TONY ROME/LADY IN CEMENT: Blu-ray (2oth Century-Fox 1967-'68) Twilight Time
The longevity of
stardom – real stardom – is a curious
thing. It virtually does not exist today. But the staying power of the truly
great and memorable is attached to an intangible quality, amusingly coined as ‘personality’; what makes one person
stand out in a crowd while another becomes lost in a sea of the nameless. The
other component to ensuring a long-lasting legacy is, without question, conjoined
to a star’s ability to morph with the times and well beyond the very traits,
first to have brought them to our attention as a momentarily much beloved,
though as easily disposable fixture in the firmament of our ever-evolving pop
culture. Consider then, how singer, star and ‘Chairman of the Board’ Frank
Sinatra fits into this snap assessment. Sinatra, who began his professional
life as a boney big band crooner, making scores of bobbysoxers swoon on cue
with a simple refrain rendered by his silken smooth voice, later to be
coarsened up by boozin’ and ballin’. Sinatra was a legend on the radio
throughout the 1930’s. And, with seeming effortlessness he transitioned into
movies; his early roles, fashioned around making his physical scrawniness
squeezably lovable. Think of him as the ‘before’
snapshot to Gene Kelly’s ‘after’ – having sipped a miraculous male tonic to
bring forth more robust masculinity in films like Anchors Aweigh (1945), On
the Town and Take Me Out to the
Ballgame (both in 1949); Sinatra, ‘Mutt’
to Kelly’s ‘Jeff’.
Sinatra
absolutely detested the persona and would spend the rest of his career
endeavoring to shatter this early-cast studio handcrafted image. It would happen - eventually, thanks in
part to the onset of middle age mellowing, softening, and finally, filling out
his gaunt frame. This is exactly what the kid from Hoboken needed to be taken
seriously in Hollywood. Sinatra’s Oscar-winning turn in From Here to Eternity (1953) closed the book on a still very curious
dry spell that, in retrospect, nearly put a period to his career; the New York
Telegram running a ruthless hatchet job headline, reading “Gone on Frankie in ’42 – gone in ’52!” It also flattened the
notion Sinatra could only do musicals. Some say, his friends in the mob (if,
indeed he had any) helped break the invisible blacklist. Whatever the reason,
Sinatra re-emerged in the fifties and sixties as one of the most diverse all-around
entertainers of his generation; starring in a string of hit musicals, dramas
and film noirs; all while keeping up a breakneck pace as one of the premiere
recording artists and tirelessly (high on life…and other things) appearing at
the Sand’s casino in Las Vegas: the iconic swingin’ ringmaster for cohorts,
Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop.
It helped that
Sinatra never took himself or life – outside of work – too seriously; his
ever-present underlying nervousness masked by a brash swagger, optimism and
good humor. Fastidious in his appearance, and self-possessed with an
incorrigible drive to succeed, Sinatra’s workaholic betterment often caused him
to lose his temper with others who, perhaps, were not as invested in their
craft. Fiercely loyal to his friends, Cary Grant once suggested, “Frank is the most honest person I’ve ever
met. He speaks simple truths and without artifice…I think that scares a lot of
people.” Peeling back the layers to Sinatra’s
personality is like trying to analyze why we love onions. They leave a great
taste behind but can make us cry. As for Sinatra, he could bring an audience to
the edge of elation or to tears; becoming bitter when drunk and with a penchant
for violence against anyone he believed had crossed him. And yet, Sinatra was
generous to a fault, willing and able to admit to his own when sober, and, at
least attempt restitution on his own terms when and where he believed it was
warranted. No doubt about it, Frank Sinatra was a very interesting fellow.
Sinatra brings
so much of this personal baggage to the role of Floridian detective, Tony Rome (1967), and with such an
infectious blend of charm, rank cynicism and devilish scab-picking, that really
gets under the skin of those he dissects, it is perhaps more than a little
difficult to decide where Sinatra – the man – leaves off and his alter ego
kicks in. One gets the distinct sense – and pleasure to be derived from
watching a consummate pro enjoying himself (and taking the rest of us along for
the ride), particularly in this, the first of two movies to star our decidedly
unenlightened protagonist, not above ogling a woman’s ass (with a celebrated
punctuation of underscore by Billy May) or acting ‘sweet’ and effete as he gay-bashes some horrendous stereotypes. We
get everything here (and in the follow-up, Lady
in Cement, 1968) but the proverbial flash of a ‘limp wrist’. “Oh, my stars!” As time capsules from
another epoch in movie-making, far more liberated and unafraid to take such
blue artistic chances, both pictures are highly enjoyable; Tony Rome, decidedly the better of the two, thanks to a brisk and
flashy screenplay by Richard L. Breen (based on Marvin H. Albert’s novel) –
loaded with juicy dialogue and pithy one-liners Sinatra punctuates or merely
casts off in his inimitably wry and deadpan trademark style.
