Mill Creek Entertainment Promotes Frank Sinatra And Dean Martin Films With Crooner Classics DVD Package On Oct. 13

Mill Creek Entertainment has a sweet package of films and star-studded documentaries lined for release on DVD on Oct. 13.   Titled Crooner Classics, this “double-double” feature includes two films each from “Ol Blue Eyes,” Frank Sinatra, and two from his Rat-Pack cohort, “The King of Cool,” Dean Martin.

 

From Frank Sinatra we kick off the good times with director George Sidney’s 1957 film adaptation of the 1940 John O’Hara novel, Pal Joey.   Produced as a play by Rodgers and Hart in 1941, it bounced around Hollywood as a potential star vehicle for Gene Kelly, but Columbia Pictures and MGM couldn’t come to terms.

 

A bigger problem was the musical numbers from the play, they were considered to be too offensive for movie audiences of the time … the solution to the six “problem” musical numbers was to eliminate three and do instrumental versions of the other three, and then “borrow” other Rodgers and Hart songs to fill in the gaps.

 

Once all of this was worked out, other changes need to be made.   San Francisco, instead of Chicago, became the location (lots of classic Bay area locales are to be seen here) and Joey went from being a dancer to a singer, better fitting Sinatra, as opposed to Gene Kelly.  

 

The long and winding road to production for Pal Joey, also included the possibility of Barbara Stanwyck as Vera Prentice-Simpson, but with Columbia Pictures it was a natural for Rita Hayworth to get that key role.   Kim Novak came on board as “dancer” Linda English, and, as they say the rest is history.  

 

Pal Joey was nominated for four Oscars — Set Decoration, Costume Design, Sound and Film Editing — and Frank Sinatra won the Golden Globe for Best Actor.

 

The other film featuring Frank Sinatra is director William A. Graham’s rare 1977 made-for-TV epic crime thriller (clocking in at two and half hours), Contract on Cherry Street.   Based on Philip Rosenberg’s novel, this was a natural for Sinatra, who had done Tony Rome, The Detective and Lady in Cement at the end of the 1960s, before his troubles at Caesars Palace in 1970 and subsequent retirement (which didn’t last long).

In Contract on Cherry Street, Sinatra plays NYPD Detective Inspector Frank Hovannes, who has lost his long-time partner to a mob killing, decides to take matters into own hands when the department tells him to back off.   With the production values, this could have easily been a theatrical release, but Columbia Pictures Television and NBC had other plans … this would be a televison event!!

 

Shifting over to Dean Martin, Mill Creek Entertainment’s Oct. 13 DVD package, Crooner Classics, showcases Dean Martin in two of his classic romantic comedies.  First up is director George Sidney’s 1960 film adaptation of Norman Krana’ Broadway play, Who was that Lady?, which almost had Debbie Reynolds in the role of Ann Wilson, but the husband and wife team of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis (their last time acting together) got the pivotal husband and wife Wilson roles.

 

Ann walks in on her husband David — who is a chemistry professor — planting a kiss on a student and demands a divorce.   David turns to his buddy Michael (Dean Martin), who is a well-connected television scriptwriter, and asks for help.   Being the creative type, Mike comes up with an elaborate story about David being an undercover FBI agent and that the kiss was all in the line of duty.    Of course things spin hilariously out of control as the real FBI, and eventually the CIA, all get involved in “the case.”

 

The second feature is director Fielder Cook’s 1968 film release of How to Save a Marriage (and Ruin Your Life), featuring the ever-helpful Dean Martin as David Sloane, the attorney for Harry Hunter (Eli Wallach), who wants to help him out of a martial jam by seducing Hunter’s mistress.   Sloane gets it wrong, of course, and ends up seducing the mistresses’ next door neighbor, Carol (Stella Stevens) and then spends the rest of the movie trying to undo the mess he has created … it seems that “neighbors” talk!!!

 

As a bonus, in addition to the four movies featuring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, Mill Creek Entertainment Oct. 13 DVD debut of Crooner Classics features seven Hollywood celebrity biographical documentaries.