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Simply A Masterpiece

Powerful

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The 2001 version of Ocean's Eleven is one of my personal favorite movies. I had put off seeing it for a while because I tend to be a bit biased against remakes. But after seeing and liking it, I was eager to see the film it was based on. I don't really know what I expected going in to see the 1960 version, but it definitely wasn't what it turned out to be. Frankly, the remake far surpasses the original. I've talked to some people about it and they have said that it is unfair to compare the two films. If you can't compare an original film to its remake, then there is something seriously wrong.The two films bear little semblance to each other, even in terms of plot. In this movie, the protagonists all conspire to rob five Las Vegas casinos at the same time. Believe it or not, this is far less complicated than the plot of the remake. The idea here is that they cut the power to Vegas, enter the casinos, take the money, and leave. That's it. It's almost an hour before they even start planning the heist, and the sequence itself lasts only about five or ten minutes. Even if the thieves in the remake targeted only one casino, the heist serves as that movie's centerpiece; in the original, it feels like an afterthought. And there's nothing really interesting about how it's done. Some gimmicks are introduced, but they don't play any major role in the long run. For example, the Eleven put infrared paint of some kind around the casinos so they can easily navigate it in the dark. Considering how small the casinos appear to be, it seems like a flashlight would have sufficed.Another problem with hitting five casinos is that the Eleven are split up into five teams. In other words, we don't really get to know them very much. In the remake, every character had some kind of unique personality or ability. In this version, only a handful of the Eleven are memorable in any way. Peter Lawford plays a ne'er-do-well wealthy mama's boy. Richard Conte plays a Walter White-type who wants to provide for his family in the aftermath of his impending death. But that's pretty much it. When the heist is being planned, the arrival of a cowboy named Jackson is made a big deal of. The guy is then completely dropped from the story and makes no further appearances of note. Does anyone honestly remember the nuances of Henry Silva's character? How about Buddy Lester--how did he distinguish himself from the other actors? Characters should be the crux of a film like this--it's kind of implied in the title, after all.The movie is also incredibly dated. Most of the "humor" is years past its sell-by date--kind of like the actors. Most of the actors in this film are in their 40s; by modern standards, they look at least 55. Despite this, they are constantly surrounded by horny women who ogle and suck up to the main cast, something that is only in the movie to show how attractive its main characters supposedly are. Frank Sinatra, who also looks far beyond his 44 years, is cheating on his wife with a dissatisfied mistress. The subplot is only mentioned a couple of times before being quickly discarded; it only seems to exist to show that Ocean is a philanderer and therefore cool by the movie's standards. The portrayal of women in this movie was silly in 1960 and is arguably the funniest thing about it now, even if it's unintentional. Most of the actors aren't given any kind of challenging material, so trying to grade their acting is futile; it doesn't offer anything memorable good or bad. But Akim Tamiroff does have something to work with: he plays the perpetually nervous man organizing the heist. He's probably the worst actor I've ever seen. Maybe he just couldn't work with the script, but he bugs his eyes out at every opportunity and whoops and hollers like a rabid chihuahua at the slightest provocation.By the end of it all I was left wondering what the point had been. A lot of questions remained unanswered. Why did Richard Conte's character die in the middle of the heist after experiencing no symptoms in the few hours prior? What's going to happen between Danny and his wife, especially considering Angie Dickinson is given such high billing? Why did they choose to leave all the money in the garbage, where it could have been found by the police or lost? Why did they hide the money from Santos in the coffin, where it could have easily been discovered by church staff? Why are nubile 20-year-old girls mindlessly throwing themselves at 40+ men, with faces like road maps of Manhattan, within seconds of meeting them? I really wanted to like this movie. The remake is one of my favorites and I was hoping this could match it. It made me realize, however, why remakes should exist: to take sub par movies with interesting premises and make them actually deliver. This is the perfect example of that.

