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Sinatra: All Or Nothing At All


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HBO: Sunday, April 5, 8 PM:

 

Part 1 of 2. A portrait of legendary entertainer Frank Sinatra (1915-98) features archival footage of his life and career, including his 1971 "Retirement Concert" in Los Angeles, and remarks by family, friends, contemporaries and authors.

 

Monday, April 6, 8 PM:

 

Conclusion. A portrait of legendary entertainer Frank Sinatra (1915-98) features archival footage of his life and career, including his 1971 "Retirement Concert" in Los Angeles, and remarks by family, friends, contemporaries and authors.
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Much like how I feel last week's Scientology doc should have been longer and more in depth, this needs to be AT LEAST eight hours to do justice to Sinatra's immense career.

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I doubt eight hours would be enough. It's nice to have a special, though. PBS used to show some Frank, but they gave up a few years ago. There are a lot of two-hour-ish specials about Elvis, and that's about right for one sitting. To get a proper picture of someone, you'd have to watch them all.

 

I just hope they include that Frank hated "My Way." It's like a secret.

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The lyrics to "My Way" make no sense because they were translated from the French by someone WHO DIDN'T SPEAK FRENCH, apparently.

They weren't translated. The English lyrics are unrelated to the French, and the English lyrics do make sense. Paul Anka gets the writing credit. I remember a quote from Frank where he thought the guy in the song was kind of a jerk, but I can't find it now.

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I haven't gotten a chance to see it yet, but does the documentary actually say that Sinatra wrote "New York, New York," or that he made it famous? Because Kander and Ebb wrote it for the Scorsese movie in 1977.<br /><br />Sorry, theater nerd-ness showing, and these reviews REALLY make we want to steal an HBO Go password.

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(edited)

I felt like it ended so abruptly, was there really nothing to add about stuff post '52 and his comeback record?

 

I listen to one of his greatest hits CD, and basically got into him because Amy Winehouse always credited him as a major influence, so I didn't know much about his life.  He was kinda scary looking when he was young and so gaunt.

 

I love "That's Life" the most.

Edited by Morbs
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The thing that really bugged me was when they mentioned the album "Watertown" like it was a complete failure artistically and commercially. That record is amazing, and to use it as an example of how out of touch he had become ignores the following that work has now.

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I am a rabid, insane Sinatra fan so I was both looking forward to this and incredibly nervous to see it. I really enjoyed it, but agree that it should have been about 8 hours long! I have read nearly every Sinatra biography out there, and nearly every aspect of his long life and career is fascinating. This was a good production, but there was so much material that could have been further explored. Still, always fantastic to see Frank :)

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I got the completely opposite impression from the Sinatra-Presley clip. Frank's opinions of Presley's music were well known. Assuming that E's appearance on the show was foisted on Frank by producers, it's my opinion that he said, "Fine, you want that tone-deaf punk on this show, let's have a duel."

It wasn't even close. Having them do one of each other's hit songs was a slam dunk for Frank. He did a decent, hip, musically valid interpretation of Love Me Tender. While Elvis instead was pathetically unsuited for Witchcraft. A song that begs for bold phrasing, subtle vocal shifts, and all the musicality that 50s rock does not. All Elvis could do instead was his schtick -- shaking hips, lip curls, etc.

In a way, it wasn't fair. Elvis was on Frank's turf, forced to perform in Frank's style. It would have been a similar result had Frank been forced to show up at an Elvis concert and try to pass himself off as a legitimate rock singer. Elvis's fans would have seen through that in a heartbeat. I'm trying to envision Frank doing Heartbreak Hotel on stage with Elvis and, just... no.

Similarly, I thought Elvis looked distinctly uncomfortable on Frank's show. It wasn't his thing, his taste, or his style. Too bad we don't have a way to know what each of them was really thinking while they were performing. Although if you look closely at Sinatra's face you can probably guess his thoughts, at least.

One of the great voiceovers in the documentary was the guy who said something like, "Frank sings like a jazz tenor sax player plays." That comment is the perfect distillation of what made Sinatra the greatest pop singer in history. He didn't just perform a song; he wasn't just a vocalist. Sinatra honored and respected instrumentalists, and the sentiment was returned.

Frank was a great musician. Elvis was a pop star.

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We don't need to lift Frank up by putting down Elvis. I may not be the biggest fan of Presley, but even I know that he was more than just a "Pop Star." It's true that Frank had a lot more discipline, training, and life experience. He could do justice to songs spanning decades effortlessly. He had a style that embraced adulthood instead of clinging to youth. But dismissing Elvis is the wrong path to go down.

