One of the best parts about Frank Sinatra's career is working along side some of the most famous people in Hollywood. Actors, actresses, and all sorts of singers had the honor of withing when The Chairman of the Board. We have discussed some of them on here so far but we have yet to get to the his most well known posse, The Rat Pack.
If you are not familiar with who the Rat Pack are let me inform you. You have to start with the man himself, Mr. Frank Sinatra. It was actually created by him, although he did not give the group it's name. The origins of the Rat Pack actually start why back when Humphrey Bogart was alive and was married to Lauren Bacall. Mr. S and Mr Bogart were hanging out with several other people drinking and carrying on one night when Ms. Lauren Bacall walked in on them and said "Well don't you all look like a Rat Pack". Thus the name is born. Unfortunately, most people don't know Mr. Bogart as one of the original members or the group because he passed not terribly long after the group "formed".
There are several members of the Rat Pack, but with every year that passed members were excommunicated, or were simply forgotten to history. The members that lasted until the very end are still being forgotten with every passing year. There were five main members of the group (after the death of Bogart). The three that are forever remembered are the already aforementioned Mr. Sinatra, the wonderful "drunk" Dean Martin, and the always cool Sammy Davis Jr.
The excommunicated member was Peter Lawford. You might remember him from when we talked about It Happened in Brooklyn. He is the man who fell in love with Katherine Greyson. The long and short of why he was excommunicated is because of politics. Yes, politics is what broke up the Rat Pack. Like I said it's a long story but Lawford pissed off Sinatra during the JFK election and that was the end of it.
The "forgotten" member is Mr. Joey Bishop. I believe the reason he is forgotten is because he is not a singer. He was an actor but not really remembered for much. Which is crazy because in truth Mr. Bishop is the actual leader of the Rat Pack. He was the one that got things done, and moved things forward. He was also a brilliant leader because he made everyone think, including Sinatra, that Sinatra was the actual leader of the group.
The reason they are so well known is because of their comedy act they did in Vegas. It's not a scripted act, it's always kinda loose when they did it. Also, it's was almost always impromptu. When the Casino's had one of the members there on contract they got to a point where they had to put on the signs out front "Starring Sammy Davis Jr" and in slightly smaller letters "along with maybe Frank Sinatra, maybe Dean Martin and maybe Joey Bishop". Outside of the comedy they were able to get two movies with all 5 members of the Rat Pack together. Ocean's 11, from 1960, is the most popular one of all.
Danny Ocean and Jimmy Foster are a couple of men who want to make it big. However, they really don't want to work hard at doing that. They want to make money and fast. What's the best way to do it? Rob this 5 biggest Casino in Vegas that's how. They know they need to be cunning and clever in order to pull this off. They need precise military like tactics in order to pull off the heist. Fortunately, they have people who are very good with the military tactics, it's the other members of the 82nd Airborne. They call all of them to meet in California to convince them to do the job. After a little bit of reluctance, they job is underway. The question is will they really be able to get away with it?
Now, if you are one of those people who love the remake with George Clooney and say that you don't need to see this movie. Then you really need to get your act together and watch this movie. Yes, there is not as much action in the movie (no ninja men that pop out and avoid lasers to get the money sorry) but it's seems to be more realistic. Not to today's standards of security no, but from the time of the 60's and doing the research you need to do to get it done, and the racial issue of the day. This seems like it really was attempted at one point. I will also say that this has one of the best movie endings in movie history. It's not anything big like The Prestige but if you like unexpected endings you will like this movie.
So, what is the other movie that the Main 5 star in? It's a movie called Sergeants 3. Unfortunately, I don't own that movie yet. It only came to DVD in 2008. It's not a very popular release but I do want to own it. The next movie does have 4 out of the 5 main members and a few wonderful actors that you might be surprised that star in the same movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment