Watch Come Blow Your Horn For Free

It is a performances centric movie

The first must-see film of the year.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

and he's going to really turn the life of his (much) older brother Frank Sinatra upside down. Newcomer Tony Brill portrays an innocent unaware of what he is getting himself in for moving onto Sutton Place in Manhattan. Free of his meddling parents (Molly Picon and Jack Kruschen) and their Yonkers home, Brill allows brother Sinatra to take him out on a glorious shopping spree to mold him into a younger version of his older brother. Before you know it, Brill has taken over and Sinatra finds himself acting like his domineering father whose constant slamming of doors causes chandeliers to fall.This hysterically funny Neil Simon comedy isn't a great movie, but gets a higher rating simply because of its laugh quotient. There are also several moments that seemed like song cues, and one time, when Sinatra breaks into the title song (during the shopping spree), it actually happens. Brill is hysterically funny going from innocent to ring-a-ding-ding playboy, throwing a "Breakfast at Tiffany's" like party, and getting perhaps too big for his britches when Sinatra gets him to pretend to be a movie producer from Hollywood.Kruschen and Picon are so funny, but nothing is more hysterical than watching the lovable Picon playing reluctant frustrated secretary when she begins to answer Sinatra's phone calls after popping in on Brill unannounced to beg him to return home. The sight of this diminutive woman running around this obvious playboy's apartment looking for a pencil is a visual you won't forget. Picon makes her Jewish mother endearing and so lovable that you want to just pick her up and hug her.While Picon and Sinatra don't share scenes until the end (because of the obvious difference in their appearances), I half expected Picon to tell Sinatra "We needed to share one scene in this movie" when he asked her why she was there. It is mentioned that Sinatra (who works for Kruschen's factory that makes glass fruit) takes off both Jewish and Catholic holidays (as well as Halloween!) so perhaps Kruschen and Picon have a mixed marriage; That is never confirmed.Then, there are the ladies in Sinatra's life: the beautiful red-headed Jill St. John (too intelligent seeming to be playing a bubble-head), Phyllis McGuire (as the sadomasochistic business associate from Dallas) and Barbara Rush (as the wife and mother type). The film may seem a bit too much like a stage play in some scenes (minus the songs it seems to be about to break into), but is still a lot of fun.

"Come Blow Your Horn" is an interesting artifact from the early 1960s. While some aspects of the film strain for credibility, there also have been worse films produced.OK, Frank Sinatra was 47, and was only four years younger than Lee J. Cobb, who played his father. But he is fun to watch, and we get to see how time is catching up with this swinging single. And we can accept him playing the older of two sons in a Jewish family.One major plus for the movie is having Molly Picon and Mr. Cobb playing the parents; their own backgrounds add credibility to their roles. As for their surname being Baker, it was and is not unheard of Jewish families to change such names to something more "American." That happened not just in the entertainment industry, but across the board. And given that the older Mr. Baker was a businessman, it would stand to reason.I tuned into this because I am a fan of Jill St. John; she is not served terribly well in this production. Phyllis McGuire, Barbara Rush and Dan Blocker fare better here.It's entertaining fare, and a cool curio from an era 50 years ago, but hardly Oscar material. You could do worse.

This movie is classic Frankie.Frank plays a swinging bachelor with a steady stream of dollies coming to him--and one, true steady girl. His father greatly resents his lackluster job performance for him but, moreso, is upset with him for not being married, being "a bum" as he frequently puts it.Then Frankie's square little brother decides that Frank is living the life. He runs away from home to have his big brother show him the ropes, much to his parents' dismay.Thus ensues a great comedy. We get to watch Frank teach what he knows best--how to swing, and see his little brother comically pick it up. And pick it up maybe too well for Frank's comfort...Wonderfully funny situations pop up all over the movie, beautifully intertwined with a solid plot and certain points being driven home. The cast couldn't be better (despite some comments about Frank's age--Frank always looked at least ten years younger than he was).Frank is completely on the ball with this part and does it like the pro that he is; it was just written for him to play. There's plenty of girls for him to have a field day with, and it's so funny and such a pleasure to just watch Frank play this sort of thing. The rest of the cast couldn't be better, and it all just clicks right into place.Hilarious situations and dialogue, a wonderful cast, a fantastic, unexpected cameo, a great capture of the excellent times when the movie was filmed, and overall wonderful Sinatra all add up to a movie you've got to watch if you love the Swingin' 60's, the Rat Pack, Frank, or just great comedies.

If you look carefully at "Come Blow Your Horn" you will see it is a two set play that was expanded for this funny movie version. The two sets are the home of Mr. and Mrs. Baker and Buddy in Yonkers, and the apartment used by the older Baker boy Alan as his swinging singles pad. Most of the film is concentrated in those sets, except for scenes involving Alan taking Buddy under his wing to properly groom him, scenes with Barbara Rush outside the apartment (one briefly showing her apartment), and scenes involving Alan and the Eckmans (Dan Blocker and stiletto heeled Phyllis Maguire). Of the scenes outside the apartment, the two best are Alan's meeting with Mr. Eckman, and it's sequel at a restaurant, involving a raw steak and a bum (who turns out to look very familiar). Simon is one of the leading American dramatists of the 20th-21st Century, certainly the most successful comic dramatist. Seeing "Come Blow Your Horn" you see certain themes appearing for the first time. The twisted relationship of the two brothers, who do love each other but find they get on each other's nerves (as Buddy slowly overtakes the older Alan as a hipster). It is similar to the relationship of the brothers in "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Broadway Bound" (especially in he second play, where a real argument between the brothers breaks out). The question of relatives with sleazy or questionable activities like Alan's sexual escapades, comparable to the mobster brother in "Lost In Yonkers" or the embezzler, long-lost father in "Max Dugan Returns". The father losing the respect of his sons (found in the ranting Mr. Baker) is similar to the position of the father in "Broadway Bound", who has discovered his sons have reduced him to a comic stereotype in a sketch they sold a radio comedy show. The very fact that the Baker brothers become roommates who get on each other's nerves in an apartment is a constant thread in Simon's plays: "Barefoot In The Park (newliweds); "The Odd Couple" (and it's variation and sequel), "The Sunshine Boys" (in the rehearsal scene and in the conclusion where both Al and Willie seem headed for the old actor's home), even "Plaza Suite" (how three couples act together over the course of one year in a hotel suite). Simon is a master of building humorous tension out of trivialities. In "The Sunshine Boys" just setting up furniture to do a scene both vaudevillians can do in their sleep is frustrating as both see the furniture differently. In "Come Blow Your Horn", when Alan tells off buddy that his swinging lifestyle is going too far, he also mentions that he should keep his hands off Alan's fig newtons!Despite the claustrophobia of the sets limitations "Come Blow Your Horn" is a funny movie, benefiting from the performances of Sinatra, Jill St. John, Lee J. Cobb (usually a master of straight drama, here quite funny), and the glorious Molly Picon. One wishes more of Dan Blocker could have been used, but what was used was quite effective. There is an odd moment in the latter part of the film, connected to a party that Buddy throws, and a hypnotized guest blaming Alan for failing to support an education bill. Alan does an imitation of President Kennedy to reassure the woman. No doubt Sinatra felt it was a good imitation.It was meant to be funny, but now seems macabre.