Do you tip medical transport driversĭean amuses, Sammy is mahvelous, but only Sinatra, with his Manhattan-skyline voice, conjures a mood and a spell.Īfter Sinatras set comes the usual Rat Pack foolery, some at Deans expense (The only reason hes got a good tan, he found a bar with a skylight), but with Sammy as the primary butt. Theres Dean Martin with his sleepy power, like a leopard in a smoking jacket, finishing his few songs with the words Id like to do some more for ya, but Im lucky I remembered these.Īnd then theres Sinatra, confident, not the Adams apple on a stick he was or the barrel-chested belter he would become, cruising inside the luxury-limousine sound of the Count Basie band, not so much singing the up-tempo numbers (Fly Me to the Moon, You Make Me Feel So Young) as riding them home, his rabbit jabs providing the punctuation to his cagey phrasing and eased-off vowels.įrank Sinatra has been called great for so long that its easy to forget how great he is.Īt one point, alluding to Sammys set, he says that the song hes about to perform makes for a slight duplication here, but I dont think youll mind too much, launching into his own rendition of Ive Got You Under My Skin, which he contours and tattoos as if romancing for the first time. Its an opportunity to catch three of Americas greatest showmen in their tigerish prime (with Carson along for the ride), before they became total legends and turned into leather. The edited 90-minute version of the benefitfeaturing Frank, Dino, Sammy, and Johnnyrepresents the only known full-length video of the Rat Pack in performance.Ī two-volume compact disc exists of the Rat Pack performing at the Villa Venice club in Chicago in 1962a gig they were strong-armed into doing by the mobster Sam Giancana.) The Rat Pack kine-scope, found in a closet at the Dismas House, is more than a historical curio. Joey Bishop was listed on the original program, but had to bow out when he slipped a disk backing out of Franks presence, according to Carson, his replacement, who was only three years into his tenure as host of The Tonight Show. Sinatra said, Be there, and they were thereDean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Trini Lopez, Kaye Stevens, and an amalgamation of two different bands, including members of the Count Basie Orchestra, conducted by a lean cat named Quincy Jones.
The year is 1965 the event, billed as a Frank Sinatra Spectacular and broadcast on closed circuit to theaters across the country, is a benefit for Father Dismas Clarks Half-Way House for excons. With these words of mock homage, an astonishingly young and lanky Johnny Carson introduces Frank Sinatra to the stage of the Kiel Opera House in St. But as a recently discovered kinescope (and the only known existing video of the boys performing live) demonstrates, no one can touch the sharkskinned cool of Frank, Dean, and Sammy.
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