the leading man is my tpye

Dreadfully Boring

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

There are some funny scenes, like the Mom alone in her sons' apartment. But this is one of those films that even those of us men who aren't wild feminists are embarrassed to watch. That whole ring-a- ding-ding Sinatra cool where his dames are little more than sexual toys is not hip or appealing -- it's just creepy.But the thing that I hate most about this movie -- and some of the movies from that era -- is how we're supposed to be completely oblivious to the actors' real ages. Sinatra was more than old enough to be his kid brother's father -- hell, in another few years, he could have been his grandfather. We're supposed to ignore that because he's Frankie -- just like we're supposed to ignore age gaps in Fred Astaire movies of the Fifties, or Bogart and Hepburn in Sabrina. I love the feel of Fifties/Sixties New York movies, like Breakfast at Tiffany's, where you can see the unrealized potential of the women, some of whom seem more confident in their place than their current counterparts. But this movie isn't one of them.

Lee J. Cobb is a gem as the disappointed Jewish father of two sons -- Sinatra and Bill -- who desert him and his wax fruit business to live the lives of shallow New Yorkers on the hedonistic treadmill. He's full of indignation and irony. When we first meet him, he's coming home from work. "Is that you, Harry?", cries his wife, Molly Picon, from the kitchen. "No, it's a BURGLAR coming in. At five in the afternoon. For dinner." He's a delight whenever he's on screen, grumbling about "da brudders" who are "bums" because they won't get married and give him grandchildren. Molly Picon is good as the mother, but in her one big scene she's recherché and a little silly -- not the actress' fault but the screenwriter's.Sinatra isn't too painful as the older son with a luxurious apartment that now would look in the neighborhood of $10,000 a month. He rarely shows up for work because he's too busy ploying the local ladies. How can he afford the place? He leases it from a woman who adores him. But that doesn't explain how he affords alpaca cardigans, a personal hair stylist, tuxedos, dinners are Sardi's and drinks at Toots Shore's. I once managed a dinner at The Russian Tea Room but it cost me three months worth of pizza pies.I have nothing against Tony Bill, the younger brudder, who begins to ape Sinatra's self-indulgent ways, but he almost ruins the picture. He looks the part of the twenty-one year old naif, but his voice is high and squeaky, and his notion of "nervousness" reaches for the stars. Bud Yorkin, the director, should have reined him in and introduced him to the concept of "underplaying." It all turns out right in the end, of course. Sinatra has several girls on the hook -- including the airhead Jill St. John and the bourgeois virgin Barbara Rush. Guess which one he marries.All in all, it reminded me a lot of "The Tender Trap," in which Sinatra again was pursued by a horde of marriage-hungry females and David Wayne was the visiting hick. The greatest hangover scene ever committed to celluloid.On the other hand, if it had been done as a drama it would have resembled "Hud," with a stern and principled father, a dissolute older son, and a younger one who wants to imitate his big brother.Some of the scenes had me laughing out loud. "MY TONGUE SHOULD FALL OUT!" And Molly Picon's first visit to Sinatra's suite, when she looks around this palatial spread and remarks about the dirt. It reminded me of an incident during the shooting of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," a classic of the silver screen, in which I was an extra. I was standing next to quiet man (Hi, Luigi!) and his wife, a nice Jewish lady who disapproved of the set -- a slum street strewn with litter. She left the sidewalk and began picking up discarded shoes and other trash until a PA told her politely how much effort and expense had been put into importing all this garbage and seeing that it was properly strewn.

An awful movie version of the Neil Simon stage hit. Frank Sinatra is woefully miscast as a Jewish mama's boy who invites younger (MUCH YOUNGER) brother Tony Bill to live with him and join in on his swinging lifestyle. The great Lee J. Cobb and Molly Picon are ideal as their overbearing parents, but the genealogy just doesn't mesh. The entire cast is at sea with what is really an unfunny script and even foxy leading ladies Jill St. John and Barbara Rush are upstaged by the the film's art direction (Sinatra's apartment is a quintessential '60s bachelor pad!) It's difficult to know what in this film could have appealed to Sinatra, he's way too old and completely unconvincing in a role perhaps better suited for Jerry Lewis (yes, Jerry Lewis) or even Tony Curtis. Directed, with extreme dullness, by Bud Yorkin.

This comment was intended to be with PAL JOEY. Not sure how it got here.whpratt1 obviously has a lot of time on his hands, to quote an old song he probably never heard of (why does he seem to enjoy displaying this fault?). Anyone that considers Pal Joey as a classic film musical has a LOT to learn.The film is not true to the source material and most of the roles are mis-cast. It's curious that, at the time Broadway musicals such as Oklahoma!, Carousel, and The King and I were faithfully and successfully represented (for the most part) on film, the makers of the film version of Pal Joey managed to ruin a perfectly good story and a eliminate most of the show's wonderful score. The casting and performance of Rita Hayworth in the leading female role has probably contributed a great deal to subsequent mis-casting of the role in subsequent stage productions: Patti LuPone and Lena Horne. How whpratt1 can consider this a classic film musical is beyond me.