The Frank Sinatra Film Guide E-Book

Daniel O'Brien

• Herausgeber: Batsford
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 647

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

On The Town... High Society... From Here To Eternity... The Man With The Golden Arm... Guys and Dolls... The Manchurian Candidate... Van Ryan's Express... The films of Frank Sinatra are startling in their diversity and sheer range. Musicals, comedies, thrillers, war films, intense dramas, sagas of small town America. In The Frank Sinatra Film Guide, Daniel O'Brien provides detailed information on all of Sinatra's movies, co-stars, collaborators and directors - and naturally, full details on all the musical numbers from the films. As well as reassessing Sinatra's contribution to a wide variety of screen genres, O'Brien restates the case for Sinatra as a major and innovative film actor. A true film star, even if he had never sung a note

Leseprobe

Acknowledgements

Grateful thanks to Jeremy Front, Anne Jackson, Burt Kennedy, Gary Kramer, Mark Lonsdale, Ben O’Brien, David O’Leary, Richard Reynolds, Tony Sloman and Bud Yorkin. Thanks also to the people at TLA Video, Philadelphia and Portswood Library, Southampton.

Illustrations: Stills from Step Lively, Double Dynamite, Not as a Stranger and Pal Joey courtesy of Gary Kramer and Jerry Ohlinger. Tony Bill/Nancy Sinatra Marriage on the Rocks still supplied by Flashbacks. All other illustrations supplied by the British Film Institute Stills, Posters and Designs department. All photographs originally issued as publicity material by copyright holders RKO (Higher and Higher, Step Lively, The Miracle of the Bells, Double Dynamite); MGM (Anchors Aweigh, It Happened in Brooklyn, The Kissing Bandit, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, On the Town, The Tender Trap, High Society, Some Came Running, Never So Few, Dirty Dingus Magee); Universal (Meet Danny Wilson); Columbia (From Here to Eternity, Pal Joey, The Devil at 4 O’Clock); United Artists (Suddenly, Not as a Stranger, The Man With the Golden Arm, Johnny Concho, The Pride and the Passion, Kings Go Forth, A Hole in the Head, Sergeants 3, The Manchurian Candidate); Warner (Young at Heart, Ocean’s 11,4 for Texas, Robin and the 7 Hoods, None But the Brave, Marriage on the Rocks, The Naked Runner); Samuel Goldwyn (Guys and Dolls); Paramount (The Joker is Wild, Come Blow Your Horn, Assault on a Queen); Twentieth Century-Fox (Can Can, Von Ryan’s Express, Tony Rome, The Detective, Lady in Cement); Filmways (The First Deadly Sin).

Contents

Introduction

1.   Teen Rage

2.   Hello Sailor

3.   Back in Uniform

4.   Dead Ends

5.   Fightback

6.   Major Contender

7.   Leader of the Pack

8.   Tragi-Comedy

9.   Dramatic Irony

10. Chairman of the Board

11. Hollow Laughter

12. Wartime Heroics

13. The Runner Stumbles

14. Tough Guy

15. Bowing Out

16. Last Chances

Appendices:

Cameos

No-Shows

Miscellaneous

Filmography

Bibliography

Index

INTRODUCTION

Why has Sinatra not developed the professional pride in his movies that he takes in his recordings?

Pauline Kael

I made some pretty good pictures… and I tried a few things that turned out to be mistakes…

Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra is one of the cinema’s great enigmas. Throughout the strange and murky history of motion pictures, few major stars have enjoyed as uneasy a relationship with the film industry, both as popular art form and profit-driven production line. The man variously known as The Voice, The Boss, Chairman of the Board, The Pope and several less flattering epithets appeared in 56 feature-length films, yet for many he barely qualifies as a film star of the first rank and some would argue that Sinatra never really earned his movie spurs at all. From his co-starring debut in the wafer-thin RKO musical Higher and Higher (1943) to his belated comeback/farewell performance in the downbeat policier The First Deadly Sin (1980), there is a near constant question mark hanging over Sinatra’s big-screen career. Why should a phenomenally successful singer – regarded by even his detractors as probably the number one popular entertainer of the twentieth century - take valuable time out from recording and live performances to work in a medium he frequently confessed to finding tedious and frustrating on largely mediocre projects. True, it took a cannily chosen supporting role in From Here to Eternity (1953) to relaunch Sinatra’s utterly moribund career during the early 1950s, yet in comparison to his renewed singing success, first with Capitol Records, then on his own Reprise label, his second coming as a film star proved a bumpy ride, with only The Man With the Golden Arm (1955) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962) enjoying widespread acclaim. Three hits out of 44 starring roles is a poor average, reflecting only too clearly the popular perception of Sinatra’s film work as a secondary, largely uninspired spin-off from his far more considerable musical career. Daughter Nancy describes her father as ‘a phenomenon of life, a force of nature’, but how many self-respecting phenomena seek out guest roles in Cannonball Run II?

This take on Sinatra the film star is, however, utterly bogus, a piece of self-perpetuating mythology bearing as much relation to the facts as the contrasting depictions of Sinatra the man as either flawed saint or whimsically beneficent monster. Leaving aside his numerous and largely negligible cameo/guest appearances, Frank Sinatra’s body of film work is as varied, impressive and rewarding as that of any other top Hollywood star, including Sinatra’s two ‘golden age’ heroes - and friends - Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy Progressing from the amiable, awkward, girl-shy dreamer of his early musicals to the beat-up, world-weary law enforcer of his last major work, Sinatra at his best brought charisma, presence and unquestionable acting ability to the screen, not to mention an unsurpassed singing voice. It is undeniable that he had at least his share of disappointments, compromises and outright flops. Anyone passing a Sunday afternoon sitting through Can Can (1960), 4 for Texas (1963) or Marriage on the Rocks (1965) would be fully justified in wondering why Sinatra bothered to show up for filming. Sinatra’s apathetic performances in these films suggest he felt the same way. His behaviour, both on set and on location, at times left a great deal to be desired, whether as a result of temperament or power-play, often suggesting an emotional development largely arrested during early adolescence. Even in a better mood, Sinatra’s tendency to treat his more lightweight vehicles as a chance for a good time with his buddies yielded unremarkable results, with laziness and self-indulgence emerging triumphant. But to damn a star for his failures and ignore the successes is neither illuminating nor fair. The Humphrey Bogart revered as a supreme movie icon is the hard-boiled/soft-hearted anti-hero of The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep and The African Queen, not the uneasy, miscast leading man of Passage to Marseilles, The Two Mrs Carrolls, Tokyo Joe or The Left Hand of God. Similarly, the Frank Sinatra to watch and admire is not to be found in asinine musicals or dumb comedies but in Suddenly (1954), as a psychotic hired killer; Young at Heart (1954), as a failed composer with an apparent death wish; Some Came Running (1958), as a war veteran and burned-out writer, or The Detective (1968), as an ageing, unhappy cop faced with the failure of both his marriage and his career. In these and numerous other roles, Sinatra carved himself a niche in cinema history that amounts to far more than prancing about in a sailor suit for MGM, picking up an admittedly undeserved Academy Award for Eternity, and playing crooks, cowboys and gangsters with his Clan friends. If there is an element of wastage or disappointment to his film career, it is one endemic to the entire Hollywood machine, both during and after the studio system era. Movies have always been a percentage game and Sinatra scored better than most.

