TAKE ONE Presents... - The Heistpod 1: OCEAN'S 11 (1960)

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

TAKE ONE Presents... returns for another job, this time sticking up the Ocean's franchise and taking all the critical insight we can get from this franchise. In this first episode, Simon and Jim set out the plan for the series and then go back further than they've ever been to discuss 1960's OCEAN'S 11. They discuss the personal and political lives of the Rat Pack aka. the Clan, how this film came to be and the many writers that contributed to it, the languid pacing for a heist movie, the film's status as marketing for Las Vegas and specific casinos, and the racist issues with the film's unfortunate conclusion.Content warnings: anti-Black racism and blackface; anti-Black racial slurs; misogyny; cancer and death; slavery; anti-Indigenous American slurs.Our theme song is Heist Chase Robbery Music by Mykola Odnoroh licensed under the Pixabay Content License: https://pixabay.com/music/hard-rock-heist-chase-robbery-music-346328/Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/S3HZ25CF/collection

Ten ought to do it, don't you think? Do you think we need one more? You think we need one more. All right, we'll get one more. Then you're out. Take One presents the Heist Pod, a podcast where we're watching all the Oceans franchise films are in order, contextualizing them and critiquing them.

I'm Simon Bowie, and for this job, I've recruited one of the best in the biz, my co-host, Jim Ross. Hi, Jim. I'm good, I'm good, thank you. You in? Oh, I'm in. I'm in.

maybe regrettably on the basis of this first film, but we'll come to that. Fantastic. We're starting a new series here in Take One Presents. If you're new to the podcast, what we do is we look at franchise films. We watch all the franchise films, even the stinkers, and we critique them, contextualize them, put them into a framework as a franchise, and figure out what we can learn about, blockbuster film franchises from looking at that franchise. So we've previously done Alien, Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible and The Terminator.

And this time we thought we'd do something that's maybe a bit of a departure for us in some ways, which we can get into, the Oceans franchise. Now this is a series of heist films, hence the Heist pod. And yeah, I do think it is a little bit different for us. Jim, what is your history with the Oceans franchise in general? Have you seen them all? I have... So at the time we decided to do this as our next series,

I had seen three of the five films. So I'd seen Oceans 11, the George Clooney version from 2001, I'd seen Oceans 12, and I'd seen Oceans 8, the Sandra Bullock led one with a female cast. Ocean's, I was aware of the other ones, and this is why I'll be interested in what I make of them as we go through this series, because I didn't bother watching Oceans 13 at the time it came out because I was so put off by Oceans 12. Oceans 8, I thought I'd give a swing, because by that time I was kind of like doing the whole, you know, pretending to be a film critic thing, and I was watching most stuff and, you know, it was a change of direction, so I thought to check out.

Oceans 11, 1960, what we're talking about today in the Frank Sinatra original. I hadn't seen. I was aware of it pretty much from the start of watching the Colony version, but I hadn't watched it until we decided to do this pod. It's been one of these things I've been meaning to watch for a while. We never really got around to. Yeah. So that's one of the interesting things about this franchise,

is we are starting in the 1960s, which is the earliest we have ever had. had a franchise start. I think the prior earliest was Alien in 1977. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Was it 79 Alien or is 77? 79 sounds right, actually.

It was definitely, I mean, the point is, like, the earliest we've gone before this is, you know, late 70s. You know, kind of like getting into the 80s after that, particularly when you start talking about stuff like, you know, the Terminator and aliens and things like that. So this is a good couple of decades. Yeah, because I think film franchises on the whole are largely a concept emerging in sort of 70s, 80s, 80s, really, because I mean Star Wars comes out in 77, but it's not a franchise until the 80s when it picks up momentum, and you know what I mean? Yeah.

It's a phenomenon from the 80s onwards, so it is interesting to be looking at a film from an entirely different area of filmmaking, which we'll discuss when we get into talking about the film itself, but yeah, an interesting way of approaching things, because this comes out in 1960, and then the other Ocean's 11 doesn't come out until 2001. So a huge gap, it's obviously a remake that follows a very different structure, as we'll talk about. But it's also an interesting franchise, because it is quite, I don't like, or turf. theory, but I'm going to say autur-led in that Stephen Soderberg

has quite a strong hand on the tiller for the major films in the franchise, which is kind of the middle three, 11, 12 and 13. Yeah, and he's an interesting film here to talk about because I think he's a very un-autary

otterly. He's quite you know, he's quite very, it's interesting. I think there are certain things you can spot in Soderbergh films that are recurring things you'll see but we're not talking about it's a deep deep stylistic

approach that is easily identifiable so he's quite interesting in that in that way as well no I imagine we'll talk about him a lot more as we get through this as we get into the later films but I really like the kind of late turn that Stephen Soderberg has taken

and lately I've just been seeing all his late films and thinking a lot about what he does and he's clearly thinking a lot about what he does and experimenting with form and stuff like that in really interesting ways and I'm excited to see how they come across in the Ocean's films because I didn't say what I've seen but prior to recording this I had seen Ocean's 11 and Ocean's 12 I recall quite liking oceans 12 but we'll see we'll see how that holds up and I haven't seen 13 or 8

and I hadn't seen the 1960 original prior to this so yeah an interesting departure for us it's also the way these have often shaken out is that the first film in the series is often the most highly regarded or the most popular

or the best alien Jurassic Park Spoiler layer. There's also a departure in that sense. And, yeah, to lead us into discussion of Ocean's 11, 1960. This does not follow that pattern. No. But yeah, I think it'll be an interesting franchise to talk about. A little shorter, perhaps, than the other franchises we've done as well.

But I think it'll be an interesting insight into a certain era of filmmaking, but also in this episode, a very different era of filmmaking. Because, yeah, today we are talking about Oceans 11 from 1960, which is a film directed and produced by Lewis Milestone from a screenplay by, well, lots of writers.

As it turns out, I did some reading around this, and it seems like maybe there was a problem of too many cooks. but it's an ensemble cast film with members of the Rat Pack now you said you hadn't seen this film before no not had I I wasn't particularly familiar with the Rat Pack either I you know knew it involved Frank Sinatra Dean Martin and a group of kind of Las Vegas entertainers but yeah didn't didn't know too much about it but for context the term Rat Pack was originally used for a kind of group of friends who were all entertainers, kind of led by Humphrey Bogart.

