[ April 23, 2024 ]
What better flick for our New Years’ Saturday Night Cinema selection than Ocean’s Eleven (the original 1960).
Sinatra, Davis, and Martin performed their club acts at night and worked on this Las Vegas-set film during the day, and the good time they were having fairly jumps off the screen.
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With neither a badly-pressed suit nor a redundant scene in sight, Ocean’s Eleven is as slick as they come – and that’s a compliment rather than a criticism. Entertaining and effortlessly re-watchable. Full review
Emma Cochrane
Empire
If Hollywood had an All-Star Game, it would be this movie. It’s a new multistar vehicle about a team of con men set to take on Vegas. Full review
Bob Smithouser
Plugged In
With enough genuine Hollywood star power to light all the neon signs in Nevada, this is a good old-fashioned, Hollywood heist film fun. Full review
Nell Minow
Common Sense Media
The Screen: ‘Ocean’s 11’:Sinatra Heads Flippant Team of Crime
By Bosley Crowther< NY Times, Aug. 11, 1960:
Credit…The New York Times Archives
A SURPRISINGLY nonchalant and flippant attitude toward crime—an attitude so amoral it roadblocks a lot of valid gags — is maintained through “Ocean’s 11,” which arrived at the Capitol yesterday. Frank Sinatra, who is the power behind the picture, should have a couple of his merit badges taken away.The idea is that a bunch of fellows, Danny Ocean’s (Mr. Sinatra’s) breezy gang of wartime buddies and heroes, are assembled to do a little job of robbing five major casinos in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve. That’s all. Ten cheerful, chummy fellows and Mr. Ocean, a stalwart crew, conspire — with Akim Tamiroff as their big boss — to pick up a bundle of dough.And they do it, too. That’s the sad thing. Almost as easy as rolling off a log (or rolling a sequence of “naturals” with loaded dice in a Hollywood film), these eleven guys knock out the power lines, “hit” the cashiers’ cages in one fell swoop and rake some $5,000,000 into their convenient little black bags. They’re so clever and humorous about it and the casino people are such dopes. Well, why not? Wasn’t the crime team schooled together in a lot of Eighty-second Airborne Division “drops”?
That’s the way it is: no dishonor, no moral misgivings, no sweat, outside of the normal, natural tension that occurs while the crime is being done. After the whole thing is over and a hijacker moves in to grab the swag, there is no built-in implication that the boys have done something wrong. There is just an ironic, unexpected and decidedly ghoulish twist whereby they are deprived of their pickings and what seems their just deserts.This is the flaw in the picture—this and the incidental fact that a wholesale holdup of Las Vegas would not be so easy as it is made to look. For the substance is generally amusing — indeed, very funny in spots—the dialogue is cleverly written and the roles are deftly and colorfully played.
Mr. Sinatra is crushingly casual, Mr. Tamiroff is droll with vast despairs and Dean Martin is twitchy with wisecracks as a night-club performer who knows the world. Indeed, all the fellows crackle blithely — Peter Lawford, as a wealthy sybarite; Sammy Davis Jr., as a trash-truck jockey, and Richard Conte, as a cynical ex-con. Ilka Chase, Angie Dickinson and Patrice Wymore are equally cool as some of the girls. Cesar Romero does a smooth job as the hijacker who messes up the job.Las Vegas looks flashy in color, as naturally it would, and there’s plenty of atmospheric detail, such as gaming tables, girls and “one-arm bandits.” Lewis Milestone’s direction suits the movement of Harry Brown’s and Charles Lederer’s script, which is entirely centripetal, focusing exclusively on Mr. Sinatra and his gang.Young people are likely to find this more appropriate and bewitching than do their elders. The latter are likely to feel less gleeful in the presence of heroes who rob and steal.
The CastOCEAN’S 11, screen play by Harry Brown and Charles Lederer, based on a story by George Clayton Johnson and Jack Golden Russell; directed by Lewis Milestone; a Dorchester Production for Warner Brothers release.
At the Capitol Theatre. Broadway at Fifty-first Street. Running time: 127 minutes.
Danny Ocean . . . . . Frank Sinatra
Sam Harmon . . . . . Dean Martin
Josh Howard . . . . . Sammy Davis Jr.
Jimmy Foster . . . . . Peter Lawford
Beatrice Ocean . . . . . Angie Dickinson
Anthony Bergdorf . . . . . Richard Conte
Duke Santos . . . . . Cesar Romero
Adele Ekstrom . . . . . Patrice Wymore
Mushy O’Conners . . . . . Joey Bishop
Spyros Acebos . . . . . Akim Tamiroff
Roger Corneal . . . . . Henry Sliva
Mrs. Restas . . . . . Ilka Chase
Vincent Massler . . . . . Buddy Lester
Curly Steffens . . . . . Richard Benedict
Mrs. Bergdorf . . . . . Jean Willes
Red Skelton . . . . . Themselves
George RaftThe Truth Must be Told
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18 Comments4 years agoFinally, something mentally stimulating. But always this kind of “entertainment”. Sinatra was a favourite of the Kosher Nostra.
https://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/kultur/mit-der-mafia-fuer-zion/
Pam’s admiration for “Franky” can no longer be denied. A British gay band called Franky Goes To Hollywood (FGTH).
