Tony Rome est dangereux !

You must be a fan of 60's movies to like this flick. Negative comments about this movie are negative comments about 60's movies in general.

Tony Rome is an ex-cop, current private dick who is hired by a family to find there missing jewels. Rather unique things happen, the movie is over, and you are either a bigger Sinatra fan, or at the same level.

My advice is to imagine you are sitting in a 1967 Olds 442 at the drive in, and the rest will take care of itself.

This is an interesting and very modern detective film. Frank Sinatra plays the title role--a private detective who seems very cool and disaffected. Of the three detective shows he made in the late 60s, I'd rate this one #2--behind the superior film "The Detective". However, this exceptional film is not related to "Tony Rome" or its sequel "The Lady in Cement". Regardless, Sinatra's world-weary performances were excellent--even if he seemed to try to make it look like he's not trying.

The film begins with Tony doing what seems like a very mundane and not at all dangerous task--bringing home a drunk young lady to her rich daddy (Simon Oakland). Oddly, however, this good deed ended up leading to an apparently minor task--to find the young lady's missing earring. And, this task led to murder...in fact, a LOT of murders and mayhem. By late 60s standards, this film is awfully violent and Tony isn't exactly always the macho hero. Although he generally gets the best of it, he, too, gets the crap knocked out of him a few times in this rough and tumble film.

As I said, I preferred Sinatra's "The Detective", but not by much. "Tony Rome" is a very good private eye film--a bit like a grittier version of "The Rockford Files"...minus most of the laughs. It's also odd that Tony is NOT the perfect manly sort of hero--especially since he repeatedly shows a stronger desire to wrap up the case than unwrap the very alluring Jill St. John--who spends much of the movie pursuing Tony. A very good film--especially since the mystery turns out to be a very interesting one. Worth your time.

By the way, a couple interesting parts in the film are a cameo by the ex-champ Rocky Graziano as well as a VERY unusual sort of role for the comic Shecky Greene. Also, I just loved Tony's line "This is not a family. Just a bunch of people living at the same address." Priceless and indicative of the sort of smart-allecky stuff he tosses about during the film.

Sure, it doesn't have a great plot line and there are more holes than a B-17 flying back from the ball bearing plant in Germany, but it is fun!It is as about as politically correct as a Klan meeting, and that is part of its charm. By 1967, Sinatra was already a magnificent anachronism. His world of of "ring a ding,ding",and "broads", martinis and captain's hats were longer hip or remotely cool. He still keeps trying, however. Just four years before, with Kennedy still in office, Tony Rome would have seemed like "Mr. Hip"', Daddio. By 1967, the glory days of the Rat Pack were over, the Beatles had taken over America along with their countrymen, we were deeply involved in Vietnam, American cities were burning, and drugs were everywhere. Timothy Leary was now cool to an entire generation of young Americans. Still,Sinatra is Sinatra. I am awfully glad he didn't pull up in a flower power VW Beetle, wearing long beads and a Nehru jacket.It must of been galling to him that he was no longer the hippest thing on two feet, however. His reaction seems to be to ignore the entire subculture. " Just a bunch of kids!".

Anyway, this is a fun movie! Shecky Greene, a former Sinatra favorite and later an outcast, is a bad guy. Richard Conte, a Sinatra pal, plays his pal in the movie.Rocky Graziano is in it. And let's not forget one of the all time babes, Jill St. John. They could have forgotten the plot and had her steal bikinis all day, by trying them on and wearing them out of the store. Normally I would rate this movie a four or a five, just based on the acting on the script. It gets two extra points for Jill St. John's bathing suit!

This is one breezy film. Sinatra one lines himself solidly throughout. In films like this, there aren't many moments of reflection. This saves us the trouble of examining the plot and the character motivation too intently. The benefit to the viewer is that the whole experience remains visceral and on the surface. On occasion I like films that don't challenge me, that simply vibrate with a peculiar sort of corrupt, smarmy, highly heated decaying fun. Sinatra dashes all over Miami in search of his maguffin. He pops in to the lives of many marginalized denizens of the underworld. He gets a taste of the lives of the newly rich and partially famous. His alter-ego, Richard Conte, provides a mundane, safe balanced universe for him to rest up in from time to time but the bulk of his characters time is spent in high risk action and lots of smart-assed talk. And for this viewer, that was just fine.

The best reason for watching this film is to use it to transport yourself back to the 1960's, and experience that period from the perspective of a 50's Rat Pack star.

This is not a great movie by today's standards, but as a child of the 60's and 70's myself, I can say that this movie does take you back to a time when America had a completely different environment, and mindset. The character portrayed by Sinatra, and the dialogue in general, presents a good example of what the typical American Male thought of as "cool" in the early 60's.

True, it's not what we find entertaining today, but that's not why I like to watch old movies. I watch old films because they have an extraordinary ability to take you to a time when the world, and people in general, had a very different view of things and also what was fashionable at that time.