Frank Sinatra as Tony Rome Times Two!

One wonders if Frank Sinatra regretted turning down the lead role in Harper (1966), one of the '60s best detective films. That might explain his decision to star in Tony Rome, another private eye picture, the following year. Although based on a novel by Marvin Albert, Tony Rome comes across as a Harper rip-off with the locale shifted from the West Coast to Miami.

Tony Rome is a former cop who likes gambling, women, and living on a boat. In need of cash, Tony accepts a job from his former partner to return an heiress, who has passed out in a cheap hotel, to her father. The young woman (Sue Lyon) and her wealthy patriarch (Simon Oakland) each hire Tony for different reasons: She wants Rome to recover a missing diamond pin that she was wearing; her father wants the private eye to find out why his daughter has been acting strangely. 

By the time Tony figures what's going on, he's been beaten up multiple times, accused of murder, and nearly killed himself. On the plus side, he has also met a beautiful, very rich divorcee (Jill St. John)!

Gena Rowlands.

Tony Rome is a lightweight mystery with a convoluted plot that doesn't bear close scrutiny. What the screenplay lacks in depth, it makes up for in snappy dialogue ("Miami Beach--twenty miles of sand looking for a city"). An added bonus is the on-location shooting which gives Tony Rome a different look and feel from the multitude of private eye pictures set in and around L.A. 

On the negative side, Tony Rome is sexist and includes at least one racist remark. It's one thing to have a male character leer at a scantily-dressed lady; it's another thing when the camera lingers--close up--on a woman's derriere. Then, there is the 52-year-old Sinatra who has to fight off beautiful women half his age. (Of course, Frank did date the much younger Jill St. John in real life....).

Jill St. John.

Sinatra brings an affable weariness to his performance as the titular detective. The role certainly doesn't require him to bring his "A" game (as he did on other 1960s films like The Manchurian Candidate and Von Ryan's Express). He and leading lady Jill St. John have a nice chemistry (no surprise there...see above); it's too bad that her character has little to do with the plot. 

Gena Rowlands stands out among the supporting cast, but she's barely in the movie. In fact, none of the female characters get much screen time and that includes Sue Lyon and an unbilled Deanna Lund  (according to Tom Lisanti's Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema, the future Land of the Giants TV star was embarrassed with her performance and asked to have her name removed from the credits.)

Despite just middling box office success, Frank Sinatra returned as Tony Rome in the following year's Lady in Cement. The only other holdover from the first film was Richard Conte as Tony's police detective chum and sometime nemesis. 

The story gets underway quickly when Tony discovers the title corpse while scuba diving for sunken treasure. While the police try to identify the victim, an imposing thug named Gronsky (Dan Blocker) hires Tony to search for a missing go-go dancer named Sandra Lomax. Could she be the lady wearing cement shoes?

Dan Blocker.

While Tony Rome rates a notch about average, Lady in Cement is a perfunctory private eye picture. In the 1940s, it would have been considered a "B" film. Dan Blocker rises above his material, turning Gronsky into a likable--but still threatening--criminal. Along with Jill St. John, he appeared with Sinatra earlier in Come Blow Your Horn. It's a shame that Blocker, who found television fame on Bonanza, didn't have a a bigger movie career. He died in 1972 at age 43 due to complications following gall bladder surgery.

Raquel Welch and her tall hair.

Raquel Welch doesn't fare as well as Sinatra's leading lady. She plays a character very similar to the one portrayed by Jill St. John in Tony Rome. However, whereas St. John excelled at playing sexy, flirty socialites, Welch struggles to find a groove. Some of her scenes are downright awkward. She was much more effective in later films such as Hannie Caulder (1971) and Kansas City Bomber (1972).

Lady in Cement flopped at the box office and plans for a third Tony Rome film--to be titled My Kind of Love--were scuttled. If you plan to watch either film,  I do need to warn you about the music scores: Tony Rome kicks off with an atrocious theme song suny by Nancy Sinatra whereas Lady in Cement boasts one of the 1960s worst soundtracks courtesy of Hugo Montenegro.