This, plus a very
good cast to include Shecky Green (as goombah thug muscle, Catleg), Gena
Rowland (feline fatalist, Rita Kosterman), Simon Oakland (her brutish
construction magnet/hubby, Rudy), Richard Conte (looking a little worse for the
wear as all-around good guy, Lt. Dave Santini), Lloyd Bochner (Vic Roon - a
lounge-lizardy drug dealer) and, as the
sultry sexpot who playfully introduces herself to our eponymous…uh…hero as ‘slut’ – Ann Archer, the scintillating,
Jill St. John. Tony Rome is set in
uber-chichi Miami, toggling between the high rolling and moneyed playgrounds of
the more affluent neighborhoods, like the Fontainebleau (playground of the
rich) and the dirty little backwaters, seedy strip clubs and moodily-lit
bungalows, overgrown in swaying palms and wild creepers (barely, to hide the
real ‘creeps’ lurking inside). Tony Rome
has a lot to recommend it beginning with the swingin’ sixties lux- plushness of
its visuals; vacuous to a fault, like a lush bonbon with a sexy hardcore center
of smut passed off as googly-eyed sin.
Sinatra slips
into the trappings of a Humphrey Bogart-seque gumshoe with a surprising
presence of mind. He knows he is not Bogart and, frankly, does not try to be.
But he comes across with enough cynicism and contempt for humanity at large
(most of it very well deserved indeed) to make us care about what happens, both
story wise, and, more directly, to Tony – just a ‘good time’ fellow who does
not muck around when the stakes are high. Director Gordon Douglas is no John Huston,
and nothing about Tony Rome could
ever measure up to or confuse it with such classic noir crime capers as The Asphalt Jungle (1950). But Tony Rome holds its own with a genuine
verve for good solid plotting, character development and enough hairpin twists
and turns to leave the audience stumped until the inevitable conclusion.
Despite coming late in the noir cycle, Douglas and Sinatra still endeavor to
bottle the ends in the best ‘crime
doesn’t pay’ tradition. So, no over-the-top stuff here. Just serious
storytelling, some razor-back dialogue, a hero who acts (or reacts), for the
most part, like he really does not care whether we choose to like him. Such
stubborn arrogance alone makes Tony Rome a lovable heel; missing out on great
sex and always indebted to his bookmaker. What a sweetheart. Can we kiss him
now? More prudent question…will he let anyone get this close?
Tony’s foil here
is Jill St. John’s sultry and self-professed trophy gal who effortlessly slips
in and out of ‘polite society’ as
easily as into a kinky black negligee she greets Tony in at her apartment, and,
with a penchant for very nice things and the rotten-to-their-core sugar daddies
who can get such trinkets for her wholesale. Miraculously, St. John’s Ann
Archer never plays the field for all its worth. As such, her character refrains
from getting a bad rap. So, no tattooing with the scarlet brand as a
mean-spirited gold digger. Like Tony, Ann remains loftily ‘above it all’ and in
possession of one sharp mind that can take care of itself without anybody’s
help. Every guy should be so lucky! Ann
gradually becomes ‘his gal Friday’ on a lark and a spree. Like everything else
about Tony Rome, the plot is not
nearly as sinister as it is slinky and fun. Is our boy hired to track a lost
hubby, escort a spoiled lush, Diana Pines (Sue Lyons) back to the relative
safety of her super-wealthy parents, or sent on a fool’s errand to unearth the
whereabouts of a supposedly valuable piece of jewelry after the girl has awakened
from her face plant inside a seedy motel, only to realize the priceless
heirloom has gone missing?
