by JB
How did this peculiar bird fly under my radar for so long? This movie explains the behavior of every single one of my uncles.I once owned Tony Rome on laserdisc. It was a double disc set that also included the sequel, Lady in Cement. I remember a record store at the Gurnee Mills Outlet Mall that used to have incredible laserdisc sales in the late 1990s. I bought the Tony Rome set for $5.99! Then I never watched it.
I’m only one man.Fate moves slowly, setting its own inexorable path toward your future without ever consulting you... or your next of kin. So, the other night, when the wonderful folks at Turner Classic Movies showed this damn thing, I felt destined to watch—incredulous and enraptured.
Tony Rome was made with the express purpose of reviving Frank Sinatra’s career. He had made two stinkers in a row (Cast a Giant Shadow and Assault on the Queen) and had lost the title role in Harper to Paul Newman. So, 20th Century Fox got busy fashioning its own version of Harper for Ol' Blues Eyes, this one tailor-made to revive Sinatra’s flagging reputation. He shoots hoodlums. He flirts and flirts. He beats up drug dealers. He leers at women’s bottoms as the camera zooms in for cringy close-ups. Every woman wants him—from the elderly and overweight (Some Like It Hot’s Joan Shawlee, as a character named “Fat Candy”) to girls thirty years his junior. The script does not give a shit about its own narrative, preferring to chronicle a loose assemblage of incidents designed to make the 52-year-old Sinatra look like a Miami bad-ass.THE PLOT IN BRIEF: Tony Rome (Frank Sinatra) is a private detective who lives on a boat. He gets a call from a corrupt former associate, asking Rome to help him out of a jam involving a drunk girl (Sue Lyon), her a rich Daddy (Simon Oakland), her estranged Mommy (Gena Rowlands), and a missing diamond pin. Drunkie hires Tony to find the pin; Daddy hires Tony to keep an eye on Drunkie. Mommy has a secret. Sinatra beats up a bunch of people. Jill St. John shows up intermittently to let the camera leer at her curves and remind us that Sinatra likes the dames. Las Vegas comic Shecky Greene plays a bad guy named “Cat Leg.” The whole thing is kind of a mess.
Did I mention Sinatra beats up a bunch of people? The film meanders ceaselessly—it’s as if the writers tore chapters from Raymond Chandler and Elmore Leonard’s work, threw the pages into a blender... and dutifully pressed "Frappe."
Like Sinatra’s previous hit Ocean’s Eleven—filmed during the day in Las Vegas while the Rat Pack was performing at the Sands Casino at night—Tony Rome was filmed in Miami Beach while Sinatra was playing nights in the showroom at the Fontainebleau Hotel. When did Sinatra sleep? Why, during filming, of course. He sleepwalks through Tony Rome with the patented “you get one take ‘cuz I don’t give a rat's ass” acting style he had pioneered earlier in his career. Gordon Douglas directs. He made a total of four Sinatra pictures in the 1960s because he was one of the few big-name directors that would brook Sinatra’s “one and done” apathy.Reading the paragraphs above, you may think I hate Mr. Sinatra. I assure you that I do not. I am a big Sinatra fan. I think he was inarguably the greatest singer of the 20th century. I enjoy much of his film work. I have read that he was an amazing friend and often provided financial assistance to strangers. Still, I cannot escape the conclusion that he held film acting in such low regard that, except for a few roles in the 1940s and '50s, he never gave it his all. It’s the laziness and contempt of craft I find regrettable. Like Fast Eddie Felson seeking Vincent’s best game in The Color of Money, I long for more Sinatra performances likes the ones he gave in From Here to Eternity, The Man with the Golden Arm, and The Manchurian Candidate.
AN ANNOYING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PAUSE: My father and uncles were Italian-American men who grew up during the Great Depression and fought in World War II. They were part of the Greatest Generation. I admired them growing up and had great relationships with all but one. Yet until I saw Tony Rome, I never realized the extent to which they all wanted to be Sinatra, specifically Sinatra in Tony Rome. They all listened to his music. They all talked like him. They all dressed like him. They all vacationed in Las Vegas and tipped the maître d' a double sawbuck for a better table. One of them married Mia Farrow.My Uncle Rocky even looked like Sinatra, so it was a double mind fuck to watch this movie. Watching Sinatra in On the Town made me think, “This is how Uncle Rocky met and married his wife.” Watching Sinatra in Tony Rome filled in the blanks of how Uncle Rocky spent his time after he retired from the Chicago Tribune. “Sure, he claimed that he was volunteering at a local hospital, but he was actually living in a houseboat in Miami, working as a private eye, and smooching Jill St. John!”
Now it all makes sense.
Only it doesn’t make sense. Tony Rome is a perfect example of something I have recently started calling “Authentic American Nonsense.” The story makes no sense. Its only artistic intent is to be bought and consumed. It is a slave to what the studio and Sinatra wanted to push as his new image: a boorish, vaguely noir-ish, tough-guy/has-been. Sinatra could have done better if he had any interest in being better.So, should you check out Tony Rome? Sure. To paraphrase Sinatra himself, "throw it on the screen... and give it a whack!" Even half-assed Sinatra is still FRANK SINATRA. There are some great visuals of 1960s Miami and as a bonus, daughter Nancy Sinatra sings the title song.
As for me... I have run the numbers, and I cannot understand how Tony Rome made any profit. Yet, the following year, a sequel was made. It's on my watch list!
I want to see what finally happened to Uncle Rocky.
Tony Rome is one of those titles that has been showed endlessly on the Fox Movie Channel over the years. I have not had enough curiosity about the film to watch it because too many 1960s star vehicles from the major studios have disappointed me. With so many duds being made, I am not surprised that that period of Hollywood history was one of the most challenging for box office returns.
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