The story goes that Lauren Bacall saw her husband, Humphrey Bogart, returning from a night in Las Vegas, and said that they looked like a rat pack. And so they picked up that term and ran with it. And it had various members over the years, like Earl Flynn, Eva Gardner, Nacking Cole, Caesar Romero. In the 1950s, 1960s, after Humphrey Bogart's death, Frank Sinatra became the kind of de facto leader and assembled a kind of new rap pack around him based on his singing and performing in Las Vegas. And these people were Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, all of whom are in this film. Frank Sinatra himself didn't actually like the term Rat Pack. I found a book called Rat Pack Confidential by Sean Levy, where he talks about the

history of the rat pack. Frank didn't like the term rat pack. He didn't like the implication that he was aping Humphrey Bogart. And so they called themselves the clan for a while. Oh, God. Until they remembered And this is straight from the book Until they remembered That was probably a problem at that time Until they remembered

They had a black guy And two Jews with them Oh Jesus grace I guess The two Jews overlaps with the black guy Because Sammy Deeriff Jr. was a Jewish Frank liked to call it the summit It didn't matter

It was like the mob If you belonged You didn't ever have to refer to it directly And if you didn't You sound like a fool or worse talking about it. And we'll talk about the mob in connection with thanks and Archer Laysa. It's maybe just a term for like a collection of well-regard performers

and it's sounded like a ridiculous cult. Yeah, I mean, no one... They didn't like being referred to as either Rat Pack or Klan. So Peter is quoted as saying, Now look, that clan business, I mean, that's Hokie. I mean, it makes us sound like children, like we all wore sweatshirts that said the clan and Frank had a whistle around his neck.

They make us sound so unsayvary. We're just a lot of people on the same wavelength. We like each other. What's wrong with that? Just cool dudes being cool. Just cool dudes being cool. And Sammy would joke about it sometimes, asking,

would I belong to an organization known as the clan? And kidding that the rat pack was just a little group of ordinary guys that get together once a year to take over the entire world. Again, just some cool dudes. Cool dudes being cool. Yeah, and Joey, is it Jerry Bishop? Jerry Bishop got the last line, the best line. Clan, clan.

I'm sick and tired of hearing things about the clan. Just because a few of us guys get together once a week with sheets over our heads. That's pretty good. That's a pretty solid joke. Yeah. It's also good to see that one of them was actually You know, what was actually aware of it?

Yeah, exactly. To make this explicit of the Ku Klux Klan, which was active in America, that still is, I suppose, but very active in America as of 1960, 1950s. But yes, the rap pack was this group of friends led by Frank Sinatra, this group of entertainers,

and they worked together in very, and made films together. I think multiple films. I'm not sure I can name any of them apart for Motion's 11. Let's have a quick look. Oh, there's a lot. Okay, it doesn't necessarily... So I'm on the Wikipedia page, Ford Ratback,

and there are a lot of films listed, but they don't all include all members of the... Yeah, okay, so... Yeah, I saw something that... that listed Shirley MacLean as kind of an ancillary member of the Rat Pack and obviously she had a lot of films but that doesn't make him a Rat Pack film but it was Peter Lawford who first came across the idea for this film so he was on the beach in front of his house in 195 hanging out with B-movie director Gilbert Kaye and Gilbert Kay told him about a story that he'd heard

from a gas station attendant where at the end of world World War II, there'd been a group of GIs who'd done some smuggling jobs for the army, and he thought that a reunion of these kind of trained GIs to do a heist in, say, Vegas, would be a good idea. Gilbert Kay wanted to direct whatever came out of it, and Peter did not want that. So many years later, Kay came to him. desperate for money and sold the idea to him. They then worked on it. Peter took this to Frank Sinatra.

Frank loved the idea of a heist movie with a Vegas backdrop, partly because it would be a boost not just to his career, but to the casinos that Frank Sinatra owned, which are prominently featured in the film. So is it the Sands, I think, that is prominently featured and featured at the end? Frank Sinatra owned like a 9% stake in that or something So there is a sense and we'll discuss this as we go through the film There is a real sense that this is advertising for Las Vegas and for Franks

Casinos in particular But they had a lot of writers as I mentioned They got in Breen and Milestone originally worked on it That's Lewis Milestone and Richard Breen. Initially worked on the script. They brought in Billy Wilder as a script doctor.

Breen was eventually replaced by Daniel Fuchs, who was replaced by Harry Brown and Charles Lederer. And the original story was based on Jack Golden Russell and George C. Johnson, who'd been involved incredibly early in the process. Now, Rat Pack Confidential refers to this as an awful lot of writers, especially given the extremely shaggy shape of the finished product. We'll get into it, but I think, you know, even accounting for kind of like differences in cinematic storytelling preferences, let's say, at the time, the first 45 to 50 minutes of this two-hour film are so slow. It's so beandering.

Right. So that bagginess and this kind of like lack of focus, it maybe comes from. having so many people go to script. Like, you do sense it. You do sense it. You do. I think I have more behind the scenes stuff about the making of this film, but I think I'll get into them as we go through, because I think we've got enough context on what the rat pack is

and who the rat pack is. But yes, this was released in 1960, August 10th, 1960. And 1916 film was a very different film landscape than not. one we have now. The highest grossing films of 1960 were. Number one, Spartacus. Number two, Psycho. Three, Exodus, Swiss family Robinson, the Alamo, the World of Susie Wong, Butterfield 8, the apartment, Oceans 11 at number 9, and from the terrace. Now I have seen Psycho, the Alfred Hitchcock film, I've seen the apartment, the Billy Wilder film.

I think out of those films, my favourite would be the apartment, I think the apartment's terrific. But yeah, I haven't seen a lot of these. No, I think looking at it, I've seen about half of them. Spartacus, Psycho, Swiss Family Robinson, the apartment, now Ocean's 11, the others I haven't seen. It's interesting, it's actually interested in the apartment it's interesting to see the apartment both so high because it's in the top 10, right?

But also so low, given that I think it would generally be probably regarded as one of the best films of that year, looking at the stuff that came out. Yeah. You know, it's interesting hearing that Billy Wilder was involved with the screenplay at some point, because I mean, in terms of like, you know, his filmography, it's all very. very sharp and of course he's he's the mind behind the apartment yeah uncredited uh kind of punch-ups script doctoring at some point in the process

but yeah he did come on and do do some stuff like you i would have expected the apartment to be higher simply because it's now viewed as such a classic but sparticus and psychobian at the top is not particularly unsurprising I think I forget how early cycle actually was, right? I mean, I say I forget how early cycle was relative to my own lifetime, I think is what I mean there, because obviously, like, you know, Hitchcock was making silent films and stuff, and I've seen a bunch of them, right?

So in terms of, like, Hitchcock, it's not, but, yeah. Yeah, but we do have a lot of kind of famous people in the top ten. You know, Kubrick, Hitchcock, Exodus is auto-preming. the Alamo is a John Wayne directed Western starring John Wayne The apartment is obviously Billy Wilder So yeah an interesting An interesting top ten I think what's in it

I mean actually because I was having a look at this as also You're still firmly in the era of stuff coming out in the rest of the world Quite a bit after when it came out in the States Because I think the thing that I find interesting is if you look at what the top grossing film that year was for a bunch of European countries, it's Ben Hur. I was just going to say, this is slightly different from how we normally do the box office top 10, because this is just for North America. Because the worldwide grosses are not available.

And like you say, Ben Hur, which came out in 1959, is the highest grossing film outside of North America in most countries. the exceptions are India and the Soviet Union, which have an Indian film and a Soviet film, respectively. Yeah. I find it, it's actually just, it's an interesting little side note just purely, because it kind of shows a little bit, I think, maybe, how cultural attitude to remakes has changed a little bit, because of course Ben Hurter,

the incredibly well-regarded film, incredibly popular film based on the data we're seeing here, was itself a remake of a film that came out, like, you know, whether it was 30, 35 years previous to the version we're talking about right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, interesting. But obviously a very different film landscape than now.