Ocean's 11 (1960): Dir: Lewis Milestone / Cast: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Angie Dickinson: Too many characters introduced too quickly that can likely cause confusion. Setup is inspiring and details a structure regarding eleven men planning and robbing five casinos on New Years Eve. The ending is priceless and director Lewis Milestone does a fine job at keeping viewers interested. However, the cast stumble about with little to do but follow a plan. Frank Sinatra plays Daniel Ocean who heads the scheme while screwing over any chance at true happiness. He is joined by Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and a whole slew of others who felt the need to get rich quick. Not one of these individuals come across as anything other than a famous person trying to make this overrated film more important than it is just by having their name stamped on it. It is a well crafted film in terms of production and direction, but too many characters leave for little development. There is a strong theme dealt with rather amusingly regarding how plans can easily go astray and not exactly turn out as hoped. That is perhaps why the ending is the best aspect of the film. That, and it allows viewers to exit this travesty. Production made out better than the role call of actors where it has become apparent that three is no longer a crowd, eleven is. Score: 6 / 10

Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Peter Lawford play former World War II, 82nd Airborne Army paratrooper pals in Lewis Milestone's heist classic "Ocean's Eleven" who knock off the top five casinos in Sin City on New Year's Eve. This elegant, amoral, but indulgent robbery saga spends its first hour assembling the principals and doping out the plan much to the chagrin of criminal mastermind Spyros Acebos. Our heroes concoct an elaborate scheme to rob the Sands, the Riviera, the Sahara, the Desert Inn, and the Flamingo during an electrical blackout after a key transmission tower is blown-up out in the desert. Electronics wizard Richard Conte wires everything so our heroes have an easy go of taking millions. They rely on some pretty sophisticated gear in this early 1960s opus. For example, they mark everything with an infrared spray gun so they know precisely where to go during the blackout. In fact, when they wear special glasses, they can literally see the markings either around the doors or footsteps on the floor to guide them to their destination. Sadly, the Rat Pack never had a chance because Hollywood frowned on thieves enjoying their spoils. Our guys pull off the ultimate heist but they lose the loot in the last scene. Nelson Riddle's orchestral theme music is quite captivating. Red Skelton has an interesting cameo where he plays a player who cannot limit his gambling. George Raft plays one of the casino managers. Cesar Romero is splendid as a calculating character named Duke Santas hired by the casinos to ferret out the robbers. The characters are sketched with enough detail to make them interesting.

Contrary to many other reviewers here who gave the film a poor rating, I'm not complaining about the plot. In fact, the plot of the film is not so bad, and certainly not weaker than that of the 2001 remake (which I liked much more than this original). It's just that this work doesn't develop the plot very well: The first half of the film is wasted on people talking other people into participating in the coup (which, in the end, they do, of course). The planning stage is virtually non-existent - Frank Sinatra simply pulls out a handkerchief with a "map" of Las Vegas and lays out the plan in detail, anticipating and refuting all possible objections. The preparation stage goes on smoothly, with the team's electrician simply walking into restricted areas of the casinos and re-wiring key electrics of the houses without being bothered by security. Too implausible for me to believe. Then the execution of the plan, which is almost a minor sub-sequence of the film to which the director did neither devote much time nor love for detail. The rest of the film is wasted on an overly extended plot about the gang trying to escape capture and get the money out of town. The setting of priorities could have been better, I dare say.Clearly the film draws some bonus points from its all-star cast, but it does not employ them very well. The dialogues are mostly wooden - even sequences where there would have been an opportunity to intersperse some witty lines are handled rather unlovingly and with dull, flat dialogues (there are some exceptions to this, such as a nice little sequence with Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine in a cameo as a drunken casino guest, but gems of this sort remain rare). The rat-pack stars don't even get much chance to display their talents in full, with only Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin getting one rather short song each.To me, it seems that this film was just another step in Frank Sinatra's ultimately unsuccessful attempts to establish a noteworthy film career. An opportunity wasted, since with a setting and a cast like this, something much better could have been produced.