The Rat Pack Does Vegas --- Part One

I want to go back to 1960 and shake Frank Sinatra for not applying himself more to Ocean's 11. Same goes for Rat associates, save perhaps Peter Lawford, who spent five years bringing O11 to fruition and made honest effort toward better outcome than what $3.1 million finally bought. Most was Warners' negative cost, dollars they knew would come back, and did, to swinging tune of $8.1 million, participants calling that a fine day's work and the heck with posterity's verdict. Did a goldbricking Pack really think so little of movies as to fritter away promise of this one? Dean tried on The Young Lions as Frank had with Golden Arm, and both applied selves to Some Came Running. Had they lost respect on this occasion for playing something close to lives they actually led? Ocean's 11 could have been a crackerjack thriller with song and novel background like movies seldom saw. Real commitment first time out might have been impetus for a Rat Pack series we'd respect more than spoiling cheese O11 and successors amounted to. But where's use of crying for lost opportunity fifty years out? Irony's jest is a remade Ocean's 11 for 2001 breeding (so far) two sequels, proof of standards since '60 lower even than Sinatra and Company's when they sluffed through the original.

My family drove by Vegas on a motor trip west in 1962. I remember glittering signs outside, less the casinos within where my first game of chance was played upon a slot machine near the entrance. Pity I couldn't appreciate Sin City at its summit for being aged eight, but I do recall wondering why indoors kind of shrunk from massive neon canopies without. Surely a movie about all that would be fun, though. Peter Lawford thought so on receipt of a heist yarn he'd bought five years ahead of Ocean's 11. Modest prospects saw it farmed to TV director Gilbert Kay for a 1956 follow-up to his feature bow, Three Bad Sisters, indie Matador Productions going forward with this actioner not unlike then-recent Five Against The House. Somehow that fizzled and Ocean's 11 came across Sinatra's bar counter, his interest, of course, making it a go. Lawford would stay on as co-star and now junior producer, their company called Dorchester. Casting announcements began flying, seemingly all of Hollywood wanting in on Frank's party. Dean Martin was set, then temporarily out for scheduling conflicts, Jack Lemmon slated to replace him in December 1958. By March of '59, they wanted Sugar Ray Robinson for what ultimately was the Sammy Davis part. Sinatra and Lawford sought Robert Wagner as well, but Fox wouldn't loan him. Neither could Steve McQueen get a leave from Wanted --- Dead Or Alive, the latter announced along with Tony Curtis as late as October 1959. Frank wanted cast-mates he'd worked with, thus an invite to A Hole In The Head's Edward G. Robinson, who proved unavailable. By time casting firmed up in January 1960 (as late as 1/8, Robert Culp was being floated for a "key role"), the caravan was set to winter in at Vegas for casino locations.

Writers addressing the Rat Pack sometimes get a little ring-a-ding dingy themselves, so I'll try avoiding hep talk and propagating tired myths. One posits Lewis Milestone as a broken-down director thrown an O11 bone for submission to Frank's authority and willingness to take crumbs Dorchester/Warners handed him. What I found was Milestone in for a percentage of Ocean's 11 along with FS, Lawford, and Dino. They named him producer as well. Someone has to be around the store all the time, said the veteran helmsman, and so long as chips were partly his, why not Milestone? Lawford was confident enough in the project to take all of his compensation on the backend. Ocean's 11 filmed mostly on days after all-nighters the cast pulled. Drinking, performing, then steam bathing it off for fitful hours' work did not make for focused performing. A finished Ocean's 11 would reflect many calls Sinatra missed. How else to account for so much of tiresome Akim Tamiroff and somnolent Joey Bishop? Also livening Vegas those months was Columbia's Pepe company. Headquartering as well at the Sand's Hotel, they were separable from O11's crew only by different colored baseball caps issued respectively. On-camera overlap saw Dean Martin and Sammy Davis in Pepe cameos shot concurrently with work on Ocean's 11.