First glimpsed on the big screen as early as 1935 (in black-face), Frank Sinatra began his movie career proper in his capacity as the hottest new singing star of 1942 and probably the first teenage idol ever. Having wowed a 5,000-strong audience during his first solo stage appearance at New York’s Paramount Theatre, Sinatra rapidly became too big a phenomenon for Hollywood to ignore. The initial response was cautious, however, indicating some wariness on the part of studio bosses as to what exactly Sinatra could do in a film and how long audiences would pay to see him do it. Three recent bit appearances as a straight singer – two as part of the Tommy Dorsey Band, one as a solo artist – revealed little more than a potent light baritone voice, pleasantly unremarkable boy-next-door looks and an impressive talent for injecting lyrics with a real sense of feeling. Fine for singing spots but hardly surefire leading man material. A further drawback to Sinatra as a screen property was the nature of his pre-existing audience, largely teenage girls, which virtually guaranteed him a fairly brief shelf-life as a top attraction. Adolescents have a way of growing up and moving on and the next generation always finds new heroes of its own. There was the possibility that Sinatra might catch on with the wider film-going public but this involved a serious gamble on untested talent that few were prepared to make, especially given the mutterings from older generation spokesmen that Sinatra was a bad influence on the nation’s youth, contributing to the growing rate of truancy and delinquency.

So it came to pass that second-division outfit RKO decided to take a chance on Sinatra and put him in two speedily shot musical comedies, Higher and Higher and Step Lively (1944), in the hope of exploiting his popularity while it was at a peak. Deservedly mediocre box-office receipts revealed a slight flaw in RKO’s cynical game plan, and it was Sinatra’s still-flourishing record sales and sell-out concerts rather than any new-found movie appeal that prompted MGM to first request the singer on a loan-out basis and then buy out his contract altogether. Studio boss Louis Mayer was also a sucker for Sinatra’s rendition of the Showboat standard ‘Ol’ Man River’, a factor which helped keep the singer in Mayer’s favour until the end of the decade.

Dressed up in a dark blue sailor suit, teamed with Gene Kelly and photographed in gaudy Technicolor, Sinatra’s MGM starring debut in Anchors Aweigh (1945) brought him his first movie hit, plus a highly lucrative contract with the studio guaranteeing $1.5 million over a five-year period. The film itself was a cumbersome series of flimsily linked – and highly variable – set pieces which came to life only when Sinatra sang or Kelly danced, though sadly not together, neither able to match the other’s level of ability in their respective fields. From this high point, Sinatra’s Hollywood career took an almost immediate downturn, gradual but inexorable. Rapidly acquiring a reputation for being late on set, then throwing star tantrums once he’d actually turned up, Sinatra’s after-hours behaviour soon became a far more considerable headache for his bosses. Rumours of extramarital liaisons with MGM starlets Marilyn Maxwell and Lana Turner filled the gossip columns. Right-wing newspapers attacked Sinatra for his too-liberal politics – accusing him of communist sympathies – and alleged Mafia connections. All this could have amounted to naught had Sinatra continued to draw the cinema crowds, but of his eight starring vehicles released during the 1940s, only two – Anchors Aweigh and On the Town (1949) – were hits, while a ninth, the dreary RKO comedy Double Dynamite, was shelved for nearly three years. Having gambled a considerable amount of time, money, patience and damage limitation on Sinatra, MGM found that their investment simply wasn’t paying off.

Anchors Aweigh. Sinatra crowds Gene Kelly and Kathryn Grayson.

Sinatra’s fall from grace at MGM offers an intriguing chicken/egg situation: did he falter at the box-office because the studio placed him in sub-standard vehicles – The Kissing Bandit (1948) being the most notorious – or did MGM give Sinatra second-rate material because they rapidly discovered that without Gene Kelly at his side audiences just didn’t want to know. Certainly, the overall quality of Sinatra’s first decade in movies is not terribly inspiring: largely fatuous musicals whose occasional bursts of imagination or energy fail to compensate for absurd plot lines and indifferent handling. After the crunch year of 1947, which saw Sinatra losing his teen following to young pretenders Eddie Fisher, Frankie Laine, Johnnie Ray and Tony Martin, and being threatened with prosecution over a public punch-up with journalist Lee Mortimer, not even the critical and commercial success of On the Town could save him. In any event, the return of the men in sailor suits proved to be almost entirely Gene Kelly’s show, a triumph for the film’s co-star, co-choreographer and co-director which left Sinatra largely reduced to a support act. Arguably the most interesting of Sinatra’s 1940s efforts is the RKO production The Miracle of the Bells (1947), a bizarre necrophiliac fantasy featuring the star’s first straight (ish) dramatic performance as the beatific Father Paul, the Catholic priest who knows all. Having taken his amiable but shy boy/sailor/bandit-next-door persona about as far as it could go, Sinatra needed some sort of a break. Critics mocked, audiences stayed away in greater numbers than ever and MGM hurriedly shoved Sinatra back into musicals, hoping to erase his first half-decent acting role from the public consciousness.

Sinatra’s longevity as a film presence is in many ways deceptive. While his on-screen career covers nearly half a century, he enjoyed barely 15 years as a steady box-office draw, from his much hyped comeback in Eternity – surely one of the most impressive resurrections in the history of popular culture – to his last 1960s hit with the cheerfully cynical private eye mystery Lady in Cement (1968). During this period he made the most of his opportunities, appearing in thrillers, musical dramas, medical soap operas, musical romances, intense character dramas, westerns, epics, war films, satirical comedy caper movies, disaster movies, comedy westerns and broad comedies of manners. Not all of these took the public fancy, and there were a couple of dodgy patches during the 1960s when Sinatra appeared to be selecting projects to test his fans’ loyalty – Assault on a Queen, for example. Grilled at the time, he protested that the good scripts simply weren’t there; other accounts suggest that he simply wasn’t looking for them.

