Tony Rome (1967)
Picture: B-
Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: B-
In the late 1960s, Frank Sinatra and director Gordon
Douglas teamed up to make three big, widescreen detective-genre films in
Panavision with broad appeal. The first
of them was Tony Rome in 1967, the first of two films in a row in which
Sinatra would play the title character.
As a womanizing, gambling, streetwise, latter-day gumshoe detective,
Rome lives on a boat and takes on cases where he can. The film begins with a case involving propriety. A young girl (Sue Lyon) turns up sleeping
overnight in a not-so-great place and her father (Simon Oakland) wants to find
out what happened and why.
Even more interesting, a diamond pin is missing and
everyone seems very interested in it. Rome
finds it more and more relevant, especially when some of his work gets more
physical than expected. Besides the
fighting, another physical possibility comes along in the form of a sexy
stepmother (Jill St. John) who gives Rome the business in a different way.
The film holds up well enough thanks to Richard Breen’s
screenplay based on the Marvin H. Albert novel, but the inherent problem is
that the film does not know if it is a mystery film or straight-out detective
picture. The great cast and clever dialogue
help overcome these problems, but it is on the choppy side and certainly not as
dark as Lady In Cement or The Detective that followed. However, this is done at such a high
professional level that it has more than enough scenes to more than marvel
at. The amazing cast also includes
Richard Conte, Gena Rowlands, Lloyd Bochner, Rocky Graziano, Shecky Greene and
Jeanne Cooper.
The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is a bit soft
in detail, but is consistent in its clarity and mostly consistent in its DeLuxe
color. The great cinematographer Joseph
M. Biroc, A.S.C., delivers great and consistent classical camerawork that makes
this an extra pleasure to watch. This
was a first-class A-level, studio production and an unusual exception in the
detective genre, where the films are usually very stylized or very cheap
looking and sometimes on purpose for that matter. With the original Film Noir nine years ended, it makes total
sense.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo option is a bit better than
the monophonic options in English, Spanish and French, especially boosted for
this DVD release. Nancy Sinatra sings
the title song, which in the opening and closing credits has the best fidelity
on the disc on the stereo tracks. Nancy hit an amazing career high that year,
including five Top 40 hits (the most in any year for her), a smash #1 duet with
her father in the terrific Somethin’ Stupid and possibly the greatest
record she ever cut in another movie theme from the same year, the title song
to the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. She even cut a 45rpm single version of it, but it was no match
for the film version. Tony Rome
did not chart as a Top 40 single either.
The only extras are a bunch of theatrical film trailers,
usually of Frank Sinatra films, but I give Fox credit for digging up the longer
Tony Rome trailer.
Unfortunately, they still have not found the better, sexier Fathom
trailer, or are suppressing it. It is
great to finally see these Sinatra classics surface on DVD and two of our other
critics will conclude our look at the follow-up films elsewhere on this site.
- Nicholas Sheffo