4 years agogood learning – lots of ice in canada
4 years agoPam, I love your movie choices.
4 years agoAt least Pam is old-fashioned (I like that!). Without to be retrogressive. If she were a “progressive” snowflake, she would present newfangled trash. She’s a true conservative. She wants to “conserve quality”.
She thinks, “I was two years old when this movie was made!” A world she wants back. You could call her true American, because on the screen and in the jukebox there was an illusion that there was an “American Way of Life”.
A country of whole, true, unfettered freedom, where everyone respects each other. Of course we wake up bit by bit that the “American dream” has never really existed. There were only fewer ways to hide the misery, filth, brutality and meanness.
4 years agoReply to MirkoAmerica still has this vast, sparsely populated country. Even if today everyone is crawling into their four walls and the streets with their multinational discounters look the same everywhere.
America is deeply divided like the entire West, and one should ask oneself every day whether one does not contribute unnecessarily to this division through thoughtless words or actions.
4 years agoReply to MirkoWhen Pam is back from her nostalgic trip, she fires the razor-sharp phrases and slogans out into the world like a relentless jackhammer. We all do that more or less, but she does it out of cold calculation and intent.
Anyone who thinks that Pam is a dreamy “sensitive romantic being” is completely mistaken! She knows very well what she is doing and does it in consultation with like-minded people.
If she was not deeply convinced of the legality of her actions, she would stop them immediately. Either escalate or de-escalate. There’s nothing in between. You can’t lie, be drunk or pregnant “a little”.
One word that Nazis used regularly was “fanatical”. There was only “we” and “the others”. Asians are generally looking for a balance, even in communist China. There is never just black or white.
4 years agoReply to MirkoPam’s infamous mercilessness and “incorruptible judgment” gives readers a “thrill”.
But careful with the axe in the woods! It could hurt and inflict wounds that are difficult to heal!
4 years agoReply to MirkoAfter all, she gives us the freedom to say what we think. Something we must give her credit for as a big plus in her character.
As long as one is not an “explicit Jew-hater”, this is approved of!
We should also set a high standard for what we spread about a “special kind” of non-Jews. We must rein in, control and discipline ourselves.
The seduction to blindly “hit ’em” because everyone else is hitting them is very strong. A virtual lynch mob.
I’m no moralizer. All I know is that every effect has its cause and takes its course from there.
4 years agoReply to MirkoI am anything but a friend of Islam, but I notice in myself that I have enormous prejudices against Muslims. They sense this and react with structural isolation and hostility.
This is not the way to find a solution together, but the fronts are hardening and the conflict is escalating. Islam will not disappear from the world just because we wish it would or because we “virtually fight it”.
We have to learn to tell these people clearly what we want without provoking them. That we know their ideology and do not tolerate it on our territory and reject it firmly.
In my experience, Muslims can deal better with unapologetic clarity, directness and honesty than with cowardice, hypocrisy and “liberal” self-deception.
4 years agoBetter than the sequels 🙂
4 years agoYes. The original and still the best. Re-seeing this makes you realise what pale imitations the remakes are: Oceans 11 (2001), Oceans 12, Oceans 13. Hah!
4 years agoReply to Marcus TectusClooney and friends don’t even come close to the original Ocean’s and NEVER WILL.
4 years agoWhy do we all call Mrs Geller “Pam”, as if we had an intimate relationship with her? Of course, because “Pam” cleverly serves our desired image of her without ever having to appear. If there were no video evidence, one could almost believe that she is a Fatamorgana. But there, behind the scenes, she is already incessantly tinkering with the next “love article”. It is all so wonderfully colour- & beautiful here, the eye wants to linger.
4 years agoReply to MirkoIn truth, she even wants to be found out. For her nature is that she cannot respect people who fall for it. Is this simple wish so difficult to understand? Not for me!
Put yourselves in her shoes. What makes her really lonely are her followers. That it never occurred to you. Shame on you! But why? So simple:
Women need challenge, adventure, contradiction, unpredictability. Every woman wants that! “Pam” is a woman (in case you have already forgotten that), maybe even a special one, I can’t judge that.
That there is more to her than that, you should have already read from her soft spot for Leonard Cohen.
4 years agoReply to MirkoWomen like to give themselves. They can only do that with someone who dares everything and risks everything. Who is disrespectful without being hurtful. The loneliness of the modern female achiever is worth a science unto itself.
4 years agoReply to MirkoYeah, I know: The next knife murder, in NYC, London, Paris, will come for sure. The eager keyboard heroes are waiting for it.
I find it much more exciting to philosophize about life in general and in particular. I could do this all day long.
The fact that this is allowed here speaks not only for GR, but also for me, who wouldn’t even think of it anywhere else.
4 years ago@Mirko: you changed your ID. I can tell who you are by how you CONSTANTLY REPLY TO YOURSELF. Very foolish.
4 years agoO11 is a classic ‘60’s movie. Well acted, superior plot, & a great cast. Always a pleasure to watch.
When the “Harvey-Wood-Epstein” crowd can only remake films such as O11, you know they are desperate. Cast their films with hack-actors, C-rated also-ran (not really) stars, the result is a stomach churning abomination. Can you say unwatchable?
