This Neil Simon comedy, debuted on Broadway two years earlier, minus the song and a few characters and starred Hal March, Warren Berlinger, Lou Jacobi, and Pert Kelton. It had a respectable run for about a year and Frank Sinatra must have recognized a property tailor made for him when he saw it.
The eternal problem with filming plays is how to get them out of the theatrical confines and use the scope the movie camera offers. Primarily this is done with a Sinatra song with the movie title where he lectures kid brother Tony Bill that life ain't a dress rehearsal. Sammy Cahn, who put more words in Frank Sinatra's mouth than any other lyricist, put some of his best work into play here. It's a great Sinatra song and maybe it's inclusion qualifies Come Blow Your Horn to be a musical.
Lee J. Cobb and Molly Picon are the quintessential Jewish parents and they are grand. Cobb was a very underrated actor and an unhappy man because of his experience with the House Un-American Activities Committee. Sinatra purportedly befriended him and helped him over a few rough patches.
Molly Picon brought about 50 years of experience to her part as Frankie's mom. She was fresh from a Broadway triumph in Milk and Honey. She started out as a child in the Yiddish Theatre and was only now breaking out into a wider audience. She has a very funny scene alone in Sinatra's bachelor pad, trying to answer several phones looking for a pencil to take a message with disastrous consequences.
The women here are an eyeful, Phyllis McGuire, Barbara Rush, and Jill St. John and Sinatra's involved with all of them. I won't tell you which one he ends up with, but I think you'd figure it out. I think most of Frankie's fans would settle for any one of them.
Life imitates art and the real life Sinatra unlike his character Alan Baker didn't really settle down until fourth wife Barbara Marx married him.
There's a lot of similarities with the earlier Sinatra comedy, The Tender Trap. It's ground gone over before, but it's good topsoil.
A Quintessential Sinatra film, a must for fans of the Chairman of the Board.