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I am a rabid, insane Sinatra fan so I was both looking forward to this and incredibly nervous to see it. I really enjoyed it, but agree that it should have been about 8 hours long! I have read nearly every Sinatra biography out there, and nearly every aspect of his long life and career is fascinating. This was a good production, but there was so much material that could have been further explored. Still, always fantastic to see Frank :)

As a confessed rabid fan, what do you think of Mia and son Ronan's claims that he is his father? I don't believe it but I'll admit I haven't read any in depth books about him and know about what was revealed in the doc. In other words there was really nothing new revealed even though I enjoyed it.

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I'm not "dismissing" Elvis. I'm saying that in terms of musical/vocal technique and abilities, he's not in the same league. I don't know a serious musician or critic who would argue otherwise. The term "pop star" is not derogatory in this sense. Sinatra himself was a pop star with the bobbysoxer generation, just as Elvis was in the 50s. Nothing wrong with that. Perhaps "cultural phenomenon" would be a better term.

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It's still a mistake to dismiss Elvis as a pop star. We'll never know what he could have been because he died so young. I'm often confused by people who don't think Elvis had a great voice, because he did. Many rock singers do not have good voices, and it's all masked by the band. But Elvis could sing.

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Take this from someone who wasn't a real fan of Elvis Presley's music - minus a few songs. But I think calling him a "pop star" boxes him in while he did well beyond '50s rock/pop. My parents had some of his albums including the Christmas recordings, and the man was heavily influenced by gospel and maybe even country, as well. Was he as accomplished as Sinatra? Probably not.

 

But then the two men seemed to be in radically different musical categories, anyway, so the comparison does seem like apples and oranges to me.

 

Not to mention what was said above: Elvis died young. We'll never know if Presley could have adapted his sound as time marched on. Sinatra had a long life to do just that.

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I think the other thing to keep in mind is that the term pop star isn't necessarily a bad thing. I know these days we associate it with crappy autotuned prepackaged "singers" but Michael Jackson and the Beatles (both of whom had lengthy careers and were talented singers/songwriters) were considered pop stars too so although the term now has a very derogatory connotation, it's not a straight up insult.

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I finally watched this last night, and I really enjoyed it. I've always been such a fan of Sinatra's music, but never knew much about his personal life. Everything about it was marvelous. His mother seemed like quite an interesting subject herself: midwife and rogue abortion performer, spoke all of the dialects of Italian so she could be the city translator... Very fascinating.

 

From what I did know about him before, I was thrown when I learned he went from supporting Kennedy to supporting Nixon and Reagan. The documentary saying it was just to piss off the Kennedys was compelling. I also knew about all of the mob rumors, and that the character from "The Godfather" was based on him, even though it was a bunch of bullshit. That made me feel bad for him, as did that reporter that kept putting out salacious nonsense about him. Frank punching that guy was all flavors of awesome emotionally, but he really should have listened to Bogie about fighting a newspaper with another newspaper.

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As much as I enjoyed this documentary, the most hilarious thing was hearing Ava Gardner's description of Frank as "good in the feathers." I was able to find "The Secret Conversations," a compilation of the drunken talks she had with a ghostwriter. I can't wait to read what else she had to say about Frank!

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As much as I enjoyed this documentary, the most hilarious thing was hearing Ava Gardner's description of Frank as "good in the feathers." I was able to find "The Secret Conversations," a compilation of the drunken talks she had with a ghostwriter. I can't wait to read what else she had to say about Frank!

Check out George Jacob's book "Mr. S". Jacobs was Frank's valet for many years and had some stuff to say (good and bad). Supposedly his junk was so bulky he needed a special contraption to diminish the bulge. Honestly, that book spent WAY too much time describing Frank's schmeckle.

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Thanks for the recommendation! I remember seeing something about that book a few years ago but I never got around to getting a copy.  I will have to see what else the valet had to see (non-junk related, that is!).

 

His mother seemed like quite an interesting subject herself: midwife and rogue abortion performer, spoke all of the dialects of Italian so she could be the city translator.

ITA - his mom sounded awesome!

 

At the beginning of the documentary when they said his full name, Mr. EB and I were required to do our Adriana/Christopha Moltisanti impressions: "Francis Albert, fuckin' A!"

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The thing that really bugged me was when they mentioned the album "Watertown" like it was a complete failure artistically and commercially. That record is amazing, and to use it as an example of how out of touch he had become ignores the following that work has now.

 

That bugged me, and something else did, too. The still photo that purported to show him watching the Kennedy funeral on a hotel TV was obviously a fake. 1) The trash can in the room had the logo of the Eden Roc on it, a hotel in Miami Beach. We had just heard from Nancy Sinatra that his reaction to the Kennedy assassination had been to hole himself up in his bedroom in Palm Springs for three days. 2) Even if he could be in two places at once, no way is he going to be opening at the Eden Roc on the day of the Kennedy funeral. No way is anybody going to be opening anywhere on the day of the Kennedy funeral, let alone Frank Sinatra.

 

Not a big thing, maybe. But one of those details that makes you ask, "If they fudged this for the sake of a visual, what else have they fudged?"

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