Vegas and the Pack were riding crests that winter. Jack Kennedy checked in to see the boys perform and consolidate show biz support for his presidential bid. What was happening live naturally seemed more important than nonsense recorded on film. To think that for awhile, Sinatra intended to direct Ocean's 11. He did at least want it to look good, insisting that Warners shoot in Panavision, the company's first using that wide format. Lewis Milestone put a good face on Vegas when he told Army Archerd they'd overshot the location's budget by a mere $1,000. Latter-day viewers are surprised by modesty of O11 casino and hotel settings, figuring upon temples not unlike what's built over ruins of a Vegas strip gone decades now. Fact of matter is these were humble, at least by comparison, being stopovers for 50/60's travelers who didn't expect grandiosity we're conditioned for. Ocean's 11 is in part a sad revisit to ways of debauched life passed and an entertaining Olympus whose deities filled lounges nightly --- just a look at marquees in the film makes you realize anew those days ain't never coming back.

Robert Aldrich and The Rat Pack Do 4 For Texas


Should you want to introduce a civilian to the joys of Rat Pack frolicking, take my advice and steer them to CD’s. You’ll gain few friends handing out 4 For Texas on DVD. Most would amount to coal in my stocking, though I suppose there are adherents. I can enjoy Ocean’s 11, and of course, Some Came Running rests comfortably on a fifties pantheon, but what of Sergeants 3, Robin and The Seven Hoods, Marriage On The Rocks, and today’s object of scorn, 4 For Texas, their humor near level of Playboy Party Jokes, or dog-eared back pages from Adam or Nugget. Rat Pack movies were not to be approached seriously, least of all by their stars. They needed directors on a slide like Lewis Milestone, or tackle dummies with Gordon Douglas’ stamina to cope with Sinatra moods. Robert Aldrich was far too good for this enterprise. When I read that Sinatra got $750,000 against 10% on 4 For Texas (to Dean’s 250,000), it was clear a lot of money was paid under false pretenses, especially when you observe how little he actually does here. Aldrich lit Frank’s fuse when he scheduled ten days on a desert location for an opening stagecoach pursuit. Sinatra replied he would be there for five, then faded two days ahead of that. He’s to blame for the ruination of this show. Aldrich spoke well of Dean in hindsight, but he was ready to litigate on Frank. Estimates suggest the recalcitrant star worked only eighty hours over thirty-seven days. Martin is clearly hauling freight for both, the more so in an excruciating second half. He was on board with Aldrich’s script from early on, hoping to lure James Stewart or Robert Mitchum to co-star. Cruel fate gave them Sinatra at the eleventh hour. The star lived down to his reputation --- arriving late and unprepared, demanding pages be lopped from the script, insistence upon a personal hairpiece handler, etc. If the director thought he had a bad time with Davis and Crawford in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, he was about to find out how things could be worse.

I always thought Aldrich was better doing serious with comedy than comedy with serious. 4 For Texas opens with a scene that would challenge ardency of Dean Martin’s fan base. He’s on a besieged coach with meek Percy Helton, forever the figure of fun in a thousand shows, unceremoniously shot dead by the villains, and having his pockets picked by a same callous Dean who moments before identified himself as the good guy. This gallows humor has a particularly nasty smell, and it pervades much of action to come. It also reveals the cruelty that underlies much of Rat Pack humor. Would Vegas Dean react similarly if some poor chump at Sands Hotel ringside pitched forward with a bourbon induced coronary? You wonder as he steals Helton’s watch and smirkingly reads the inscription. Was this really the sort of image Martin wanted to project? Nothing makes you squirm like comical anti-heroes who go too far. This one disturbing scene sent my mind in a dozen directions --- like maybe I’m poolside at the Tropicana in 1962 and the Pack walks by. They say Dean projected Look, But Don’t Touch. With Frank, it was Don’t Even Look. Must have been disillusioning for a lot of fans that tried to approach these two.