Nancy Sinatra
belts out Lee Hazlewood’s clumsily botched title tune with heavy-handed appeal under
the main credits. Tony sails his boat into Miami Beach, witnesses the marriage
of a young oversexed couple dockside, before turning his attentions to the
luscious booty of a bikini-clad babe wading into the sea. Gordon Douglas
needlessly punctuates this moment with a ‘whamo!’ music chord and zoom lens that
fills the girth of the 2.35:1 Panavision frame with vintage white panties. We
wander a bit through Tony’s meandering life, gambling at the fights and losing
– badly – on the hook for money he has yet to earn for doing his job. An
unlikely reprieve arrives when Tony gets a call from his ex-partner, Ralph
Turpin (Robert J. Wilke) to collect the unconscious body of one Diana Pines; a
rich girl, not above slumming with decidedly the wrong crowd. Diana has since
turned up from her previous night’s frolic inside a seedy motel room. The
establishment is operated by Turpin. Not good. So, for a small retainer, Tony
takes on the responsibility of returning the girl to her father, construction
magnate, Rudolph Kosterman.
Rudy and his
second wife, Rita live palatially. Mrs. Kosterman is concerned for Diana’s
welfare…well…sort of, and, tries to hire Tony to ‘keep her informed of his findings’ after Rudy has already put him
on a retainer to get to the bottom of Diana’s recent moodiness. It’s no soap.
Besides, it’s also a conflict of interest. Tony takes an immediate dislike to
Diana’s milksop/fiancée, Adam Boyd (Jeffrey Lynn). Not that he suspects Boyd of
anything, except being an elegant sponge with his eye on the real prize –
Kosterman’s cash, should he ever get Diana to accept a wedding ring.
Eventually, Tony extracts a secret: somewhere between the previous night’s
house party and Diana’s turning up at the motel, she has mislaid a valuable
diamond brooch. Diana would like it back. Now, she hires Tony for its recovery.
The plot thickens when Tony returns to his boat later that evening, only to be
chloroformed and tossed by a pair of thugs in search of the same pin. Much later, he is nearly strangled by the
girl's imbecilic step uncle. At a dead end for clues, Tony returns to his seedy
downtown office only to discover Turpin’s body lying on the floor.
Now, Tony
decides to pick divorcée, Ann Archer’s mind for evidence. Ann’s not all that
beloved by the Kostermans and yet she keeps getting invited to their soirees. Gradually, Tony pieces together a dirty little
secret: Diana has been giving her estranged alcoholic mother, Lorna Boyd
(Jeanne Cooper) part of her allowance to keep her in booze. Boyd lives in a dilapidated
mansion on the outskirts of town with her disgraced ‘doctor/husband’, Sam
(Stanley Ross). Retrieving the pin in question, Tony is shocked to find it a
relatively worthless piece of ‘costume jewelry…or is it? No, it once had real value. But more recently the real
gemstones have been removed by a wily con artist/jeweler working for crook,
Jules Langley (Lloyd Gough). Langley plays for keeps and proves it when he
reveals to Tony he and one of his henchman have only just drowned the
frightened old man in their bathtub. Using his wits, Tony dispatches with the
pair in short order. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Santini of the Miami police, and a
good friend of Tony’s, is forced to consider Tony’s claim of self-defense
might, in fact, be a good story to cover up the crime of murder. Actually,
Santini doesn’t buy this story for a moment. But the law is the law, and Tony
has crossed the line. Whatever his intentions, he is guilty of very bad
judgment.
Tony runs
through a series of spurious contacts before Santini can have him arrested. After
Kosterman narrowly falls prey to a drive-by shooting, Tony discovers Turpin was
actually murdered by a man named Nimmo (Robert ‘Buzz’ Henry). But why? All
suspicions are cast on Rita, after Tony discovers she was paying off Vic Roon;
a drug dealer helping to fence the jewels on Nimmo’s behalf. But what of Nimmo?
Well, Tony confronts Rita, who spills the beans. Nimmo is actually Rita’s
husband. Their divorce was never finalized. Hence, in marrying Kosterman she is
guilty of bigamy. Meanwhile, Nimmo dies of wounds inflicted by Turpin. Adam
Boyd explains how, after he lost his license for performing illegal abortions,
his one hope for survival was to continue milking Diana for sympathy about her
mother and cash to keep her boozing a secret from her fiancée. So, it was Boyd
who tried gunning down Kosterman, leaving Diana to inherit the estate and thus,
pass along a good chunk of it to him in exchange for his silence. Lt. Santini
arrives and arrests the lot as they begin to bury Nimmo in an unmarked grave. A
short while later, Tony returns to his boat with plans to vacation abroad with
his broad - Ann. Regrettably, she has decided to go back to her estranged
husband instead. So, no love/no nothin’ for our Tony Rome.
Tony Rome was a fairly solid hit for 2oth Century-Fox, enough
to launch a sequel; Lady in Cement.
