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.

Seven Things to Know About Sue Lyon

1. According to author Rebecca Bell-Metereau, director Stanley Kubrick looked at photos of over 800 girls before casting 14-year-old Sue Lyon in Lolita (1962). Kubrick had seen her on an episode of The Loretta Young Show TV series.

2. Tabloids suggested romances with Richard Burton and producer James Harris on the set of Sue Lyon's second film The Night of the Iguana (1964). Lyon denied the rumors, stating that she was involved with recently-divorced actor Hampton Fancher.

Fancher and Lyons in a L.A. Times photo.

3. Lyon and Fancher married in late 1963; he was 25 and she was 17. Fancher played one of Karl Malden's no-good sons in the Troy Donahue vehicle Parrish (1961). Two decades later, he co-wrote the screenplay to cult sci fi film Blade Runner (1981).

4. Sue Lyon continued to be in demand in the 1960s, appearing in John Ford's 7 Women, opposite George C. Scott in The Flim Flam Man, and with Frank Sinatra in Tony Rome. However, juicy film roles began to dry up by 1970 and she started appearing as a guest star in TV series such as The Virginian and Night Gallery.

With Richard Burton in Night of the Iguana.

5. She divorced Fancher in 1964 and didn't marry again until she tied the knot with Roland Harrison, a African American who played fullback for the San Diego Chargers. She and Harrison adopted a 14-year-old boy named Robert and she gave birth to their daughter Nona. However, the marriage was a short one, lasting just ten months.


6. In 1973, Sue Lyon married Gary "Cotton" Adamson, a convicted murder serving his sentence at the Colorado State Penitentiary. They divorced a year later, with Lyon explaining to The New York Times: "I've been told by people in the movie business, specifically producers and film distributors, that I won't get a job because I'm married to Cotton. Therefore, right now we can't be married. But that doesn't mean love has died. I'll always love him." According to the Associated Press, Adamson escaped from the Colorado State Hospital (now the Colorado Mental Health Institute) in 1976, but was subsequently arrested after robbing a bank.

7. Sue Lyon's last acting role was a small part in the movie Alligator (1980). Her current status is unknown, but her daughter Nona Harrison Gomez is on social media.

George C. Scott Is the Flim-Flam Man

George C. Scott and Michael Sarrazin.

George C. Scott had a pretty impressive career in the 1960s with Dr. Strangelove, The Hustler, and The List of Adrian Messenger. If you stretch things a bit, you could also count Patton in 1970 and Anatomy of a Murder in 1959. Lost amid these excellent films, though, is one of his finest performances: his portrayal of Mordecai Jones in The Flim-Flam Man (1967).

Army deserter Curley Treadaway (Michael Sarrazin) first encounters the elderly con artist when Mordecai is hurled from a moving train in the rural South. The two men become unlikely partners with Curley serving as the shill for Mordecai's various con games. While Curley has ethical misgivings, his new partner ensures him that he only takes advantage of greedy people.

That's not entirely true, as shown when they "borrow" a red convertible from a nice family whose attractive daughter Bonnie Lee (Sue Lyon) catches Curley's eye. During a police pursuit, the car is destroyed--along with much of a small Carolina town. Curley sneaks back to apologize to Bonnie Lee and discovers they share a mutual attraction. He continues his secret romance with Bonnie Lee while working scams with Mordecai--but she wants Curley to turn himself into the police.

What I haven't mentioned is that George C. Scott was 40 when he played the elderly, gray-haired con artist. It could have easily become a gimmick, but Scott's performance is so masterful that one quickly forgets the age difference between actor and character. His make-up is adequate (though Mordecai's gray hair never moves), but it's Scott's voice and physical gestures that allow him to transform into an old man.

He owns the character, balancing Mordecai's enthusiasm over successfully pulling off a con with his paternal friendship with Curley. He boasts of holding the degree M.B.S., C.S., D.D. in one scene (that's for "Master of Back-Stabbing, Cork-Screwing and Dirty-Dealing"). Then, in another, he reflects, with a tinge of remorse, about how he became bitter toward the human race.

Michael Sarrazin and Sue Lyon.

Michael Sarrazin, in his feature film debut, is appealing as the naive Curley. The rest of the cast is peppered with marvelous veteran character actors, such as: Harry Morgan (the sheriff), Jack Albertson (Bonnie Lee's father), Alice Ghostley (her mother), Albert Salmi (the deputy), and Strother Martin and Slim Pickens as two greedy victims of Mordecai's cons.

Filmed in eastern Kentucky, The Flim-Flam Man is the rare Hollywood film that captures the atmosphere of rural Southern towns and backroads. It's all there on the screen from the signs on the barns to the fields of corn, the trains, the moonshiner's still in the woods, and a small town A&P.

Curley and Mordecai swindle Slim Pickens' tobacco farmer.

I'm not sure why The Flim-Flam Man is little more than a footnote in George C. Scott's filmography. It's well directed by Irvin Kershner (The Empires Strikes Back) and features another perfect Jerry Goldsmith score. Most importantly, it's a great opportunity to see one of the best actors of his generation at the peak of his acting prowess. Scott made some pretty humdrum movies later in his career--but this one is among his best.