The emphasis placed on Eternity in any account of Sinatra’s film career can be similarly misleading. While valuable beyond all measure for relaunching him as both a bankable star and a serious dramatic actor, the film is by no means Sinatra’s best, nor his own performance as downtrodden yet unbreakable GI Angelo Maggio among his strongest. Sinatra’s instinctive grasp of the character plus extensive on-the-job coaching from co-star Montgomery Clift combined to produce a highly competent supporting performance, yet he has scant screen-time and the film itself, while astutely cast and well-crafted, is a superficial, sanitised and ultimately rather sour reduction of the original James Jones bestseller. Academy Award hype aside, there is a stronger case for pointing to Sinatra’s subsequent film, Suddenly, as the real beginning of his acting renaissance, his chillingly unsympathetic portrayal of a would-be presidential assassin drawing some deserved praise but little audience response. Sinatra himself cited his career doldrums-era performance in the self-exploiting musical drama Meet Danny Wilson (1951) as his real acting debut, but neither script nor direction gave him enough to make a convincing case. Throughout the remainder of the 1950s, Sinatra could be relied upon to deliver an effective star performance even if the overall film proved to be flawed, as with Kings Go Forth (1958), or downright terrible, as with Not as a Stranger (1955). His much maligned and mocked performance as a Spanish guerrilla leader in the underrated Napoleonic drama The Pride and the Passion (1957) is by no means the embarrassment of reputation and stands, at the very least, as an honourable failure. It wasn’t until the 1960s and Can Can that a discernible element of indifference, not to say outright boredom, began to creep into some of Sinatra’s lesser work. The party atmosphere of the Clan films tended to undermine the discipline necessary to effective movie-making and Sinatra’s lack of affinity for brash comedy became all too evident in films such as Come Blow Your Horn (1963) and Marriage on the Rocks. Long-standing rumours that Sinatra just didn’t care about his films anymore took on gradually more force and following the back-on-track tough guy trilogy that culminated in Lady in Cement, the by now veteran actor would star in only two more movies, the misfiring comedy western Dirty Dingus Magee (1970) – a film so little regarded not even its director possesses a copy – and the honourable last bow The First Deadly Sin, a commercial and critical disappointment.

Meet Danny Wilson – a garishly fictionalised biopic of Sinatra

The case against Sinatra the film star has tended to focus on the accusation of wasted talent rather than no talent at all. An Academy Award and a further nomination – for Golden Arm – are difficult to dismiss, even if one regards the whole Oscar industry as an upmarket cattle show or incestuous pat-on-the-back. Over the years, numerous friends and colleagues of Sinatra publicly expressed the feeling that if only he would make the effort and take his film career with appropriate seriousness, he could be one of the best, if not the new King of Hollywood. Bogart, who numbered Sinatra among his very few close actor friends, felt the singer lacked the maturity and dedication necessary to translate his raw talent into a first rate movie career. Billy Wilder, a self-professed devotee of both the artist and the man, claimed he could never risk hiring Sinatra for a film, fearing all the while that the latter would simply lose interest and sneak off with his latest girlfriend: ‘I’m afraid he would run after the first take.’ Stanley Kramer, producer-director on the troubled productions of Not as a Stranger and The Pride and the Passion, put it more bluntly: ‘If Sinatra really prepared for a role, researched it, he’d be the greatest actor in the world.’ Even Shirley MacLaine, who got an early career break opposite Sinatra in Some Came Running, lamented her co-star’s dislike of rehearsals and multiple takes: ‘He feels polishing might make him stagnant’. MacLaine also put forward the theory that some deep-rooted fear of failure held Sinatra back from giving his best to most performances, providing him with the handy get-out clause that, should his work be criticised, he could always riposte with the claim that he hadn’t really been trying. This holds some water in the case of films such as Can Can – which co-stars MacLaine at her most teeth-grindingly shrill – or Sergeants 3, but evaporates with a film like The Manchurian Candidate, a hugely controversial project that only made it to the screen thanks to Sinatra’s determination.

Sinatra’s notorious impatience with the process of film-making – manifested as early as Step Lively – certainly caused serious friction on a number of his films. Directors, co-stars and technicians who did not share his enthusiasm or flair for fast, spontaneous work rapidly found themselves at odds with the man. In one of the more famous Sinatra incidents, the star allegedly stopped work mid-take during the production of Young at Heart and demanded that the film’s Academy Award-winning director of photography be replaced with a cameraman who could work faster. How much this attitude was due to an irreconcilable clash of legitimate working methods and how much sheer impatience and laziness on Sinatra’s part is difficult to determine. Several of his later films have an over-casual, under-written and under-rehearsed feel, indicating a star anxious to be elsewhere once an acceptable take was in the can. It is undeniably the case that a number of Sinatra films – Meet Danny Wilson, The Pride and the Passion, The Naked Runner (1967) – were never completed as intended owing to their star’s refusal to shoot all the required scenes (largely a result of location boredom or private-life angst). On the other hand, the justly famous cold-turkey sequence in Golden Arm was filmed in one take with no prior rehearsal and remains one of Sinatra’s most impressive scenes. As a rule, if the material was good and the director, cast and crew sympathetic to Sinatra’s approach, the results could be outstanding.

Another potential stumbling block for Sinatra’s claim to screen greatness is his comparative dearth of credits with the more acclaimed Hollywood film-makers. Leaving aside his late 1940s work with the then brand new creative team of Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, Sinatra starred or co-starred under the direction of Fred Zinnemann (Eternity); Joseph L. Mankiewicz (Guys andDolls); Otto Preminger (Golden Arm); Vincente Minnelli (Some Came Running); Frank Capra (A Hole in the Head); John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) and Robert Aldrich (4 for Texas). Even from these seven collaborations, only the films with Preminger, Minnelli and Frankenheimer are truly first rate. Eternity is highly polished schlock; Guys and Dolls is an overproduced, overblown mishmash of a musical with only one effective scene; Hole is a pleasant but curiously underwhelming comedy and Texas is unspeakable. Stanley Kramer and John Sturges could also be included in this modest pantheon, especially given their successful work with Sinatra – Sturges on the war drama Never So Few (1959), but with quantity comes also a drop in quality. Kramer, famed for his liberal dramas of social conscience and responsibility, usually merited points for effort rather than achievement and Sturges’ well-earned reputation as a top action director plummeted after the early 1960s. In any event, all this really tells us is that powerful stars and powerful directors do not always make for compatible bedfellows. Nor can Sinatra be singled out as the one reason several of these films failed. Zinnemann was an art-house director badly in need of a commercial hit when he worked with the star, Capra a faded talent in noticeable decline, and both Mankiewicz and Aldrich were attempting to tackle genres for which they had no affinity whatsoever.