This time the source material belongs to Marvin H. Albert’s 1961 novel of the
same name. Alas, any similarity between the novel’s ‘ingenious’ machinations and the screenplay co-authored by Albert
and Jack Guss is purely coincidental; this ‘Lady’ submerged – figuratively
as well as literally - in a fairly tepid whodunit with enough loopholes to
stymie and foreshorten most any attention span. We trade a lot of the novel’s
harrowing twists and turns for remedial red herrings aplenty. The casting of
Rachel Welsh as Kit Forrester is problematic as she is neither half the actress
Jill St. John is, nor does she manage to convey anything better except elegant
eye-candy that, strangely enough, is more an anathema to her otherwise
transparently obvious sex appeal. In a pseudo-comedic departure from his role
as Hoss on TV’s Bonanza, Dan Blocker
gives a modestly charming performance as goon, Waldo Gronsky. Lainie Kazan
peaks in from the peripheries as Maria Baretto, a boozy go-go dancer, working
the room for her effete pimp/boss, Danny Yale (Frank Raiter).
While diving off
the coast with a friend in search of sunken Spanish galleons (the old ‘fortune
and glory’ fool’s errand), Tony Rome discovers the body of the newly deceased
Sandra Lomax (Christine Todd) lazily bobbing in the plankton, feet weighted in
a block of cement. Given the efficiency of the sharks in these shallow waters
it is a genuine wonder Lomax is perfectly preserved for the identifying. Rome
casually reports the incident to Lt. Santini, but gets pulled back into the
investigation when lumbering, Waldo Gronsky decides to browbeat Rome into
taking the case. As there is virtually no ‘fortune’ or ‘glory’ to be had in
this undertaking, Rome agrees to do it practically ‘pro bono’ – Gronsky,
tossing him an expensive watch he can pawn to cover expenses. Peddling Sandra’s
mug shot around town, Tony is soon pointed to Jilly’s strip club, and told to
investigate model/hired girl, Kit Forrester after go-go dancer, Maria Baretto
suggests the two were seen together at a house party. Alas, Kit plays dumb,
then calls on ‘reformed’ racketeer, Al Mungar (Martin Gabel) to protect her
from Tony’s prying questions.
Certain his
investigating will yield a connection between Lomax, Forrester and Mungar, Rome
doggedly pursues every clue while embarking upon a romantic frolic with Kit.
Jilly’s owner, Danny Yale threatens Tony and proves he can at least interrupt
his investigation, as Maria turns up dead and Gronsky is nearly murdered a
short while later. Regrettably, Danny is also murdered, with evidence planted
to suggest Tony is the killer. Forced to ‘take in’ his old pal, Lt. Santini is
momentarily delayed in his chase to make an arrest. Tony eludes police, taking everyone
on a wild foot chase through the courtyards of the Fontainebleau, returning to
Kit’s bungalow unharmed. Now, Kit reveals to Tony she passed out at the party,
only to awaken hours later with a paper knife clutched in hand and Sandra’s
stabbed-to-death remains lying at her feet. It’s an obvious frame-up, for sure.
Eventually, Tony reveals Mungar’s son, Paul (Steve Peck) is the real killer; Sandra,
having found out Paul’s embezzlement of some of daddy’s ill-gotten gains right
under the old man’s nose. Racing to Kit’s bungalow in the nick of time, Tony
and Gronsky foil Paul’s latest plan to silence Kit, the only other witness to
his crimes. Santini arrives to make the arrest. Tony is exonerated of any wrong
doing, and, Tony and Kit take off in his boat, presumably in search of sunken
gold.
Lady in Cement is a middling crime caper at best.
Chiefly absent this time around - a good script. The Albert/Guss screenplay
just goes through the motions with perfunctory dialogue and connect-the-dots
plotting that grows ever more tedious and predictable as it tries to hint at
the sort of hairpin twists and turns that made its predecessor so gosh darn
exhilarating. The other oddity here is a complete absence of visually
atmospheric touches. It’s bizarre too, considering cinematographer, Joseph F.
Biroc shot both movies. But Lady in
Cement’s flat visuals cannot hold a chiaroscuro-lit candle to Tony Rome engagingly dark and brooding interplay
of light and shadow. In the afterglow of
Tony Rome, Lady in Cement plays like a pedestrian rip-off of situations and comedy better
peddled in the first movie. Even Sinatra’s performance acquires a vague ‘phoned
in’ quality. At intervals, ole blue eyes appears genuinely bored with the plot
and only mildly more amused with his co-stars. Style can often trump substance.
