Frank Sinatra was the Chairman of the Board and he had some very good years before the old black magic ran out and he went to that Vegas in the sky. The Sinatra estate commissioned this 1992 miniseries and won a Golden Globe for best miniseries.
Frank Sinatra was the top of the head, the king of the hill, and the chairman of the board. He ruled Vegas and Hollywood with a cadre of his close chums dubbed the rat pack. His career was a long one and his comebacks numerous. This miniseries covers his life from his days in Hoboken with parents Dolly (Olympia Dukakis) and Marty (Joe Santos, who actually looks more the build of the elder Frank than the fellow playing him).
It covers his first wife Nancy (Gina Gershon), his affair with Ava Gardner (Marcia Gay Harden), and marriage to Mia Farrow (Nina Siemaszko), and even his mob ties with Sam Giancana (Rod Steiger, in a brief role). Philip Casnoff plays Frank and he does a good job in the role, but in my opinion he only has a moment or two were he really looks like old blue eyes.
His Rat Pack pals are here, Sammy Davis, Jr. (David Raynr) and Dean Martin (Danny Gans). We even see his encounters with Tommy Dorsey (Bob Gunton) and John F. Kennedy (James F. Kelly). It sounds like a great cast but some of them don’t really hit the mark.
Raynr is good as Davis, but Danny Gans really didn’t do it as Martin for me (and he’s my favorite Rat Packer and I probably like him as a performer better than Sinatra). I have to admit that I was also expecting more of a whitewash since the Sinatra family was the ones behind the production but I was surprised that it was more of a candid, honest portrait.
That may actually be something that works against it since we get to see the hero of the piece in his doldrums and foibles. There’s always the music and we are treated to a selection of more that twenty songs from the great one’s career. However, Casnoff has to lip sync to them.
Sinatra had a great career and maybe the five-hour miniseries was the way to portray it, but his life seems like one fit for a bigger screen. However, this will do till something better comes along.
Sinatra is presented in fullscreen as it was aired on television. The box lists it as a two-disc collector’s edition so I was expecting some special features that would get collector’s excited.
What we get is the miniseries spread out over two discs, that’s it. A commentary by one of the Sinatra family, Casnoff, or any Sinatra scholar would’ve been most welcome. I can also imagine that some makings of were produced around the time that this series aired and those also would’ve been welcome. It’s nice to have the miniseries on DVD but the “collector’s edition” moniker is a bit much.
Sinatra was a large enough legend and this five-hour production attempts to distill the legend down to the small screen. It succeeds on some counts and fails on others. I guess that’s life Frank.
Sinatra is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for this version of the DVD in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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