Sinatra in The Man With the Golden Arm – desperate to kick his heroin addiction

Of more interest is the fact that, despite his activities as a film producer from the mid-1950s, Sinatra assembled relatively few regular film collaborators from any field over the years. This is in marked contrast to his singing career, where he enjoyed long and fruitful partnerships with lyricist Sammy Cahn, composers Jule Styne and Jimmy Van Heusen and conductor-arrangers Axel Stordahl, Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins and Billy May, all of whom were recruited for Sinatra movies with varying success. A glance through the star’s film credits offers up producer Howard Koch (six Sinatra movies), director Gordon Douglas (five) plus cameramen William H. Daniels (eleven) and Joseph Biroc (five). With regard to Sinatra’s fellow actors, apart from the MGM-dictated partnership with Gene Kelly, it’s basically just his fellow Clansman Peter Lawford (four); Dean Martin (seven); Sammy Davis Jr (three) and Joey Bishop (two), plus honorary Clan ‘mascot’ MacLaine (two and a half), tough-guy character actors Richard Conte (four) and Henry Silva (four) and fresh-faced juvenile Tony Bill (three). Cynical observers would claim that the brisk turnover of Sinatra co-workers is just one more reflection of his reputation for on-set moodiness and unpredictability. Alternatively, it can be reasonably argued that, despite the numerous Sinatra-controlled film production companies – Kent, Essex, SinCap, Dorchester, SAM, Artanis, Sinatra Enterprises, the star never felt a pressing need to become a one-man film factory. Lucrative movie deals, notably with United Artists during the 1950s and Warner Brothers during the 1960s, gave Sinatra a level of control, both financial and creative, he evidently felt to be sufficient.

Directing None But the Brave?

Of course, there is one substantial skeleton in Sinatra’s movie-making closet. His 1960 attempt to take more hands-on artistic control over his work, turning director with the controversial project The Execution of Private Slovik, resulted in one of the most humiliating fiascos of Sinatra’s entire career, with the film abandoned and Sinatra’s position as untouchable superstar badly shaken. His one subsequent film as director, the flawed but intriguing anti-war drama None But the Brave (1965) showed him to be up to the task but lacking the necessary commitment and passion for further work as a producer-director-star. If there is one genuine might-have-been element to the star’s film career, it’s Sinatra the auteur, despite considerable assistance on Brave from regular collaborator Gordon Douglas.

One final point worth making with regard to Sinatra’s position as a legitimate film star is the way he transcended the standard downward-spiral career pattern of the popular singer turned film performer. Bing Crosby, Sinatra’s inspiration, rival and friend, enjoyed a lengthy sojourn in movies which largely boils down to the little-remembered Rhythm series of the 1930s/40s; the popular, if less than classic Road films with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, and his first two appearances as a jovial priest in Going My Way and The Bells of St Mary’s. True, he also played a more dramatic role, an alcoholic ex-singer, in The Country Girl, but the film itself is mediocre and Crosby failed to pursue this new direction. Sinatra buddy Dean Martin, freed from the shackles of Jerry Lewis, notched up impressive starring performances in The Young Lions, Some Came Running, Rio Bravo, Bells Are Ringing and Kiss Me Stupid but spent too much of his movie career in lacklustre westerns, feeble comedies – several at Sinatra’s invitation – and the dreary Matt Helm spy spoofs. Elvis Presley, having displayed real star power in Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, found his promising film career fatally compromised with a slew of lighter-than-air musical fluff. Barbra Streisand, the one singer-actor since Sinatra to achieve real long-term Hollywood power and substantial film roles, has largely scuppered her movie career via bloated egotism and meagre output, making each new Streisand production an ‘event’ to be revered by her fans and spat on by her detractors. Even in his most arduous and valued performances for Golden Arm and Manchurian Candidate, Frank Sinatra was never a show-off star. Indeed, his most enduring movie persona is that of the heroic loser, the tough-tender man of integrity who values honour and true friendship above material success and social standing. Time and again he loses the woman he loves – or thinks he loves – whether to his best friend or comrade-in-arms (Anchors Aweigh, It Happened in Brooklyn, Meet Danny Wilson, The Pride and the Passion, Kings Go Forth), an ex-husband (Tony Rome), an ex-boyfriend’s bullet (Some Came Running), terminal illness (The First Deadly Sin) or his own moral choice (The Devil at 4 O’Clock, The Detective). He throws away years of loyal service to a hallowed institution when he realises that continued success is dependent on him embracing a corrupt or unjust system (Never So Few, The Detective, The First Deadly Sin). Sinatra also has a strong track record of dying in his films – at a rate few contemporary stars would consider wise – in ways tragic (From Here to Eternity), heroic (The Pride and the Passion, The Devil at 4 O’Clock, Von Ryan’s Express) and much deserved (Suddenly). The fresh-faced gimmick co-star of Higher and Higher became both a charismatic leading man and an actor determined to test his powers and risk his star image. What more could be asked?

The Detective – exploiting the new tolerance and appetite for graphic violence.

1

Tean Rage

1943 – 1944

HIGHER AND HIGHER 1943

It’s for you. Name of Sinatra.

Mickey the maid

On 30 December 1942 Francis Albert Sinatra made his debut as a solo performer at New York’s Paramount Theatre. Having paid his dues with stints among the ranks of Major Edward Bowes and his Original Amateur Hour artistes, the Harry James Orchestra and the Tommy Dorsey Band, the 27-year-old Italian-American from Hoboken, New Jersey, stood before a 5,000-strong audience and delivered a knock-out performance. On 12 August 1943, Sinatra arrived at Pasadena Station, California to be greeted by 5,000 teenage fans as he made his way to Hollywood and the beginning of his film career as a fully fledged leading man. Stopping one station short of Los Angeles to avoid the expected throng, he found his plan backfiring, ending up trapped at the station for two hours while police cleared the crowds. A traumatic experience, perhaps, yet clear evidence that the fans who’d swooned over ‘All Or Nothing At All’ were just drooling in anticipation of their idol’s new movie magic.

The box of tricks for this particular spellbinder came courtesy of the RKO Pictures Corporation, smallest of the major Hollywood studios and probably the least financially stable. The parent company, Radio-Keith-Orpheum, had bitten the dust in 1933 and its surviving subsidiary often looked like going the same way. Sinatra’s solo guest appearance in the surprise-hit Columbia musical Reveille with Beverly (1942, see Appendix 1) had demonstrated his potential as a box-office draw and RKO needed all the audience pullers it could get its hands on. Negotiating through his appointed agents GAC (General Artists Corporation), a minor league version of MCA (Music Corporation of America), Sinatra signed a seven year deal with the studio which paid $25,000 for his first picture, with a cumulative 100 percent pay rise for each subsequent film, and allowed him one non-RKO film on loan-out per year. Sinatra later claimed that he’d never expected his first films for RKO to amount to much, and he was quite right. Devised by press agent cum manager George Evans as a shrewd form of portfolio diversification, the new film deal might at least broaden Sinatra’s fan base, shifting a few more records and concert tickets.