Let's get into the film and run through it. We start with what I could ungenerously say is the best part of the film, which is a very 1960s title sequence. it's immediately very striking. I thought immediately this must be Sol Bass and I was correct. It's kind of scoreboard-style numbers followed by very vagus style

dot graphics. It's very jaunty, it's very light. It's really good, frankly, and I will be more blunt. This is definitely the best part of the film. Right? You know, we'll get into the relative quality of different bits after, but this is the most memorable part

the film for me. Yeah. Or the most memorable thing that I'm positive, right? Well, we'll come to that. Solbas was American graphic designer

who designed a lot of memorable title sequences for films. I think I associate him with Bond, but I think that's wrong. I'm not sure he ever did a Bond film. No, I think of the stuff

he did on, like, Hitchcock's films. I was just going to say, the more known for Hitchcock, say, North West, Vertigo, Psycho, these kinds of title sequences. But he's working as late as kind of the 90s with like Goodfellas,

Cape Fair, Casino, you know, obviously working with Scorsese, Age of Innocence. But he's got a very striking style. And it's very apparent from first moments that this is a Sawbass title sequence. Like I say, it's very light, it's very jaunty, it's getting you into a kind of, This is a light, fluffy film.

We then cut to Christmas in Beverly Hills, because this is a secret Christmas film. It is. Like Jurassic World. A man walks into a barber shop, and he's a heist planner complaining about the lack of respect he's accorded. And he's concerned about someone called Danny Ocean and someone called Sam Harmon.

I feel like my notes are very baggy for this. which I'm going to say is a reflection of these first 50 minutes. It's so, it's, look, I normally, like, on this show and on these episodes, we go through and kind of like, you know, we talk about things as they come up and we, you know, diverge into things that are we're talking about. The first 45 minutes of this film, man, Jesus Christ. We can't do that because I just, I didn't make a note of what was happening in whatever scene. Because most of it didn't matter. No, no.

We have a lot. We have a lot of short scenes establishing characters and doing character backgrounds and characters involved with stuff that won't matter at all. So it's a lot of scenes of tracking down, a lot of very similar-looking 1960-style white men who, frankly, I couldn't tell apart. No, listen

The film's called Oceans 11 Right I think you'd be lucky if I could name Four of the actors And maybe Of those four actors The name of three of their characters Yeah

Yeah And the other thing I would say is There's a reason these guys were mainly known for music right there this is not there's not a lot of kind of like screen presence here I think I've got a note here

that I think when Dean Martin like finally shows up on screen to me it's kind of the first sign of life I mean because like I found Frank Sinatra just painfully dull like you know the idea that he's the charismatic leader of these guys

is kind of a joke based on what's on screen to be honest Yeah, I have a different first sign of life that we can get to when we get to it You know, and I think we're less than You know, and also kind of the You've definitely got this kind of like, you know This sort of classic masculine image of the time happening

Like I think we're less than 10 minutes in We've already had a woman get tapped on our arse And like somebody is getting a massage for what appears to be no reason, you know? Within the first few minutes, we have a woman being playfully tapped on the behind, like you say, a Chinese man-servant, a black valet. It's very 1960s in that these are just part of the culture,

things that are going on around uncommented on, that are just part of 1960s American culture. Yeah, and I think having had a bit of time to reflect on this opening, like three quarters an hour, I do have a thought about it and I think it's something that will probably be lost slightly on you and me

watching this as people who are not kind of like rat pack obsessives watching it like 60 years 60 years on from its release it's so obvious looking at it now that it's a star vehicle for these guys right and it's this idea that you

and I did have this thought about like it's remarkable how unimpactful that's opening stretches if you're not steeped in the contemporary culture that surrounds it. And I do wonder whether this is what some of the stuff around like, you know, Spider-Man No Way Home and your random Spider-Men showing up or Harry Stiles cameoing at the end of the Eternals and things like that. Like things in modern films, we still do this sort of thing.

But I wonder, is that the sort of thing that people are going to watch those films in 2080 and be talking about it in the way we are this now? but it's, when you do have that removed from it, it's pretty dead on arrival, to be honest. I have the same note. I feel like a lot of the charm of this film is hanging out with these guys, these cool laid-back guys who are very hip and who you're supposed to just find charming and likable

and want to hang out with. I feel like there's a certain element of that in some franchises. I'm thinking of the MCU, where there's kind of a frill of seeing these kids, characters get together and hang out and banter back and forth and be quippy in a way that I associate with early Avengers films, not necessarily the later ones. But I think there's some overlap there in kind of the appeal of these films. It is seeing characters that you like who are merely vehicles for the actors, really,

getting together and hanging out and having a good time. I didn't find that particularly appealing in this film. because I do not know these men, and I wasn't charmed by them particularly. It all found them very interesting. But I think that is supposed to be the appeal. Yeah. Like, once we get into it, I have some other thoughts about what type of film this is trying to be, but I'll not dipeard from it at the moment.

But we do have a lot of short scenes establishing characters. So Frank Sinatra plays Danny Ocean, and he's getting a massage with Peter Lorford. Sam Harmon is played by Dean Martin He gets off a plane and talks to another rat packer And a lot of scenes of tracking down these similar looking men Some highlights In the nightclub, Danny Ocean outlines his plan to Buddy Lester Which is a military-style operation to heist casinos

And this is a very post-war theme That is unfortunately not really developed but is still lingering in the background. He says, why waste the skills that the army taught them during the war? So he's getting their all unit back together. You know, you can imagine they were deployed as paratroopers in Normandy for like the DDA landings, the liberation of Normandy and friends. And now they're getting back together, what, 15 years later,

to heist rather than soldier, to get what they feel they are owed from, kind of Uncle Sam from America to use the skills that they were taught. Other highlights, Richard Conte shows off an abacus at one point and then finds out that he probably has cancer, which is referred to as the big casino.

Also, can we pause on the abacus for a minute? I want to check, I'm not going to see it here. He does in the film pronounce it abacus, right? Didn't catch it. I'll take your word for it. Yeah. Yeah, he comes in and he's explaining some of this. Yeah, it's a Japanese abacus.

And I'm like, wait, wait, what? Like, does anybody... It was one of those moments where, like, I had a moment of panic where I'm like, have I been pronouncing this word wrong my entire life? Have I only seen this written yet? Yeah. You know? But yeah, yeah.

Like, is that a thing? Yeah, that's... I think that's also kind of like the first... It's actually not a bad sequence that one as this opening stretch goes, because it's the first one that establishes any sort of actual emotional motivation for any of these guys, right? Because everything else, all the militias have is really surface-level stuff. Yeah, but he does have cancer. He has the big casino.

And this isn't really mentioned again. This plays into what happens to his character later on, his character dies, but of like a heart. Yeah, completely separate sudden thing, yeah. So it does feel like in the Tommy Whistow film The Room, where the mother has breast cancer in one scene, and it's never brought up again. It feels a bit like that.

