Load of rubbish!!

Dreadfully Boring

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This movie, originally a Broadway play, tells a story of a man, who runs an unsuccessful Miami Hotel.This man, Tony Manetta, is constantly broke, therefore he has a hard time taking care of his 12-year old son.But those two have an undying love for each other, and he doesn't want to let go of him.A Hole in the Head (1959) is directed by the legendary Frank Capra.It's written by Arnold Schulman.The lead, Tony Manetta, is played by Frank Sinatra.Edward G. Robinson is terrific as his brother Mario.Eleanor Parker is very good as Eloise Rogers.Carolyn Jones is wonderful as Shirl.Thelma Ritter is fantastic as Sophie Manetta.Keenan Wynn does a great job playing Jerry Marks, a character based on Walt Disney.Dub Taylor is great as Fred.The kid, Alvin "Ally" Manetta is played by Eddie Hodges, and he does the job very well.Frank Capra certainly came up with better than this in his career, but this still isn't a bad movie.I don't think Frank Capra was able to make a bad movie.There was something enjoyable in this movie, like the song High Hopes.So even at his worst, Capra was quite good.

A HOLE IN THE HEAD (1959) might not live up to Frank Capra's earlier classics like MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939) or IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), but it's a fine film. The story deals with a single father struggling to keep his Miami hotel business afloat while dreaming of bigger, better things. The material comes from a stage play, but there's a sense of the familiar Capra values. The Capra-esque resolution is not as powerful as in his earlier films, though, and isn't completely satisfying.The film has its weaknesses, but should not be dismissed. The movie is actually pretty funny at times, to go with the family-friendly themes. The cast is universally excellent and boasts Frank Sinatra (in single dad mode), the great Edward G. Robinson (hilarious as Sinatra's square older brother), the incomparable Thelma Ritter (as Eddie G.'s wife), Eleanor Parker (as a lonely widow), and even Keenan Wynn (as Sinatra's successful friend). Sinatra's on-screen son is played well by young Eddie Hodges and Sinatra's out-there, bongo-chick girlfriend is played by Carolyn Jones (Morticia Addams on "The Addams Family").Robinson and Ritter are superb as the shop-owning husband and wife who fly down to Florida to help out Sinatra. Who knew Edward G. Robinson was so adept at comedy? The man could do it all. He's great complaining about his no-good brother, his hula-hooping embarrassment of a son, the peculiar rocking chair in Sinatra's room, and the holes in the ice cubes. Ritter is the voice of reason between the brothers and wants what is best for Sinatra's young son. Frank Sinatra does alright, playing a loving father who's still a playboy at heart. He struggles along financially, but never admits defeat.Apparently the script was adapted from a Yiddish play, which explains why Eddie G. and Thelma Ritter (and sometimes even Sinatra) seem to be doing some Jewish-style shtick. It's funny stuff, but it was a little odd thinking of Frank Sinatra coming from a Jewish family. (In the movie they're Italians, I guess.)Frank Capra's direction allows the actors time to inhabit the scenes. I noticed the many relatively long takes, which are always impressive. Scenes in Sinatra's living room feature the bickering brothers on opposite ends of the widescreen frame, with Ritter in the middle. The characters are standing up and sitting down and carrying on back and forth without the camera cutting away. Later, Sinatra and Hodges sit down together and sing "High Hopes" in one take and there seems to almost be a spontaneity to the duet (flubbed lines? ad-libs?).When hotel owner Sinatra is desperate for cash before an approaching deadline, we don't feel for him the way we feel for busted banker George Bailey. I guess it's because it seems that Sinatra's character put himself in that position. But considering that he needs to support his darling of a son, we feel sorry for Sinatra. Especially when we see him take what little money he has to the racetrack with his high-rolling buddy.One of Frank Capra's last movies, A HOLE IN THE HEAD has value at least as a curiosity. Frank Sinatra sharing the screen with Edward G. Robinson? Thelma Ritter thrown into the mix as Robinson's wife? The origin of the hit (and Oscar-winning) song "High Hopes" (familiar to fans of another film about a single dad and his son, A GOOFY MOVIE)? But I think the film also has merits of its own. There's some great comedy, particularly from Eddie G., and the widowed-father-meets-lovely-widow story might warm a few hearts.

This is a late movie that seems to have been made in the vein of the screwball comedy genre, which was at its peak during the '30's and '40's. Now, screwball movies just never have been among my favorite ones, so this movie also really isn't.Probably most amazing thing about this movie is that's directed by Frank Capra. His touch is however nowhere to be found in this movie, even though he had worked on lots of comedies and the screwball genre before, prior to this movie. I think the foremost problem is that the movie doesn't try to be just a comedy but also a serious and heavy drama. The two things aren't that well balanced out within this movie and because of this both elements fall sort of flat.The story and characters also just aren't that appealing in my opinion. You don't ever really connect emotionally to any of the characters because they are doing some very stupid and also irresponsible things throughout the movie. This is especially a problem with the main character, played by Frank Sinatra.No, even despite its really solid cast the characters just don't work out too well. Edward G. Robinson's and Thelma Ritter's talent all goes to waste in this movie and they are two of my favorite actors actually.It's also a movie that is (too) heavy on its talking. This gives away that the movie is based on a stage-play. Seriously, they should had really cut some of the dialog and add in some more comical moments, to make this movie at least more entertaining to follow. The movie is OK for about its first 30 minutes but after that you soon start to get tired of all characters sitting around and talking to each other, expressing their emotions and feelings and you'll most likely start to loose interest in this movie after a while, just like I did.It's not the most horrible movie you'll ever see but I can't think of any reason either why you should ever watch this movie in the first place. Perhaps just for Sinatra's musical moment, when he sings 'High Hopes', which also actually earned this movie an Oscar.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Well I've not seen this since I was 10 or so--they showed it to us in grade school, all of us kids seated in the gym. Never remembered it's title-but certainly remember things like 'High Hopes', some cartoon lamb running through a calender(?), and the kid we were supposed to root for.My impression as I sat and watched it-I distinctly remember thinking that the lead looked kinda grumpy and wasn't nice. Never having heard of Sinatra back then-well you can imagine later on how accurate I think that was. Kids just call'em as they see'em.I'd be interested in seeing this again as an adult, just to see late-era Capra, w/ Edward G in a comedy etc. Am sure it's worthwhile, plus Thelma Ritter is good too.*** from wayyyy back there, old memories.