all remakes, important details can often get lost in the retelling. For how can cultural landmarks so singular, identifiable and unique as The Manchurian Candidate or Ocean’s 11 be matched? Glossed up for a new generation they looked great, but a copy is still a copy even with a new shiny cover.
Looking back at the man and his career, one can say with certainty that there will never be another Frank Sinatra. How could there be? A legend in his own lifetime and beyond, Sinatra stands at the pinnacle of success and fame, style and creation. A talent not only for his generation, but one for the ages.
Los Angeles, 2015