Yeah, he dies at a point later in the film simply because his plot armour has been taken off effectively. Yeah, he dies very suddenly of cancer in the street. he has a cancer attack yeah sure anyway we have all these scenes of these various men getting together

and if you think we're belaboring this watch the film but it's because of the shooting schedule so there is this legend that they were shooting this while doing shows in Las Vegas and they were very busy and overworked and blah blah blah

Rat Pack Confidential by Sean Levy says that this is something of a legend in that it is made up so work generally began the earliest call was 5.30pm and no actor had to be on set for more than three hours during the whole shooting period Milestone usually got

one rat packer at a time occasionally two and he had the whole quintet I guess the main five at his disposal only once, which was to film the closing credits. There is a scene earlier where they are all together, but I guess that might have been stitched together with a number of different edits.

But he had them all together only once to film the closing credits. Most days, a single member of the Rat Pack was on set for three hours, usually from 3pm to 6pm. Sammy and Peter had some morning calls, 9 or 10 a.m. and Sammy easily spent the most time in front of the cameras throughout the month. I think that comes across. The only time anyone filmed in the wee small hours was when Frank showed up one day at 5am for about two hours of work. So it wasn't the film all day, perform all evening, drink all night scene that has become the legend of the summit and the making of Ocean's 11.

So yeah, we get a lot of these scenes simply because he didn't have Lewis milestone. didn't have the cast together for a lot of the filming. At one point, Buddy Lester goes to track down Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy Davis Jr. is working as a garbage truck driver, and for me, this was the moment when life is put into the film, because he brought some much needed energy and did an impromptu rendition of EO11, which is one of his songs. Now, the US Army wasn't desegregated until 1948, so Sammy Davis Jr. couldn't have been in the same division as then.

But it's a nice conceit to think that he could have. And maybe we'll talk about this later, but my impression from reading around Frank Sinatra is that he was a terrible man personally, but pretty good politically. He was always a supporter of the Democrats, he was always a supporter of civil rights. He wouldn't play at venues that barred black patrons.

He was always very supportive of Sammy Davis Jr. When Sammy Davis Jr. lost his eye, Frank Sinatra took him in and really supported his career. So that's nice. On the other hand, I do have an anecdote about Sammy Davis Jr.'s role in the film. Sammy Davis Jr. did an interview with the radio in Chicago.

He said, I love Frank. He was the kindest man in the world to me when I lost my eye on an auto accident and wanted to kill myself. But there are many things he does that there are no excuses for. Talent is not an excuse for bad manners. I don't care if you're the most talented person in the world. It does not give you the right to step on people and treat them rotten. This is what he does occasionally.

He was then asked who the number one singer in the country was, and Sammy replied, Sammy Davis Jr. said it was him. Bigger than Frank? Yeah. And Frank cast him out. Frank cast him into the desert. Frank called him a dirty N-word bastard. Oh boy. And had him cast out of the rat pack, out of the clam.

Sammy Davis cried from morning to nothing. Every time you see it, the kind of the client. Also in the context of this particular anecdote. So the next two months, Sammy was on his knees begging for Frank's forgiveness, Lawford recalled, but Frank wouldn't speak to him. Even though they were in Florida together,

Frank still refused to speak to him. Now, eventually there was some kind of reconciliation. Peter says that Frank let him grovel for a while and then allowed him to apologize in public a couple of months later. And so, when Frank was assembling the cast of Ocean's 11, he let Sammy back in the fold in time to take a role in the movie. But, the book says,

for no obvious reason other than petty spite, Sammy was cast as a singing, dancing garbage man. So I think Sammy Davis Jr. is great in this film. He's a standout performer for me. I think he brings a lot of energy, and you can sort of tell that he was on set. more because he seems more comfortable around the camera. But he does have this role as a garbage man,

which apparently was a spiteful action on the part of Frank, and has certain racial connotations in that the only black member of the crew of the 11 is relegated to this kind of low-status, low-class position as a garbage man. He's important in the heist, but there's, certain yeah connotations around his role I think it's fair to say

I mean it's all kind of an eye like in terms of kind of like the relative levels of fame in regard of these guys and status even with their characters in the film because as I say I think when Dean Martin comes on that's the first kind of like I was like

okay here's somebody with a bit of verve right I think you've got the same thing with Sammy Davis Junior, particularly he does the first musical number, which I'm I think I'm less into than ain't that a kick in the head, which I think gets something like three times in the film or something. I was going to say? Right. I think I prefer E.O. 11 simply because I'm not beating over the head with it. It's true, right? But

I think those two are the first sparks of life. Frank Sinatra, honest to God, is like an absolute lead weight on this film. I found him to be in the like, meant to be like one of the worlds that was famously kind of I thought he was an absolute charisma vacuum in this film. 100%. I think it really suffers. The whole film suffers from feeling very lifeless. Yeah.

Very lifeless and very flat. Everyone is so laid back. Everyone is so chill in a way that I think works for their persona, their public persona outside the film, where they're chill hip dudes. But it doesn't feel like there's any tension for out and instead of chill and cool, it just comes across as lifeless. At least Sammy Davis Jr. brought some verve to it. And like you say, Dean Martin, clearly

a good performer. It does very well. But yeah, there's so much of it that's so flat. So where are we? Sammy Davis Jr. has been not even recruited because they're not even talking about the bloody heist yet. Yeah. Dean Martin's things ain't that a kick in the head for the first time, and he meets Angie Dickinson's Beatrice Ocean. She's estranged from Danny because he's so busy, presumably heisting. I wrote this down because I thought it would be important later, but it's not. Yeah, that kind of sums up a huge chunks of this film, right? Because I've got no tunes, like, none of this is important.

Danny Ocean has another woman on the side, his mistress, played by Patrice Wymore, and she is also mad at Danny, because he's seen me. his wife. Doesn't matter. Actually, the second movie is actually interesting because you make a note of that because you think that's going to be important. Then the film makes it look like it's going to be important later

and it's not. A lot of ambling about aimlessly. In some scenes, someone gets close to talking about a house. But other than that, it's a real, you know, when are they going to get to the fireworks factory situation where they don't even get close to it.

No, and there's one line that sticks out to me, I think at some point somebody says, we've been preparing things for weeks and I'm like, is that why you're so relaxed, you're already ready to go? Is this why you're not talking about any of it? Because it's all already done? So why am I here exactly? Finally, finally, at the 50 minute mark of this two hour, 10 minute film, 10 of the titular 11 are finally together in one room to plan the house.

heist. And still, there is an interminable few minutes while they're waiting for Clem Harvey's Jackson before discussing anything. They're like, oh, where's Jackson? He's not here yet. Well, well, what would you do with the money? Blah, blah, blah, blah. I'd get into politics.

I doubt that. I get rid of slavery. There's some dialogue here where, like, is, like, this is what you've made the time for, where, like, I'll get into politics. Like this is the actual kind of like extended dialogues in this film where they say they'd get into politics and the first thing they do is take the vote away from women and make slaves of them. Yeah.

