T'es plus dans la course, papa !

The names Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear always look good on the credits for a comedy--until you realize Lear's success was relegated strictly to the tube and Yorkin has no sense of humor. Add to the mix a script based on the play by the highly uneven Neil Simon, and you have a slick but scattershot affair. Frank Sinatra sleepwalks through role as swinging New York bachelor (now there's a stretch) who takes his gawky younger brother under his wing, much to the chagrin of their mother and father (the torturous Molly Picon and Lee J. Cobb, both giving the term 'Old World' a bad rap). Just about every one-liner falls flat, Tony Bill is hopeless in his debut as the kid brother, and Sinatra's one song (the title cut) is mediocre. Dean Martin has a cameo that's not bad, and Dan Blocker is wonderfully big and colorful as a disgruntled businessman, but the rest of this "Horn" blows. *1/2 from ****

With the recent announcement that Neil Simon has died at 91, I decided to watch this-the first movie adapted from his first play. He didn't adapt it himself as he would most of his subsequent plays to film, no, Norman Lear would do that in this instance. Lear also produced with Bud Yorkin who directed. Tony Bill is the 21-year-old son of Lee J. Cobb and Molly Picon, parents who he loves but wants to now live with his older bachelor brother Frank Sinatra who's involved in three women-Jill St. John, Phyllis McGuire, and Barbara Rush. Dan Blocker, who played Hoss on the No. 1 TV show at the time "Bonanza" also appears as does a familiar singer in cameo who's a frequent co-star of Sinatra's. Besides Simon's original lines and Lear's additions, there's also a title song by James Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn-Sinatra's usual songwriters. Frank warbles it while teaching his younger brother to dress and taking him out to town in New York City. I don't know how true this was to Neil Simon's original play but I'm guessing enough of it was to seem not too different from his subsequent work. I highly laughed most of the time so on that note, I highly recommend Come Blow Your Horn. P.S. This review is indeed dedicated in memory of Mr. Simon.

Round up the usual suspects. This being a Frank Sinatra comedy, there has to be a Cahn-Van Heusen song, arranged by Nelson Riddle. Dean Martin pops up in an under-rehearsed cameo and Jill St. John is Frankie's Bimbo. "It's a business like any other business," says Frank. Was he talking of manufacturing wax fruit, or cranking out cynical sex comedies?

The Baker brothers are out for fun. Alan is a thirty-nine year old playboy who, to his parents' chagrin, remains unmarried (Sinatra was in fact bewigged and fifty-one). His kid brother Buddy (Tony Bill) escapes from the stifling jewish domesticity of Yonkers and joins Alan in his Manhattan bachelor apartment. Drinks, dames and snappy clothes ensue. Because this is 1963, Frank thinks it's the height of cool to shave with an electric razor, use roll-on deodorant and furnish his kitchen in orange plastic. Impressively for 1963, he has a car phone and a remote control device to work his stereo, but were the snapbrim hat and the plaid raincoat REALLY the last word in style in the era of the Rolling Stones?

Essentially a bourgeois jewish comedy of the Neil Simon type, "Come Blow Your Horn" is a bit of froth which does not repay close analysis. There is a cute little phallic joke (the cannon in the movie playing on TV) and Frank's character almost goes somewhere with his 'oldest swinger in town' realisation, but ultimately this is a lazy, shallow little project.

Lee J. Cobb is the long-suffering jewish father, Molly Picon the depressingly stereotypical jewish mom. Hoss from TV's "Bonanza", Dan Blocker, appears briefly as the irate cuckold Eckman. Jill St. John is in simpering Marilyn Monroe mode as Peggy The Babe, not yet showing the intelligent irony on display in "Tony Rome". Tony Bill is good as Buddy, the kid brother corrupted by the philandering Alan, and Barbara Rush impresses as Connie, the good girl.

However, the film's central premise is flawed. The script does not explain (because it can't) how feckless, jobless Alan can afford swish tailoring, ski vacations in Vermont and an apartment the size of Shea Stadium. There is a lame suggestion, right at the end, that some unseen broad can be sweet-talked into donating the bachelor pad to Buddy, but it fails to convince. Rather like the film, really.

I really like this movie, but I like Frank too. Sinatra had some really good movies, and some not so hot, but fun to watch like this one. Anyone who doesn't get this movie is a square. It's fantasy, it's light comedy, it's fun, and it's free. Hard to swallow Dan Blocker as someone other than Hoss, and I love the women in this one. When I was 10 and watched this, I used to think this was real life, and I couldn't wait to be just like Frank. Of course, I'm a little smarter now, but I still wish my young adulthood had had this kind of time, even once. So, the movie substitutes nicely, just like the Elvis movies do. Instead of the "swinging bachelor" life, I am married 30 years with grown kids, and quite happy. I think also having an older brother and younger brothers gives me a neat perspective on this film. Not reality, not meant to be. I also love anything New York, like the waiter who delivers the peas and potatoes because "they come with the meal." Now THAT'S New York customer service at it's best. Just a great evening watching a fun movie. Sinatra in many of his movies, kept his rat pack persona on display. Sinatra was one of a kind. Then again, so was Dean Martin, Sammy, and some of the other "cool cats". Sinatra did quite well. Not bad for a kid from Hoboken.

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.