Loosely based on a flop Broadway musical written by the half famous team of Gladys Hurlbut and Joshua Logan, with one song contributed by the highly respected Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart duo, Higher and Higher hardly offered the most dazzling showcase for young Sinatra. For starters, he had no say in the songwriters, or songs, used for the film and had to be content with recruiting arranger Axel Stordahl – a fellow Dorsey veteran – as his one off-camera artistic decision. Aware of the original show’s limitations, the studio requested an extra song, ‘I Couldn’t Sleep a Wink Last Night’, for Sinatra from composer Jimmy McHugh and lyricist Harold Adamson, and hired writers William Bowers and Howard Harris to provide additional dialogue. Most of the latter duo’s energy appears to have been spent devising feeble Sinatra in-jokes and the end result still smacks of utter mediocrity. The non-Sinatra songs, including the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart number ‘Disgustingly Rich’, are instantly forgettable and the choreography ploddingly unimaginative. The token storyline is flimsy to the point of non-existence, involving a group of enterprising servants attempting to restore their bankrupt employer’s fortunes by passing one of the maids off as his marriage-hungry daughter. Indeed, one of the oddest aspects of the film is its failure to actually incorporate Sinatra into the plot. Appearing as a fictional version of himself, he is little more than a guest star, third-billed above the title with an ‘and’ to prefix his name. This is a pretty accurate listing as Higher and Higher is a film with a story, characters and Frank Sinatra singing a bit. Those of a more charitable disposition may attempt to make a case for it as a subversive satire on bourgeois pretensions and greed – not to mention socialist-style business enterprise – but a questionable subtext or two without an interesting surface isn’t much of an attraction. Indeed, the idea of a meek young woman being maniplated into a loveless marriage to bail out her co-workers and useless boss is rather cold-blooded.

Higher and Higher – Sinatra marvels at Milly the Maid’s (Michèle Morgan) transformation.

The production set-up for Higher and Higher was very much of the ‘B’ variety, using modest standing studio sets, crude back projection and no location work. Producer-director Tim Whelan had been a protégé of comedy star Harold Lloyd before departing for England in 1928 and directing several films for UK mogul Alexander Korda, notably Q Planes (1939) and approximately 20 percent of The Thief of Bagdad (1940). Returning to the United States in 1940, Whelan found his career experiencing a marked downslide – from Thief of Bagdad to The Mad Doctor (1941). Now an RKO regular, Whelan had recently worked as both producer and director on the studio’s musical comedy Seven Days’ Leave (1942), with Lucille Ball and Victor Mature, doing a competent enough job to be entrusted with the Sinatra assignment. Seven Days’ Leave belongs in the category of cheery mediocrity and Higher represented no great improvement. The direction is unimaginative, often static, with much use of medium shots, and Whelan allows his cast to overplay, emphasising the material’s stage origins with little concession to the film medium. Unlike his director, cameraman Robert De Grasse had worked on a number of ‘A’ list RKO productions – Stage Door, Bachelor Mother, Kitty Foyle – and would photograph all four of Sinatra’s feature films for the studio.

Filming began in mid-August 1943, lasting eight weeks. Sinatra’s top-billed co-stars were the decidedly odd-couple combination of French actress Michèle Morgan and comedian Jack Haley, who’d already attained his career peak as Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Morgan had first come to international attention looking soulful in a beret and raincoat in Marcel carne’s Quai des Brumes (1938). Impressed by Morgan’s performance in the latter, top American agent Charles Feldman arranged a contract with RKO. The studio had little idea what to do with her, first buying the rights to the Eric Ambler thriller Journey Into Fear as a career-launching showcase for Morgan, then giving her role to Dolores del Rio. If Higher and Higher was intended as some kind of consolation prize, Morgan must have been mightily unimpressed. Badly miscast as Milly the dowdy scullery maid, she handles her flat dialogue with commendable professionalism most of the time, but the character’s supposedly touching innocence borders on the dim-witted and the result is embarrassing (her singing isn’t great either). The outcome of her apparently unrequited love for valet Mike O’Brien (Haley) is predictable from frame one and the clothes and hairstyle provided for Morgan’s scenes posing as a high society debutante do her no favours. The more assured supporting cast included former Ziegfeld star Leon Errol, an implausibly rubber-faced Australian comic with an amusing walk and a severe drink problem. His role as dissolute yet loveable drunkard Mr Drake probably required little in the way of major acting. Sinatra was given a tentative love interest in the form of starlet Barbara Hale, and musical/comedy back-up from Victor Borge, Mel Torme and Dooley Wilson, who’d played it again in Casablanca the previous year.

As for Sinatra himself, the novice actor is really the best thing in Higher and Higher, despite RKO’s nervous, self-conscious treatment of him. Approximately 25 minutes into the film, there is a knock on the front door of Drake’s residence. Drake’s junior maid Mickey (Marcy McGuire) answers and in the doorway stands Sinatra. He delivers his first ever line of dialogue: ‘Good morning. My name is Frank Sinatra’ and the lovestruck maid faints into his arms. He has that effect. Dressed in a casual yet smart jacket, with bow tie, slicked-back hair and flowers for Milly, this ‘Frank Sinatra’ is a wholesome, clean-cut version designed for easy public consumption (no hot temper, shady friends or rampant extra-marital libido here). Sensibly underplaying his lines, Sinatra projects a pleasant manner, his appealing ordinariness underlined by his slight build, prominent ears, pointy chin, large lower lip and generously sized nose – not a million miles away from the sad-monkey looks of Fred Astaire or Stan Laurel. His only connection to the plot at this point is that close neighbour Sinatra often waves to Milly from across the courtyard and is concerned about not seeing her for the past few days. He then launches into ‘I Couldn’t Sleep…’, accompanied by Dooley Wilson on piano and a disembodied orchestra in the background. The song is nothing special, but Sinatra gives the lyrics an emotional warmth that puts the surrounding film to shame. The fact that the feelings conveyed are strictly platonic is an unusual touch that enhances rather than weakens the effect. Confident vocally, Sinatra appears just a little awkward physically, betraying his lack of acting experience. He seems unsure what to do with his hands, often clasping them together, and exiting from his last shot of the scene with Morgan, he glances into the camera just as they move out of frame. Following this five-minute appearance, Sinatra gets to sing three more songs. Dressed in a tuxedo, he delivers ‘The Music Stopped’ at the Butlers Ball, also participating in a modest dance with Morgan and Hale. Reverting to jacket and bow tie, he then duets with Mickey the maid – a feistier version of the young Judy Garland – on ‘I Saw You First’, which includes the interesting lyric ‘Think you could ever stand a crooner?’ Sinatra failed to show fan McGuire the same consideration off-camera, the actress becoming upset over her idol’s detached manner and preoccupation with his other business interests. Song number four, ‘A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening’, is partly sung to tune of Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony, which presumably was someone’s idea of class. Aside from his half-baked romance with Hale – little more than an underwritten plot contrivance to tidy up loose ends – Sinatra’s only real purpose in the story is to serve as Milly’s friend, confidante and moral guide. In his longest scene, towards the end of the film, he dispenses words of wisdom: ‘I think that marriage is an institution that no family can do without’, convincing her that a loveless marriage for money is just not right.