That's an actual line. And then there's some talk about money and it's that there's no inflation on slaves. What? Yeah. Sorry, did I hear that? And the thing is, it's just all delivered in such this dull life.

uncharismatic way you can't even tell if it's being said as a sort of I sort of think it would be great but you can't even tell if it's being said ironically or not as a sort of like what rapscallions we are you know it's oh dearie me

dearie me yeah I'm thinking of like the dialogue of like Kerry Grant in what's that film where they have a leopard bringing up baby I'm going to say my wheel lose here. Yeah, I'm thinking of kind of

the American screwball comedies. So Kerry Grant and Catherine Hepburn, they have this kind of quippy nature to them, but they are good performers, so you can tell what they're doing. His Girl Friday is the one I'm thinking of. Ah, yeah, yeah.

Where Kerry Grant is talking to Rosalind Russell a lot. And they have this fun back and forth. They have this fun, quippy dialogue. And I feel like that's what this is going for, but it doesn't come across in any way. So they are just meandering about politics,

alluding to slavery, using outdated terms for Indigenous Americans for whatever reason, and talking around, just talking around anything except the heist because they're waiting for fucking Jackson to turn up because there's only 10 of the 11 here, 50 minutes into the film.

So finally, finally, Sergeant Danny Ocean has his platoon together, has his division, together, and he presents the plan with some degree of theatricality, the most that Frank Sinatra can muster. The plan is to go to Las Vegas and to liberate millions of dollars from five casinos on New Year's Eve. They've chosen former power troopers because known criminals can't even get close to Vegas. Right, sure. Which, which I... Sure. Look, I don't know the situation in 1960, right?

But my experience of it, because I have been there, right? Yeah. For a work thing, aggressively not my bag, I have to say. That's not the situation in the 2020s. No. I was going to save this, but I'll say it now. Larry Dale Krag has a article in studies in popular culture called Protecting a City's Image, The Death of Las Vegas Beat,

about kind of how Las Vegas established itself in the 50s and 60s. as this as you know what the image of Las Vegas is a playground a place to have fun a carefree place and a fun in the Sun Resort community rather than Sin City so the Las Vegas News Bureau

which was I think linked to the city in some way in some official capacity saturated the media with photos and copy to do this they sent photographers to the strip hotels to photograph average Americans at the pools and sent those to hometown newspapers. They blanketed the nation with pictures of entertainers performing. The Las Vegas News Bureau, the city of Las Vegas, Clark County, and various hotels cooperated with television and movie production to portray Las Vegas in this way as a fun-in-the-sun

destination, as the entertainment capital of the world. And Ocean's Eleven was part of this. It was part of this propaganda campaign to show Los Angeles. Vegas in this certain light as a fun place that's not a negative place where you can do a light-hearted heist and it doesn't really matter and it doesn't blah blah blah but it's not a place for criminals criminals aren't allowed in Las Vegas and this um the fact that this also also obviously a part of kind of like developing the image of Vegas right you actually see that in this scene we were just talking about because the is it a map would you call it a map I don't

know, but the thing that Ocean puts down on the pool table to show the casinos are going to hit, it looks like a promotional flyer. I was just going to say, you know, like they're all laid out in a row on the strip. They've all got their kind of like, you know, obviously marketing approved, kind of like logos, you know, it's not a sort of like scrappy back of the napkin type thing. It looks like a promotional brochure, you know. It is neither a scrappy back of the napkin type thing, which would work for a heist movie, or an actual kind of military, you know, grid map, like an ordnance survey map. It is like the Alton Towers map, where it's like

a figurative representation of the place that shows the fun you're going to have. Yeah. And sort of direction, right direction, but it's not really, it's not actually the same thing. It's the map you'd get at Disneyland. Yeah, you're half expected to have icons for like where you could buy hot dogs. Yeah Toilets here

So yeah Known criminals can't get close to Vegas Right So they've got these paratroopers The plant is that after everyone sings Allang Zine Which is always only One minute and 30 seconds long

Okay Exactly Where mics reads as everybody does the first verse And then it starts to come in Yeah Uh huh Ha Na

To the mind Yeah, it's a bigger thing in Scotland Where I live and where you're from For Hogmane But still, people don't It's also It shouldn't have But it annoyed me so much

That instead of calling the song Al-Lang-Zine They called it should old acquaintance be forgot It just annoyed me an inordinate amount I realise it probably shouldn't But it did You know Yeah

So everyone's singing Al-Lang-Zine and the plan is that they were black out the strip by knocking out a transmission tower by just blowing up a transmission tower These carefree cool dudes have a light bit of domestic terrorism Yeah They're like, oh well how are we going to do that

How are we going to knock out the power? We'll blow up a tower Okay, cool, it's fine And then they'll hit all five casinos In the 10 to 15 minutes while the power is out Sam Harmon, Dean Martin says they're not ready, which threatens some tension, but then he immediately

says he'll join them anyway. Fuck's sake. Also, why I've been doing it because somebody said we've been preparing things for weeks? And I keep looking at it going, this is the point where I looked at it and I was like, so what have you been preparing exactly?

Have you been preparing the bloody promotional flyer that you just put on the table? Like, did you need get a graphic designer and do you need to get somebody to do some logo design? Yeah. Ridiculous. Jeez Louise. So the gang go to Las Vegas.

They start making preparations. This seems to consist of Sammy Davis Jr. driving his garbage truck round to casinos, where you prominently see the logos of those big casinos, and other members posing as casino workers to spray doors and door handles with luminescent paint. You see this multiple times. Red Skel.

makes a cameo appearance struggling to cash a check. He was an entertainer of the time. Dean Martin sings ain't that kick in the head. For the second time. Vegas looks nowhere near as gaudy as it does today. It looks like a neon lit strip in any American town, which would have motels on it. But it's not the built-up, you know, extremely gaudy place.

I've never been, but you say you've been. Yeah, it's particularly kind of like the central, and it's like Fremont Street and stuff it's too much like I went for work I didn't go for um like I'm probably one of the few people who's gone to Las Vegas for three or four days and not gambled a single dime

but it's yeah it's it's something it's aggressively not my bag it's aggressively not my thing but yeah no but the contrast between what it is now and so like the establishing shots in this film you can see the level of development that has gone like, you know, there's more lights, there's more people, it's, you know, it's definitely gone up quite a few notches since then.

Yeah, this is genuinely, genuinely like a small resort. A small resort. It looks more like Mar-a-Lago in some ways than the Las Vegas that we know today, and that we'll see in later films. We have a scene of Sammy Deeris Jr. rigging the explosive on the transmission tower. Dean Martin's things ain't that kick in the head for the third time. and there's a cameo from Shirley MacLean as a drunk woman who does some physical comedy.