Frank goes in for petty meanness as well, though it’s more expected from him. There’s a scene where corpulent Victor Buono reports to town boss Frank for his marching orders. Poor Vic is swaddled in wool suits and strangulating ascot ties. Digital clarity reveals beads of perspiration in virtually all his scenes. You wish this discomfited man could play it all in gym trunks with a glass of ice tea in his hand, admittedly a less engaging visual prospect, but merciful alternative to costumes he is obliged to wear. Fat people are there to be ridiculed in a Rat Pack universe, so bullying Frank takes pains to remind Buono that he doesn’t fit the bill with regards servicing Anita Ekberg, her own Amazonian proportions ironically more congenial to a man of Vic’s size as opposed to shrimpy Frank. This is the sort of condescension that goes on between Sinatra and everyone he shares scenes with, providing unintended parallels to behind-the-camera rancor provoked by the star’s imperious attitude. Dean had to be annoyed at times, but at least he takes pride of place in the matter of romantic pair-offs (as if romance could have any application to Rat Pack smoker reels). Ursula Andress, fresh off Dr. No’s Jamaica beach, must surely have quickened the pace of Dean's forty-six year-old heart, while alleged cock-of-the-walk Frank is cruelly paired with hulking Ekberg, she of bat-wing eyelashes fluttering beneath hornet nest wigs. Her summons to Frank for intimate dalliance plays more like a threat to his comparatively delicate frame, as she looks fully capable of wrestling him to a standstill.
Sinatra lies around much of the time getting shaved and manicured. How does such a sedentary figure become top dog in Galveston? Dean is slightly less plausible as a lawyer turned amoral thief and gambler, shading his characterization by making unlikely gifts to an orphanage. Three Stooges fans are well aware of the boy’s belated cameo during the last thirty minutes of 4 For Texas, though you get the impression neither Dean nor Aldrich had caught their act before. Jules White should have been along to wave the baton, for their pallid clowning here makes the Stooge’s own Sappy Bullfighters look like The Gold Rush by comparison. Arthur Godfrey shows up momentarily, but that gag lays flat today, as who remembers Arthur Godfrey? More engaging guests may well have been four Texas beauty contest winners exiting the shiny Plymouth shown here. Part of their pageant bounty was a week doing extra work on 4 For Texas. I’d love to sit down with one of them today. The four occupied bar stools on Dean’s gambling ship. From what I’ve read, there were Sinatra imported call girls filling period gowns as well. Were those Lone Star innocents despoiled by an encounter with seasoned pros? Champ seducers Frank and Dean must surely have put in bids as well --- it was almost compulsory with these two. No doubt the Texas girls took home insights, if not wisdom, they’d have been years coming by otherwise.

Two longtime friends of the Greenbriar, Edwin T. Arnold and Eugene L. Miller, have contributed a pair of outstanding books to the Aldrich canon. The Films and Career Of Robert Aldrich is analysis based largely on reflections of those who worked with the director, as well as thorough research by the writers. Robert Aldrich Interviews is a collection of these representing Aldrich at various stages of his life and work. Both books are a must, and can be got HERE and HERE.

The Rat Pack and Ocean's 11 --- Part Two

The caper itself was so outlandish as to discourage imitation. That much was probably agreed upon going in. Robbing Las Vegas in 1960 would have been another name for suicide. Not for a moment does this plan seem a serious one, Ocean's 11 tempering the Pack's lunatic notion with comedy and what amounts to a town's own Surgeon General's warning: Never, ever try this for real. That undercuts suspense, of course. We don't sense a Mafia's heavy hand toward protecting its own, but surely membership issued Frank a Do Not list prior to shooting. You Wouldn't Call It a Gang, said Warner ads. Well, no you wouldn't, except maybe Our Gang for childish means by which this heist is executed. Did rival Mob families ever consider a for-real knock over of Vegas casinos? Surely if they did, Ocean's 11 would be no model for planning. Guess the town was sewn up too tight for anyone to ponder such a thing. In probably the film's best exchange, Dean Martin points up futility of O11's scheme and the group's lack of fitness to carry off same, this rare occasion of DM reading Ocean's dialogue with something like conviction. Was he speaking more to futility of having made this movie? (at one point during filming, Dino asked Frank if he might finally look at a script)