Alas, Lady in Cement lacks either
virtue to recommend it. It is important to remember between Tony Rome and Lady in Cement, Sinatra appeared one more time as a police
investigator in The Detective (1968)
– a deadly severe crime/drama bearing virtually no other resemblance to these
two crime/caper movies. In this light, Lady
in Cement plays almost as a featherweight apology for all the seriousness played
out in The Detective. While Tony Rome offers up a perennially
amusing smorgasbord of plush and pleasing vignettes, sure to invite renewed
viewings (I’m still chuckling over the ‘smiling
pussy’ sequence. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything else in the
story), Lady in Cement unravels its
tawdry little yawn (excuse me – yarn),
once seen, likely discarded, or worse, entirely expunged from the subconscious
as soon as the house lights have come up.
The heart of
each movie is Frank Sinatra doing what he does best, playing to the persona he
trademarked for himself after two decades servitude in all those ultra-glossy
MGM musicals to have made him a star. We are on the other side of the looking
glass here. Sinatra’s Tony is tough; not in the implacably bitter way of Bogart’s
Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, but with the proverbial ‘chip’ on his shoulders
leaning against some smug superiority and an even more delicious and versatile
jadedness. It’s almost a cliché to think Tony Rome is Frank Sinatra or vice versa; the ensconced image we have of
Sinatra’s Vegas performer, oozing a sexualized arrogance from every pore, stilled
from becoming a complete bastard by that enviable streak of sincerity for which
he was as well known, and voila – I give you, Tony Rome: the poet laureate of crime-sucking scumbags and their
lovably obtuse follies, soon to be foiled by Sinatra’s precisely intelligent
deconstruction of their crimes. The other characters in these conjoined murder
mysteries are ‘characters’ in their own right, prone to self-deprecating mood
swings, a laconic slip into sexual frigidity, but ultimately suffering the thaw
of rawer human emotions forced to the surface.
Twilight Time has
consolidated Tony Rome and Lady in Cement on a single Blu-ray. Personally,
I would have preferred each housed on a separate disc with more disc space allotted
each transfer. Tony Rome runs nearly
2 hrs./Lady in Cement, barely 1½ hrs.
So, compression artifacts should not be an issue. And yet, we get some minor
edge effects and aliasing in background detail on Tony Rome. It’s not a deal breaker, but it is present and, at
intervals, moderately distracting. The 2.35:1 Panavision looks fairly
impressive in 1080p with Tony Rome edging
out Lady in Cement by a few notches
in overall video quality. Neither is a perfect restoration, but both appear
fairly solid with minor age-related blemishes scattered throughout. The DeLuxe
color is a bit more refined on Tony Rome,
especially the main titles. These appear considerably washed out on Lady in Cement, as though sourced from
a dupe. Film grain has been adequately
and consistently reproduced and both movies reveal some very nice detailing.
Colors pop and flesh tones have an appropriate sun-kissed orange appeal, indigenous
to the Florida climate. Contrast is more of an issue on Lady in Cement than Tony
Rome, black levels much weaker than anticipated. Still, sequences shot during the day are truly
impressive.
Each movie features
1.0 DTS mono with an organic sense of space and dimension. Nancy Sinatra’s
title track for Tony Rome contains a
bit of grating reverb. Otherwise, nothing to complain about, as dialogue is
crisp and effects sound good too. Apart
from the isolated score and effects tracks we get for both movies (a TT main
staple), we also get an audio commentary from historians, Eddy Friedfeld,
Anthony Latino, Lee Pfeiffer, and Paul Scrabo on Tony Rome. It’s light, but charming and fairly informative too –
well worth a listen. A word about the
isolated scores; Billy May’s for Tony
Rome is the better of the two. Hugh Montenegro's for Lady in Cement just sounds like a reject of an Annette Funicello/Frankie
Avalon beach blanket movie. Bottom line: neither Tony Rome nor Lady in Cement
is high art. That said, each is entertaining in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way.
TT delivers a good solid rendering of both, albeit on a single disc. While not
likely to win any awards for ‘best in
show’, this two-movie set nevertheless reveals competent mastering from Fox
Home Video. Recommended. Enjoy these for what they are – light-hearted and fun.
Frug…anyone?
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
Tony Rome – 4
Lady in Cement –
3
VIDEO/AUDIO
Tony Rome – 3.5
Lady in Cement –
3
EXTRAS
1
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