Best bit of the film. By far. She's great. Outside the title secrets which we've established, but all my own, I'm like only seen what to watch. Excellent. It's a delight to see Shirley McLean. She does some great physical comedy. The idea of the scene is that Dean Martin needs to distract her

so Richard Conte can sneak into a building. Don't know why you couldn't just walk past her. she's that drunk, it doesn't seem to matter. Also, the other thing, like, you know in this scene, when they're like, kind of, like, effectively, this is the kind of like the casing the joint, sort of like section of the film. They all

look so fucking suspicious. Yeah. They all look so shifty, and they're like hanging around. It's, like, you know, it's, you know, these are meant to be like smooth guys. It's just, oh, no, it's just, yeah, it doesn't,

it's so obvious what they're doing. This is another quote from Rat Pack Confidential by Sean Levy. As things stood, the finished product hardly resembled a traditional caper film with the requisite, tight timing, perilous coincidences and narrow escapes. Not only did Dean and Sammy get musical numbers, but several scenes were camped up, others led nowhere, and still others seemed plainly improvised, the sort of stuff kept in by a filmmaker primarily for the amusement of his buddies. When it was all over the film had mutated so far from the original concept,

it was nominated, despite not really being very good, for a Writers Guild Award as Best Comedy. It wasn't meant to be a comedy, is the point of this. But it's so turned over by the many writers. And actually, the fact that you've mentioned, like, a caper film there actually brings to one. I think I know what the... I get the feeling that what this film should have been, right? Or I think what they were trying to go for and have, like, failed woefully in doing is,

I feel like this was meant to be kind of like for the Rat Pack, what a hard day's night would go on to be for the Beatles. Oh yeah, yeah. You know, like, that's the sort of thing. You know, and it's like, you know, there wasn't enough music. There's not enough kind of like the heart that, like, there's not, they don't have enough charisma, frankly. Or more accurately, they're not displaying enough charisma on screen to make that happen, right?

But that's, the more I looked at it and kind of like the fact that Dean Martin sings ain't out, you know, I kick the head like three times. And I think by the time we get to the end of the film, Sammy Davis Jr.'s done the EU 11 twice, I twice I feel like that's what that's what they were kind of going for

you know and obviously like a Hard Days Night came out after this right so I'm not saying they were aping that but it's more just it's clear

that's the type of film that they were trying to make right to attach it these musical guys and that's what it should have been way way short of it

way short of it you feel the too many writers the too many cooks making the broth around this because it wants to be a heist film

but it wants to be a comedy but it wants to be a musical and it's not any of those in the end it can't be a musical when it only has four musical numbers and three of them

are the same fucking song that does not a musical make and yet that's what it needed to be that's what it should have been arguably because these are entertainers. This is the rat pack.

This is promotional material for them. That fall short even of that goal because it's not rat packy enough. So it ends up being trying to do too much and not doing any of it particularly well.

So, do the heist and enjoy this because it doesn't last very long. At the stroke of New Year's, we cut between the different casinos edits are disguised by balloons That's pretty good They're passing in front of the camera And we pass between the five different casinos

Everyone sings all langzine For the prescribed amount of time The transmission tower blows up Lights go out in all the casinos and the luminescent paint lights up As all the doors pop open The men sneak in Take out the guards Pocket the cash from the open safes

Nothing goes wrong And it's over in ten minutes I was like basically the highest tension part of any of these scenes is when they're sticking guys up in the dark and forcing them to sing outlying's eye. Yeah, which you can't see because it's dark. Don't raise suspicion. Sing it. It's just ridiculous. So, Frank may have been the headliner and the producer, Rat Pack Covenant, says.

but Peter, Peter Lawford, was the one who had discovered the property and he was active in it to leave A.N. So he kept an eye on Milestones cut and he was sending memos to Jack Warner of Warner Brothers with suggestions for changes. So he didn't like Sammy's solo number, he thought that should have been cut. And Peter had very strong opinions about how the robbery sequence should be reworked. I think a great sense of urgency and excitement could be added to the whole section prior to the explosion by very simply adding a few inserts of wristwatches showing the progress of time during that period. I personally was confused as to where we were in the evening. For all his sincerity and effort, he was ignored.

Then it goes on to say there really was no use trying to put too pretty a finish on the film. Ocean's Eleven was never really a movie movie. It was a publicity event and the studio was sharp enough to see it that way. Was sharp enough to see it that way. I mean, what I will say, say on that is, right, would that have made it a good film? No. Would it have made it a better paste? Maybe, perhaps. And, you know, I feel like, I feel like glittered turds have got a bad name, you know? Right, because... I just needed something.

Yeah, like a glittered turd is still better than a tart. I just needed something, because we're what? An hour 15? Yeah. I think that's... it's in my head. It's like, we've done this sequence and I look at it, and I think, right, okay, the heist is done. That's taken all of about ten minutes and there's still a fucking hour of this film to go. A heartbreaking amount of time left. Because you've done, you've 50 minutes of meandering.

Five minutes of planning the house. Fifteen minutes, let's say, of walking around Vegas and spray paintings. Look at, looking in fuse boxes. Yeah, five minutes of heist, and then the rest of the film has to happen. So Peter was right, but they didn't add these tension, and the heist goes off without much tension. Just happens, everything's fine, more or less. So as the lights come back on, the casinos immediately realize that they've been hit, because guards were forced to sing all Lanzai, and the saves are open.

So the police head straight towards the casinos. Richard Conte lurched he's out of a casino and dies of cancer in the street. I mean, that's really. He dies of plot. That's what he dies of. The money was taken out in the garbage, and the plan is to keep the money in the dump until the heat dies down. So Sammy Davis Jr. as a garbage man, roots around in the dump, finds the bags and puts them all in one place.

We have a scene where the casino owners come together, and they bring in Duke Santos, played by Cesar Romero, to get the money back. And Santos goes around making inquiries, which sounds more interesting than it is, because what he does is make phone calls. Yeah, but basically what he does. So I think, I can't remember if it said explicitly, but basically, I think the implication is that this guy is like a former organized crime guy. Yeah, I got the idea. he's like a fixer. Yeah. You know, for, maybe for the mob,

but who is now working. He's a fixer, he's reformed, he's got underworld connections, whatever the hell is. He does nothing. Like, the information he comes by is because, so he's introduced early on in the film, right? Because he's,

marrying. Is it Peter, yeah, is it Peter Lawford's mother? Jimmy Foster's mother. Jimmy Foster. I think Jimmy Foster is the character played by Peter. Oh,

Right, yeah. Yes, no, that's exactly it. Right. So, and so he's introduced there. And then disappear. And then at some point, they become aware that the Peter Loford is in Vegas, despite the fact he said he was going to be off skiing somewhere, right? And it's only when Duke Santos becomes aware of this through an absent-minded statement by his soon-to-be wife that he puts him. any of this together. Up until that point, he's basically just been on the phone to unnamed, unvoiced people going, tell me when you hear something. And like, you know, and, but he, he gets brought into this meeting with the casino heads as if he's like this, this genius. Oh, he'll figure it out. And that's why we must give him, you know, 30% of the money or something. Like, so, like, why? Yeah. He's brought in like the fixer. He's like, he's like, the fixer. He's like, like Harvey Keitel's character in Pulp Fiction, where you bring him in when you're lost, you're absolutely fucked and you need someone to fix things.