As for the Sinatra in-jokes, the cast deliver them with all the verve and panache they deserve. Following Sinatra’s first appearance, Drake stumbles downstairs, complaining to his assistant about the noise:

DRAKE:   Sandy, who was that singing down here? Bing Crosby?

SANDY:   Bing bang Sinatra.

DRAKE:   Well, he’ll never get anyplace.

This less than side-splitting exchange was either an accompaniment to or hurried replacement for the script’s original Sinatra-Crosby joke, which involved a cameo appearance from the man himself. During a street scene, Sinatra and Crosby would ride past each other on bicycles, stop, dismount, stick out their tongues, then ride on to much audience hilarity. A longtime fan of Crosby, Sinatra met the champion crooner for the first time in September 1943, during production on Higher and Higher. Alas, Crosby couldn’t make the shooting dates – either that or he cost too much – and all that remains of the idea is Sinatra riding a bicycle with an unlit pipe clenched in his teeth, demonstrating admirable co-ordination but little comic effect. At least Crosby could sing with a pipe in his mouth. Having exhausted their Crosby-related repertoire, the writers appeared to lose what little enthusiasm they had. Following another Sinatra entrance, Milly turns to Mike:

Higher and Higher – Going Dutch. Matchmaker Sinatra offers encouragement to Marcy McGuire and Mel Torme.

MILLY: You remember Mr…

MIKE:   Yes, yes, we’ve heard that name before.

Last and probably least, when Barbara Hale expresses a romantic interest in Sinatra, her allegedly English maid ripostes with: ‘He looks just like someone I heard on the radio.’ This is the kind of film where the most impressive artistic touches are the opening and closing titles. Higher and Higher begins with the credits ascending into a cloud filled sky – white clouds, of course, this is a feel-good movie. It’s a little literal-minded, to be sure, but that’s a minor quibble. At the conclusion, the newly united Milly and Mike waltz off into the same sky. Sinatra then appears, floating in the air while he sings a reprise of ‘The Music Stopped’, and growing to giant size. The notion of teenage idol as celestial being is an intriguing one. Pity there’s nothing quite so interesting in the actual movie.

With filming completed, Sinatra returned east to New Jersey, the contract for his next RKO movie already signed and the production scheduled to begin in December. The studio’s decision not to wait for the box-office returns on their first Sinatra opus before launching into a second could be taken as a sign of RKO’s confidence in their new star. Alternatively, they were desperate to milk his youthful following before it evaporated. Carefully timed to catch the Christmas market – if ever a film needed audience goodwill this was it – Higher was released on 18 December 1943 in the bigger American cities, with a general release in January 1944. While denied the top spot on the credit roll, Sinatra was the major focus for the film’s publicity drive. Disregarding his three previous feature appearances, RKO promoted their film as Sinatra’s screen debut. Posters announced THE SINATRA SHOW, along with the understated legend:

‘The voice that’s THRILLING THE WORLD teamed with a half dozen popular top-flight comedians in a glittering, glorious musical show – chock full of romance with haunting whistleable songs, dances, laughs!’

Sinatra also got the biggest picture on the advertising, his beaming face dominating the bottom right-hand corner of the posters. Reviews were mixed, with a curious west/east coast pro/anti split. The Hollywood Citizen News declared: ‘He portrays himself so naturally that you catch yourself thinking, “He can act, too”.’ The Hollywood Reporter took a similar line: ‘People who have never understood his appeal to swooning fans…will have no trouble in buying the guy they meet on the screen here.’ The New York Herald-Tribune offered a more balanced view of the new star’s screen ‘debut’, pronouncing that Sinatra ‘does his stint remarkably well for a comparative novice. His ugly, bony face photographs well; his voice registers agreeably enough… and he handles himself easily.’ Influential New York Times critic Bosley Crowther was unimpressed, making the rather obvious comment that ‘Frankie is no Gable or Barrymore’ and dismissing the overall film as ‘a slapdash setting for the incredibly unctuous renderings of the Voice. He is graciously permitted to warble and ooze out what passes for charm.’ According to columnist and friend Earl Wilson, Sinatra was genuinely taken aback by the harsher critical jibes, quite possibly feeling that such a modest production hardly merited such heavy artillery. Of all the reviews, the verdict from the Los Angeles Times proved the most prescient in the light of Sinatra’s subsequent film career: ‘The crooner certainly doesn’t fulfil the cinema’s traditional idea of a romantic figure, which may be a break for him eventually. He…appears more at ease than we expected, and should find a place as a film personality with careful choice of subjects.’

As expected, the bobby-sox crowd turned up in reasonable droves – with accompanying sales of sheet music and magazine covers – but the wider cinema-going public proved largely indifferent, resulting in disappointing box-office. By way of compensation, the specially penned ‘I Couldn’t Sleep a Wink Last Night’ received a 1944 Academy Award nomination. Despite the unspectacular domestic receipts, not to mention Sinatra’s relative obscurity overseas, Higher and Higher was given a fairly rapid British release in May 1944, when it met with overwhelming apathy. Describing Sinatra as ‘America’s new pin-up crooner’, critic Dilys Powell proceeded with a genteel hatchet job largely at the expense of the star’s looks: ‘Mr Sinatra is a young man with a triangular, knobby face, high cheekbones, a rather pronounced jaw-line and a voice with the quality of slightly worn velveteen.’ Sinatra would not be a big box-office draw in Britain until his Eternity comeback. His next movie for the studio would be a musical version of a Broadway hit which had already generated one flop for RKO and showed every sign of producing another.

Step Lively – Sinatra expresses his approval of Gloria De Haven’s acceptably small hat.

STEP LIVELY 1944

Voice like that and the guy wants to be a playwright.

Gordon Miller, bankrupt impressario

It all began with Zeppo Marx. Three decades on, Sinatra would many Zeppo’s ex-wife, Barbara Marx nee Blakely. For the time being, he contented himself with starring in a reworked version of an RKO property negotiated by Zeppo as a vehicle for his older, funnier brothers. Room Service, a frantic John Murray-Allan Boretz farce set in the world of down-at-heel show people, had been a huge success on Broadway after premiering in the summer of 1937. Ever in need of a hit, RKO made a deal with producer George Abbott to obtain the film rights for $255,000, a record amount at the time. Feeling that the material could be ideal for showcasing the Marx trio in a more mainstream comedy, Zeppo Marx approached the studio with his idea. Released in late September 1938, the Marx Brothers Room Service flopped to the net sum of $340,000. Having blown over $500,000 on the production, an understandably aggrieved RKO felt they hadn’t got great value for money on the deal. Barely five years later they decided to revamp the property Sinatra-style in an attempt to recoup the original investment. Nice try but no cigarillo. After a bright start, Step Lively lapses into treadmill routine, despite the unusual sight of bearded chorus boys spouting water from their turbans.