There were cameos to pass dull parts easier. Red Skelton did a funny to Frank's deadpan reaction and was off within a minute, same with Shirley MacLaine and what looks like an ad-libbed drunk scene opposite Dean. More effective were drop-ins by faded names tossed a day's work for reasons lost to time. I'd guess George Raft and Hoot Gibson were greeting at some lounge/casino in town. Both had filled such position at one time or other. Raft was not long back from shaking hands at Cuban tables before lights went out there. He lends gravitas to a post-robbery boardroom scene that's reasonably close, I suppose, to what might have gone on among Mafia chieftains should a real Vegas raid have taken place. Was gang-connected Raft too close to actuality of casino ownership for comfort? Guess Mobsters figured George for a late show relic too far past prime to suggest true crime, not unlike his back to the 20's racketeer in Some Like It Hot. Hoot was something else, a face dating to when Vegas was all sand. Who knows ... maybe he'd chased indians across that desert once. Anyway, he was there for viewers ancient enough to recognize him, up to and including Frank and Dino ... both may have sat in as boys on Hooter's silent shoot-em-ups. I'd love knowing just whose idea it was to give him a break on Ocean's 11.

The guy what steals Ocean's 11 is Caesar Romero. He pretty much takes charge of the third act. Did Frank and company know or care about this Joker's heist? A group of five to whom I ran Ocean's 11 last week all agreed it was Romero's show from the robbery's finish on in. 1960 observers thought so too. Several polls place him in supporting Oscar nominee contention for Ocean's 11, observed Variety in December of that year. Caesar himself got out a trade ad to spread word of critic's approval (above). For my money, he's the cool cat in this show --- suave, unflappable and making most of scenes via commitment several times that of blasé Rat Packers. One scene Sinatra would undoubtedly have ordered reshot, had he noticed, shows CR entering a room and towering over the diminutive star. Did Romero get his lion's share of Ocean's 11 for showing up to work as opposed to oft-truant principal players? My viewing group came away from Ocean's 11 wishing he'd framed the caper ... maybe in that event it would have come off successfully.

Some reshooting might have helped. Peter Lawford prevailed upon Warners to fill in obvious holes, but they attended more to splashy premiere plans than squaring away a better movie. Power-less player Lawford would go along to get along, a sad fate for anyone in Sinatra's razzmatazz orbit. To his credit, though, Frank kicked in on selling side of O11, attending a June New York meet with director Lewis Milestone and WB execs to round out plans for an August grand open in Vegas. Sinatra liked the pic well enough to private preview it for John and Jackie Kennedy at his Palm Springs home. Spencer Tracy was also there ... wonder if Spence gave Frank an honest answer when asked how he liked the show. World Premiering at LV's Fremont Theatre was sure enough a blowout. Streets jammed, a parade up the Strip, celebrities near outnumbering civilians. Some of revels would turn up on Jack Parr's vid show later. A "summit meet" at the Sands preceding the open reunited the Pack and fired up WB's Steve Trilling to propose filming the act to send out as a follow-up concert feature. But where could it be shown?, asked Army Archerd: The boys rehearsed the material in the locker room, an indication of the tenor of the entertainment offered by the jolly boy's club.

Lewis Milestone was ringside for the Sands party and premiering that followed. He'd afterward go on a twelve-city US tour to promote Ocean's 11. Whatever this director earned over a long career was doubtless dwarfed by percentage payday realized here. He'd later speak well of the film and Sinatra to historians. 1960 showmen in for less loot felt Warners was working a caper of its own, as even neighborhood sub-runs were being hit up for 50% of receipts, a distributor grab in excess of Paramount's 35% demand for the same summer's Psycho. Erstwhile co-producer Peter Lawford, rich off those terms, shopped a biopic around on champ jockey Johnny Longden he'd worked on for several seasons, but ... no takers. His Thin Man TV series had wrapped and expulsion from the Pack would come later, thanks to contretemps with Frank that were in no way Peter's fault. The Chairman himself looked back on Ocean's 11 as a "fun" movie and little more. He'd live long enough to see Rat Pack (a term he always despised) high-life celebrated anew by hipsters not yet born when the pic played new. Just the fact it moved up Warners' Blu-Ray release schedule makes clear O11's continuing hold on fans wishing its ring-a-ding world could live again as their own.