But he doesn't do any of that. So he just makes some angry phone calls. And like you say, eventually hears from his fiancé, who happens to be Peter Lawford's mother, that Danny Ocean and his old division are in town and he puts it all together. So Duke Santos goes to confront Danny. and he is revealed to be playing both sides. He wants to make a deal for 50% of the cut. And also Jimmy's mother confronts Jimmy.

So then the gang aimed to get the money out of Vegas. They get in the garbage truck and they sneak into the mortuary. Now, for some reason, do we sneak into the mortuary? They decide to apply blackface. Yeah. And also decide to crack a couple of jokes about it. Yeah. So it's bad.

You could sort of see this as applying camo. Like military people would know how to do. You know, put some mud on your face to disguise yourself in a low-light situation. It's then joking with Sammy Davis Jr. about how he, quote, usually gets this stuff off. Yeah.

That tips it over into black. Yeah, because I mean, up to that point, right, if you were being generous, you could even interpret it as like they're just making themselves look mucky because they're made to be garbage men, right? Because they haven't really got it fully over their face or something. So, I mean, you could, if you wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, you could, as soon as that, it's like, oh, okay, right, so they're just doing blackface.

No, explicitly linking it to someone's skin colour makes this something else. Maybe the implication is that garbage men would have to be black. They couldn't be white garbage men. Maybe it's just to look less prominent in the sneaking into the mortuary. I don't know why they need to do this or make a joke about it. Sure. Basically, from a plot perspective,

they could probably achieve the same thing by just shoving a bit of suit on one cheek and putting a jumpsuit on. Like that's it, you know? No, let's... Yeah, it's not great. Like I said, even by the standards of the time,

I don't think it's great. No, like, you know. Like I said earlier, Frank Sinatra politically seemed like a decent enough fella and was very active for civil rights and was very supportive of black people. But he had the blind spots of his time, like calling his friend Sammy Davis Jr. and N-word and putting on blackface in his big film of his friends. Also, another thing that I want to point out, because I think this has happened by this point,

right? So they've gone together when they're going to hide in the casket because they're trying to kind of like dupe Duke Santos, right? To make this clear, they are sneaking into the mortuary to stash the money under Tony's corpse in his coffin, while also setting aside 10 grand for Tony's widow. Keep it classy, Danny Ocean. But there's this line before it, which is just kind of like sums up the way this is all kind of like tied up in their public image and it's just laughable. So Caesar Romero, who, you know, is not visibly a young man.

I don't think he's, you know, he's portrayed as. super old, but he's not a young man, right? He's talking with, I think it's mainly Dean Martin Frank Sinatra and he's talking about kind of like, you know, trying to get his extra cut out and he says at one point I envy your youth.

I'm like, what are you talking about? You're very obviously more or less the same age. I envy your youth. What are you talking about? This ridiculous scripts. A few years, that's about it past. You know, it's just I mean, like, how old would Frank Sinatra have been when this film came out?

So, 1960. 1960, Frank Sinatra was born in 1915. Yeah, so, like, he's 45 in his mind. Like, I'm interested how old Caesar Romero is. He's... If Caesar Romero's only eight years older, that? Like, this is ridiculous. Oh, God, I envy your youth.

Like, he's talking to, like, some fresh-faced teen who's gone, gone, like, you know, taking a wayward turn of what is high school graduation or something. Yeah. It's ridiculous. It doesn't have the energy of young men beating the system because these are all old men, middle-aged men who...

I just so inspired my drinking that I envy your youth. All right, Gandalf. God of mighty. You know, older men who should know better. I don't want to condemn them for stealing from casinos. I don't care if casinos lose money. So Tony's widow goes to the mortuary and he gets talked out of transferring the body out of state. The preacher says, why don't we just do this here and you won't have to carry it home and stuff like that?

And so the boys go to the funeral parlour to check on things. Duke Santos gets called because the funeral parlour is one of the places he'd called to say, if anything weird happens, give me a call. And they've discovered this bag of money next to the body. Because instead of giving it to Tony's widow directly, they just left it for her to find. That should do. They're all sitting there in the funeral parlour. Funerals going on, and they hear a noise, and they say, what's that noise?

And someone says, oh, they're cremating the body. The cremation's already started. And they always look at one another, because one by one, they realize. that money's getting burned up in the cremation thing and Duke Santos realizes I admit I admit this is probably me projecting

from my knowledge of the remake and other heist films from the modern era but I thought right at this point it'd be kind of like you know they'd make out that happened

and everybody would be very you know put out by it and then you know we'd get a reveal or something that kind of like oh actually they'd put it in this other casket or they'd done this with it or they've done that with it no that's it nope that's it they all slink away smoking a cigarette in front of their own names on a billboard and that's it yeah so just to wrap the things up before we get into that they walk

for lonely through las Vegas as the credits play e011 plays again and they're walking sadly away What an absolute bummer. Yeah. Okay, great. This makes me feel good about spending two hours, ten minutes on this. Yeah, this is the other thing. It's not a particularly short film. This is not like a quick keeper.

No, it's long and meandering and feels longer than it is. Yeah. I watched Inception last night as it happens, which is another kind of heist film. which is also two hours and change, but feels a lot quicker. It doesn't feel like it's sapping your life energy just to watch it. So I do wonder if the bummer ending

is because of the Haze code. The Hays code was in effect at this time. This was a production code that essentially censored what you could put in films, particularly applied to the major studio releases of the time, from 1934 to 1968, which is when this film's, comes out. And the Hays Code censored, like, uh, sex, drug use, violence. And I guess to some

extent, crime and gambling. So I don't know if this is, you know, linked to that. Uh, the Hays Code specifically talks about, well, he talks about lots of stuff. It talks about miscegenation, which, uh, yeah, isn't great. But I do wonder if, If miscegenation, by the way, is a don't. You are not allowed to show that in any way. Yikes. But there are be carefuls around smuggling, theft, robbery, stuff like that. And the extremely open to interpretation, sympathy for criminals.

So you're allowed to show it, but you have to be careful around it. And I guess because this was essentially a criminal enterprise, they couldn't show them getting away with it. it, but because they're the rat pack, they didn't want to come down too hard on them, so they didn't want them arrested either. So in the end, no one wins. Duke Santos doesn't win, Danny Ocean doesn't win, the casinos lose out on money, no one wins. And I mean, the thing is, like, you could look at this outcome and kind of, you know, nobody wins, and you think about the fact that it's, you know, a former military unit, and you could, you could imagine that there's some sort of commentary here

about lose-lose situations and all the rest of it. Yeah, you'd be stretching. You'd be stretching. I mean, like, to sit here and say that, you could phrase it in a way that it makes it sound like it's a fairly compelling argument and a fairly compelling reading of the film. It's not there when you're actually watching it. It's just not.

And I think that would be crediting this very anemic, poorly-paced, script with a lot more foresight and depth than it really is interested in at all, basically. Yeah. As that quote says, this wasn't intended to be a movie movie. So we obviously didn't like it. We weren't fans of it. But people at the time, contemporary reviews also did not like it. No.