The musical remake began life under the more sedate title of Manhattan Serenade. Most of the production team on Higher and Higher were retained, with one notable addition. Having made two films in a row with dual responsibilities, Tim Whelan happily surrendered the producer slot to Robert Fellows, a former Warner employee. Appreciating that top-billed Sinatra could not yet carry a film on his own, RKO assembled a solid supporting cast, even approaching MGM to borrow two of the larger studio’s second rank stars. Bland leading man George Murphy was cast in the Groucho Marx role of a wheeler-dealer theatrical producer who persuades naive aspiring playwright Sinatra to participate in his new show Gloria De Haven, recruited as Sinatra’s love interest, was one of the numerous MGM starlets who never quite made it. For a touch of suave sophistication, RKO hired Adolphe Menjou, star of The Front Page (1931) and A Star is Born (1937); for gruff comedy relief the studio looked to Eugene Pallette, best remembered for his sword-wielding, mutton-guzzling Friar Tuck in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Casting by numbers, to be sure, but quality numbers. Way down the cast list, budding starlet Dorothy Malone was given a brief, unbilled bit part as a hotel switchboard operator, her scant lines amounting to little more than ‘Calls for Mr Miller’. A decade on, she would be reunited with Sinatra as a fully-fledged star in Young at Heart, her naturally dark hair turned aggressive blonde via the miracle of peroxide.

Of his co-stars, Sinatra got on best with De Haven, nicknaming her ‘The Comb’ after her habit of near-constant hair preening. Not cutting-edge wit, perhaps, but a good-natured spin on his own tag as ‘The Voice’. He probably had less to say to hardline Republicans Murphy and Menjou, close friends and regular golfing partners. Raised as a devout Democrat by his politically active mother Natalie ‘Dolly’ Sinatra, the star was never slow to parade his ideological beliefs. Sinatra’s public support for Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 re-election campaign attracted a lot of flack from the right-wing press, who claimed that frivolous showbiz celebrities had no place on political platforms. Hollywood tended to agree, feeling that politically outspoken stars risked alienating at least half their potential adult audience.

Having been landed with a score over which he had no say for Higher and Higher, Sinatra now got the chance to select his own musical collaborators. First choice was lyricist Sammy Cahn, a friend and colleague from the Dorsey days who would go on to write for Sinatra for the rest the his career – ‘…whenever Frank needs a lyric you can bet I’m there.’ Since 1942, Cahn had regularly teamed up with composer Jule Styne and the duo agreed to provide the four modest showstoppers that would serve as Step Lively’s major selling point: ‘Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are’, ‘As Long As There’s Music’. ‘Where Does Love Begin?’ and ‘Some Other Time’. While hardly a milestone in screen musical history, the songs are agreeably catchy, even if ‘As Long…’ sounds rather similar to Higher and Higher’s ‘The Music Stopped’. The mildly incestuous-sounding ‘Where Does Love Begin?’ includes the memorable lyric ‘A kiss from my sister doesn’t bring on a blister’, which is better than anything in Anchors Aweigh. Cahn shared a Sunset Towers apartment with Axel Stordahl, back on board as Sinatra’s arranger, and the star himself lived only two floors below them for a while.

Step Lively also witnessed the first recorded star tantrum of Sinatra’s movie career. During the Higher shoot, he had been too preoccupied with the challenge of playing ‘himself on-camera and the sheer novelty of filmmaking to have much time for arguments. One film on and he felt ready to flex a few star muscles. Ironically, the object of his discontent rested on the head of his good friend ‘The Comb’. Sinatra refused to shoot one scene with De Haven after taking a strong dislike to her large hat, walking off the set with the announcement that he’d return once the offending item was changed. Always sensitive about his comparatively modest stature – 5ft 9” on a good day – Sinatra already regarded his co-star as dangerously tall and the hat was just too much to take. Wardrobe produced an acceptably squat substitute and filming resumed.

The only other Sinatra-related slowdown during production resulted directly from the star magic RKO was determined to exploit. After a few days of shooting, the studio had to declare Step Lively a closed set, as far too many RKO secretaries were deserting their desks to watch Sinatra at work. Always appreciative of his fans, the star was happy to sign autographs and chat with his admirers between takes. His employers were less happy about the conversations Sinatra held with visiting journalists. Interviewed on set, Sinatra was recklessly open about his problems with the film business: ‘I like making movies, though sometimes it nearly drives me crazy to wait…for years I have been used to rapid work – radio and bands. Out here, I have to sit and wait between scenes.’ In this brief press quote lies the key to one of Sinatra’s biggest hang-ups as a movie star: he hadn’t learned and would never really learn to deal with the slow pace, endless delays and necessary repetition involved in the process. Film-making practicalities aside, the star also had strong reservations about the quality of his second RKO vehicle. According to Earl Wilson, Sinatra was not at all happy with the film during shooting and regularly confided his feelings to De Haven between shots. Just how much this lack of enthusiasm affected Sinatra’s performance in the finished film is open to question. It has been claimed that he is noticeably bored-looking in several scenes, yet his occasional flatness of expression could just as readily be attributed to lack of acting experience and inadequate direction from Whelan. First seen in a dark suit and tie, his typewriter under one arm, Sinatra plays the naive yet determined Glen in a slightly twitchy fashion, appearing eager and nervous in about equal measure. He delivers his lines without much flair but the dialogue is fairly mediocre anyway.

In fairness, Step Lively is by and large an improvement on its predecessor. Whelan directs with a little more pace, the script is passable and the convoluted plot at least gives the cast some material to work with, notably Walter Slezak as the amusingly named hotel manager Mr Gribble, (‘They’re not human beings. They’re actors’.) Opening the film with a long tracking shot of a hotel bellboy doing his rounds, Whelan also throws in a reflection shot and an overhead dolly, hinting at a visual flair barely suggested in Higher and Higher. The ballroom set piece ‘Some Other Time’ ends with a Busby Berkeley-style overhead shot of Sinatra and De Haven decoratively arranged on the floor, flanked by a quartet of chorus girls. For the climactic ‘As Long as There’s Music’/‘Some Other Time’ reprise/medley, the stars appear in dazzling white against a jet black background. Both stylish and economical. Sadly, the decent musical sequences are not matched by the linking plot segments, despite the latter’s pedigree Broadway origins. The manic pace, constant rushing about and rapid-fire dialogue fail to disguise the overall secondhand feel to the film. Both Murphy and Menjou overact, the former’s shifty-hustler character quickly becoming tiresome. Hiding 22 impoverished actors in his penthouse suite, Miller should come across a loveable rogue, but Murphy only manages the latter element. The film ends with Sinatra, De Haven and Murphy announcing ‘That’s All!’ direct to camera, which is both crass and a direct steal from the Warner Bros ‘Merrie Melodies’ cartoons.

