1960 - Original OCEANS 11 and the cult of the personality

A worthless movie. Peter Lawford found the story and actually wanted to make a serious movie out of it. Sinatra got involved and turned it into a in jokey party time for his flunkies and cronies AKA "The Rat Pack." 

 

Hoping to make some easy money, Sinatra gambled that he and his buddies were so cool and interesting the public would want to see them in a comic heist thriller. Warner Brothers ponied up the money. Lewis Milestone a reliable old director from the 1930's whose best days were behind him, signed up as producer and director of the film. Charles Lederer a veteran screenwriter who had written many Howard Hawks films certainly knew a thing about comedy and writing stories about men being men in a manly world, wrote the final screenplay.
 

Milestone had his hands full dealing with The Rat Pack. They were doing two shows a night and supposedly shooting the movie during the day. Sinatra never liked doing over 3 takes for a scene and there was always his legendary temper to deal with. One can only wonder what actual working actors like Richard Conti, Caesar Romero, Henry Silva and Norman Fell must have thought being a part of this goof off. For Milestone just trying to get a decent film out of this hodge podge turned out to be a chore.

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It's almost touching to see Milestone try to bring some stylistic flourish to Ocean's 11. His legendary tracking shots and rhythmically composed editing techniques provide some visual interest. Milestone was also the one who apparently thought up the famous twist ending for the film.

 

For all the wrong reasons and let it be proclaimed, this is an entertaining movie. There's no question that Sinatra, Dino, Sammy and Lawford are fun to watch. These guys were all top professional entertainers who had been around long enough to know what strings to pull on an audience.

Oceans 11 made money for Sinatra, he tried to repeat the formula with Sergeants 3 and 4 for Texas, but the public had had enough of Sinatra and his boys. As a reward Lewis Milestone went on to finish directing Mutiny on the Bounty after Carol Reed quit. On that movie he had to deal with an even bigger pain in the ass than Sinatra, Marlon Brando.

 127 minutes