I mean, it came to number nine in the box office, so how bad could it have done? but in terms of critical consensus reviewers did not enjoy it they said like we've said it's not quite a musical comedy it's not quite a heist it's it romps along merrily without making a point the script is very contrived

it goes along on the well-established rapport of the rap pack which we've said you need to be charmed by these men in the beginning before you even watch the film to enjoy the film other than that it's just meandering and slow and poorly paced and lacking intention and bad yeah it's I mean the good thing is

the series of filmmaking there's a different pace to films at this point anyway but I mean really I think for a film well yeah but the same year you know psycho came out yeah exactly so this is my point but like for even by the standards of the the time in terms of kind of like filmmaking style, it's not, it's very poorly paced and very, like, the storytelling is non-existent for the first 45 minutes.

That first 50 minutes, man. Yeah, it's, it's not great. And I think, I think the film's biggest crime really is like, these, these are meant to be guys who are famously charismatic. You know, like, this is exactly the sort of film where you shouldn't be needing to rely on an amazing script because it should be one of these things where you can like look at one of these guys and they're like oh man I could listen to him read out the phone book yeah you shouldn't be able to go wrong yeah but it's not it feels like they are reading out the phone book not well

you know um yeah it's it's like I wasn't expecting a huge amount going into this because like I think there's a reason that nobody really I think there's a reason to remake is kind of the it's what you think about people think of when this title was mentioned but I was expecting it to be a little bit better, you know? Yeah, not very. No, you want them to be more charismatic. You want Danny Ocean in particular to be more charismatic, but Frank Sinatra is simply not that good on camera.

You've mentioned Dean Martin as better, which is true. I thought Sammy Davis Jr. did a great job. He's such a charismatic presence. But the rest, you know, Peter Lawford, Richard Conte, Joey Bisch. Henry Silver, buddy Lester, Richard Benedict, Norman Fell, Clem Harvey. I couldn't tell you who they are or what they bring to the film. Clem Harvey is the cowboy. One of them is inexplicably a cowboy.

Yeah, the one who pretends to have a broken arm for some reason. You know, but I was not 100% clear why that's done, apart from to laugh at the organiser guy. yeah but no it's a bizarre way like I look at it and it's like

if Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin weren't in this film there truly is no reason to watch it I mean I don't think there's a reason to watch it anyway but boy no

you know I mean really the funny thing is I genuinely think the longest there are two things that this film has given to pop culture one is the fact that it was the basis for the remake which we will talk about on the next episode

and the other one is Ain't That a kick in the head Yeah Those are the two things that this contributes To kind of like the pop culture pantheon Beyond that there's Nothing here Nothing

Did you know ain't that a kick in the head Was covered by Westlife In 2004 I feel like I should know that Because my great aunt Once bought me a West Life album For my Christmas I never listened to

it. Was it Allow us to be Frank, the Rappack tribute album that was no,

I think it was Westlife. I'm pretty sure it was Westlife by Westlife. The titular album. Yeah, yeah. It was quite funny,

though, I think she just knew that I liked music and just bought like whatever was like number one in HMV at the time or something.

Never, never listened to it. Sorry, I had you win. That's a good way of going about things. You like music? You like films? You'll enjoy Oceans 11, 1960.

But yeah, I mean, it's so not a movie. It is so clearly a promotional piece for the concept of the rap pack, but Las Vegas more generally. It's clearly just promotional fluff for Las Vegas. To promote the idea of Las Vegas, the concept of Las Vegas, to cleanse Las Vegas. Vegas of its connotations as being linked to the mafia, which of course it was and of course Frank Sinatra was, very prominently linked to organized crime and the American mafia.

Also through his friendship with John F. Kennedy, who was also linked to the mafia and the mob. But this is to cleanse that. This is an attempt to whitewash that and make Las Vegas look more appealing, which it also doesn't particularly succeed at, because Vegas is only in the film, in the latter half, and just looks like anywhere. Yeah, it's a weird

film. Like, it really does. It's very weird. It just, it doesn't succeed on any level that it is trying to succeed on. No, and I do feel like it, I do feel like what I don't think they really, the impression I get from looking at this is they didn't really know how to make the type

of film they wanted to, right? Because I do genuinely think the more I look at it and who's involved and the fact that they do sing, I kick in the head, inexplicably three times and this sort of thing, right? I do feel like they're going, they are going for a hard day's night, Viva Las Vegas, you know, like that sort of thing. Yeah, I think a hard day's night is a really good point of comparison that hadn't occurred to me. But I feel like that's what they needed to Yeah, and I think that's what they had the building blocks in place for, but then they've just ended up with this script that is completely anemic and meandering and has no sense of pacing. And for better or worse, these guys, you know, I mean a lot of them are not primarily actors. They don't have the ability to bring any life to it. Frank Sinatra certainly doesn't.

And it just all ends up a bit limp as a result. You know, and you can argue that's also about how good Eddie The two films I mentioned in particular are They're definitely more fun than this You know, so, yeah Did you know Phil Collins is in Hard Day's Night? Really? Yeah, he's just an extra, he's a schoolboy

Watching the Beatles at one point But grew up to be The Phil Collins of Genesis All right, there you go Is that a villain all origin story? I can't really decide. Who's to say? Was it Phil Collins who got the Concord during Live Aid?

I don't know. Yeah, Phil Collins played at Live Aid in London and got the Concord to play at the concert in New York that would wrap up the event. We've been fully gone off track at this point. To be fair, I'm talking. We're still more on point. that the film is the first 45 minutes.

We have reandered less than the film and have covered all the events of the film, of which there are a few in less time. So good for us. But yeah, next time we will discuss the remake of this film, the actual franchise starting point in some ways, Oceans 11 from 2001,

directed by Stephen Soderberg, which will build on this foundation and build something interesting out of it. build on this foundation of sand to make something that's actually good. As I remember it, I haven't we watched it yet. But yeah, next time we will discuss Oceans 11 from 2001. So if you're watching along with us, you can watch that in time for next month's release. We release on the fourth Wednesday of the month, so you can be prepared for that.

Until then, you can follow Take One at Take On Cinema.net, where we put out film reviews of festival, art house and other films. I put out a feature piece comparing some of the stuff that happened in the Odyssey to Zoran Mandani's inauguration speech. Yes, yes. And we've had a few reviews recently, but there's more coming. So yeah, go check out. Yep, check it out. You can follow us on our social media platforms, which you can find by searching for us.

And please do tell people about the show as we start this new, series, it's a good point to tell people about us. Encourage them to watch 1960s Ocean's 11 so that they can follow along with the podcast. One of those times we've had in these seasons, we can't really say that in good conscience. We don't put a lot of thought into marketing of this podcast series. on our journey with this fucking dreadful film. Start here. This is the place to start. So please do follow along. And please do tell people, we only spread through word of mouth,

so it's good to tell people to put out with views, stuff like that. It helps us spread. But yes, until next month, this has been the heist pod. So we will see you next time for Oceans 11. Thanks, Jim. Thank you. Bye. Hang on to your niggas.