Nervous acting aside, Sinatra is fairly well incorporated into the Step Lively storyline. Unable to generate much interest in his social-conscience drama ‘God’s Speed’. Glen is fortunately blessed with a magical singing voice, which the script is at pains to promote: ‘If that guy was the Pied Piper of Hamlyn there wouldn’t be a dame left in town.’ Loosely based on the character played by Harpo Marx in Room Service, Glen’s biggest dramatic moment is the faked suicide-deathbed scene that allows Miller to get his new show rolling while the hotel inspector’s attention is diverted. Looking a little lost beneath the bed covers, Sinatra at least manages to convey his character’s discomfort. Aside from playing his first ‘proper’ character, Sinatra also enjoyed his first screen kiss, a full-blooded if not overly passionate clinch with De Haven, playing Miller’s neglected girlfriend Christine. Colliding in the hotel lobby – ‘Your typewriter’s open’ – their subsequent relationship is utterly without surprises, the happy outcome laboriously hindered by Miller’s scheming. Sinatra’s kiss-free ‘romance’ with Barbara Hale in Higher and Higher had been an utter non-event, perhaps indicative of concern on RKO’s part that Sinatra fans would react unfavourably to their idol being pawed and smooched by another woman. Doubtless bracing themselves for a storm of adolescent rage, the studio executives threw caution to the wind and allowed their star full lip-contact. Blessed with blonde hair, pleasant looks and more than passable vocal talents, De Haven makes an effective screen partner for Sinatra, memorably singing ‘Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are’ while luxuriating in an on-stage bubble bath. Described by journalist E.J. Kahn Jnr as an ‘unprecedented bit of eroticism’, the smooch was big enough news to warrant a four-page spread in Look magazine. Sinatra also got to snog Anne Jeffreys, cast as predatory budding starlet Jean Abbot, though their faces disappear from view just before the crucial moment. Besides, Glen doesn’t fancy her anyway.

Hoping to draw the summer crowds, RKO released Step Lively on 27 June 1944. Reviewers, underwhelmed by the film itself, predicted more lust-struck teenage masses. As Time magazine put it with just a hint of indecency: ‘Sinatra’s name on the marquee is sufficient to guarantee lipsticky posters on the outside, moaning galleryites within.’ For all the lipstick stains and moaning, the film proved another commercial letdown. The kids still showed up but they didn’t bring anyone else with them. Sinatra had another five years to run on his RKO contract and the prospect was becoming less enticing by the day. Two flops in a row could embarrass even the biggest Hollywood star, let alone a novice still largely dependent on his off-screen musical success for continued public interest. By this time, Sinatra had departed CAG for the rather more powerful MCA and his new representatives were not slow to kick-start his apathetic film career. RKO had just borrowed some MGM players; now the favour was to be returned. Taking advantage of the loan-out clause in Sinatra’s contract, MCA negotiated a starring role in Anchors Aweigh, a lavish A-budget Sailors-in-Hollywood musical that looked a surefire winner.

2

Hello Sailor

1944 – 1948

ANCHORS AWEIGH 1945

I was born with a couple of left feet, and it was Gene and only Gene who got me to dance.

Frank Sinatra

Gee, I’ve got a feeling I’m fickle.

Clarence Doolittle

In January 1944, Frank Sinatra appeared at a benefit concert for The Jewish Home for the Aged, Los Angeles. The undoubted highlight of his performance was a show-stopping rendition of ‘Ol’ Man River’. In the audience sat MGM boss Louis B. Mayer who, according to Nancy Sinatra, was moved to tears by her father’s rendition and determined there and then to sign Frank Sinatra for his studio. Sinatra had been on the MGM payroll once before, singing with the Dorsey band in the Eleanor Powell comedy Ship Ahoy (1942, see Appendix 1), though chances are Mayer never bothered to look at the film. He would have to wait a little while now that Sinatra was hot but, as a rule, what Mayer wanted he got.

Sinatra’s disappointing start in movies had not affected his off-screen musical career and he was still enjoying sell-out performances at such New York hot spots as the Paramount Theater and La Bomba nightclub. MGM came calling and Sinatra signed his loan-out deal with the studio in February 1944. Instead of the $25,000 paid by RKO, his starting salary at MGM was $130,000 per film. Impressed by his new star power, Sinatra knew full well that the deal also offered a few drawbacks. If the studio bought up his RKO contract in its entirety, he would have no say in the scripts he was allocated, and should he refuse to make a film, the much-dreaded suspension clause would come into effect until the rejected project had finished production. That said, the dressing rooms were better than the ones at RKO and Sinatra was permitted the luxury of a telephone, normally forbidden on the grounds that any ringing noise could be heard on set and ruin a take. The star later described the MGM star treatment as ‘like a womb’; offering comfort, security and no real responsibility at all. A downside to being at the studio with ‘More stars than there are in the heavens’ was the sudden perspective afforded Sinatra regarding his own talents as a film performer. The golden voice that had sufficed at RKO was no longer quite enough and the singing star later admitted to suffering feelings of inferiority and embarrassment among the likes of Judy Garland and Spencer Tracy. Nevertheless, this was the big chance and it might never come around again. What RKO had promised, MGM was delivering: genuine A-1 film stardom.

Anchors Aweigh – Dancing fools.The Gene Kelly masterclass.

For all its major failings, Anchors Aweigh is an impressively canny piece of merchandise. Cashing in on the immense surge of American patriotism as World War II drew to a victorious close, the film centres on two decorated sailors enjoying a few days’ leave in Hollywood, which naturally emerges as a wonderful place where dreams really do come true. There is also a token gesture towards the United States government’s then current South American ‘good neighbours’ policy, with plenty of friendly Mexicans and several scenes set in Los Angeles’ Latin quarter. The negligible story consists of four easy-to-follow plotlines: both men, one shy, one libidinous, find romance; an aspiring singing-star gets her big break thanks to Spanish maestro Jose Iturbi (who can’t act); a navy-mad orphan – eight-year-old Dean Stockwell – gets to wear the uniform and hang about with sailors. Songs and a few dances are injected at regular intervals. Most important of all, everyone is nice: the navy, the police, the film people, Iturbi, Stockwell’s classmates; even Tom Cat, briefly seen offering Jerry Mouse cheese in a cartoon sequence. A blend of ingredients that could hardly miss.

MGM’s high expectations for the production were reflected in the budget. At $2 million, Anchors Aweigh