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Six years before Ol’ Blue Eyes crooned his final tune, Frank Sinatra and his daughter, Tina, developed a two-night television special depicting his life story.

Now on DVD, Sinatra still holds audiences captive with its interpretation of the singer’s life and many, many loves, though it glosses over his ties to the mob and J. Edgar Hoover’s famous, five-decade search for some dirt.

Philip Casnoff plays Francis Albert Sinatra, a Hoboken, N.J., rogue who decides to chuck job security in favor of singing. Sinatra faces incredible obstacles – most notably the disapproval of his parents and the parents of his future wife, Nancy. It took a few years of doggedly sloughing through so-so jobs before he finally gets his big break with the Tommy Dorsey Band in 1939.

But the incredibly arrogant young man isn’t satisfied anywhere, and isn’t happy until he breaks out on his own – permanently. He hits the top of the carts, with screaming teen girl fans who swoon for just a look at the handsome young man who seems to sing just for them.

Sinatra’s personal life is a mess. He can’t keep it in his pants, and his wife, Nancy, finally kicks him out of their home, where she raises their three children alone. His career takes off and eventually leads him into the arms of Ava Gardner, the love of his life. Their seven-year marriage was tempestuous. If they weren’t fighting, they were having sex, or sending targeted verbal barbs to each other. Sinatra takes another wife, actress Mia Farrow, which folds because she refuses to leave the set of Rosemary’s Baby to do a film with ol’ Blue Eyes.

The movie weaves through Sinatra’s life, from Sinatramania, to his near break down with the slip of his career in the 1950s and failed marriage to Gardner, to his retirement, then comeback concert in 1974 at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

Casnoff is a replica of the young Sinatra, and his cocky swagger and steely-eyed looks mimic the dogged determination and strut of the crooner. A much younger Gina Gershon plays an amazing, emotionally-devastated Nancy Sinatra. Marcia Gay Harden not only looks like Ava Gardner, but her sultry, sly looks and perfectly-delivered lines create a goddess persona that would ensnare even the smartest man.

What surprised me about this 238-minute two-disc set was that it was not a PR blitz for Sinatra. With daughter Tina as an executive producer, filmmakers still treated Sinatra like the cocky, philandering man whose hair-trigger temper led him to make poor business choices and PR nightmares every time he slugged a photographer who stalked him. Only a few minutes are devoted to Sinatra’s FBI investigation, and those really emphasize that the singer was only “friends’ with mobsters like Sam Giancana, not an active business partner. Of course, I didn’t not expect this film to tackle those issues, since the family had a hand in it. And though I wanted more of that information, the movie certainly did not lack because it was not there.

Sinatra is an incredibly dramatic journey through the musical riches of a man who continues to dominate with his soul-deep lyrics and crooning voice. It is well worth the four hours for fans of dramatic films. Fans of the singer will enjoy how Sinatra’s music carries the film, showcasing what is happening in his life at that moment.

More on the FBI’s Sinatra File:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/march99/sinatra7.htm

This book is an excellent reference to the Sinatra FBI file. It was published two years after Sinatra’s death in 2000.
http://www.januarymagazine.com/biography/sinatrafiles.html

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