La dama en cemento

Sinatra once again plays the Miami based private eye he originated in "Tony Rome" a year earlier. He was pretty effective the first time around, but that one didn't have a script as silly as the one he has to contend with here. Of course, scripts never meant much to Frankie, anyway. If the Chairman of the Board WAS bored, or just tired, he'd rip a few pages out of the script to keep things moving. When the movie was something like "Lady in Cement," it probably didn't matter, anyway. Besides, with a more stunning than ever Raquel Welch in the cast, I mean, who really cares?

Wherever Ol' Blue Eyes went, his entourage of goons and sycophants were sure to follow, and one such unfortunate, Pat Henry, a comedian of little talent, is along for the ride as Frank's buddy. Richard Conte, the fine actor from such interesting film noirs as "The Blue Gardenia" and "Cry of the City," shows up, as he often did in Sinatra films ("Ocean's 11," "Assault on a Queen") and provides the mostly mediocre film with his usual competence. The best performance, however, belongs to TV's "Hoss" (Dan Blocker).

While diving for sunken treasure a Miami private detective named "Tony Rome" (Frank Sinatra) discovers the nude body of a blonde woman with her feet encased in cement at the bottom of the ocean. After calling the Coast Guard he returns home only to find a large man by the name of "Waldo Gronski" (Dan Blocker) waiting for him. As it turns out, Waldo is looking for a certain woman and wants Tony to find a her for him. However, after taking the assignment Tony discovers that there is much more to this case than he was initially led to believe. Now rather than reveal any more let me just say that, although this was a decent crime-drama, it didn't quite rise up to the same level as its predecessor "Tony Rome" produced a year earlier. Even so it featured several good actors with Raquel Welch (as "Kit Forrest") and the aforementioned Frank Sinatra and Dan Blocker putting in nice performances throughout. Likewise, having Racquel Welch certainly certaintly didn't hurt the scenery in any way either. Be that as it may, this was a fairly enjoyable film and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

To begin with, though it didn't do well at the box-office and is clearly inferior to its predecessor, this isn't that bad a sequel to TONY ROME (1967). The mystery this time around is more clear-cut because it starts off with a body (the titular figure); eventually, the hero (once again played by Frank Sinatra) himself is incriminated – leading to him falling out with his cop friend Richard Conte!

The female roles aren't as effective, however: Lainie Kazan makes a good impression as a go-go dancer but, despite her high billing, is restricted to just one sequence!; as for leading lady Raquel Welch, she's okay but no match for Jill St. John from the original (the script relies a bit too much on Welch's glamorous presence alone to carry the role) – and there isn't even that much chemistry between her and Sinatra! With this in mind, the star strikes up an unlikely alliance throughout with beefy and imposing Dan Blocker (from the Western TV series "Bonanza") – which gives a humorous vein to the generally hard-boiled proceedings and immediately reminds one of the Philip Marlowe/Moose Malloy partnership in MURDER, MY SWEET aka FAREWELL, MY LOVELY (1944).

Again, most of the suspects in the case are unsavory characters – from former mobsters (now ostensibly leading a respectable life) to homosexuals (remnants perhaps from Sinatra's previous collaboration with director Douglas, THE DETECTIVE [1968]). Incidentally, while the mystery in the original led to an unexpected revelation, the clues here point to either Welch or Blocker but – predictably – the identity of the real culprit is much more obvious; for what it's worth, the script was co-written by Marvin H. Albert, who created the Tony Rome character in the first place on the written page!

Miami – in all its aspects – still acts as an alluring yet dangerous backdrop to the sex and violence going on; however, Rome even gets to fight the inhabitants of the ocean as a number of sharks are attracted to the 'lady in cement' in the opening sequence! Similarly, the bouncy score supplied by Hugo Montenegro emerges to be a definite plus. One final thing: apparently, Joe E. Lewis – the singer-turned-comedian played by none other than Sinatra in THE JOKER IS WILD (1957) – puts in an appearance here as himself!

This too stars Frank Sinatra as a Miami detective trying to solve a twisting, turning murder case that begins when he discovers a nude corpse of a woman with cement shoes while scuba diving one day, and ends up encompassing several more murders, including one that is falsely pinned on him.

Sinatra seems slightly distracted in scenes in this film, as sometimes he seems invested in his world-weary role and sometimes he doesn't. Raquel Welsh is pretty good as one of the suspects, Lainie Kazan does well in a one scene part early on, while Bonanza's Dan Blocker, playing a heavy, cannot escape his claim to fame as the famous TV theme song plays in one scene in which he appears.

There is some good, hard-boiled noir style dialogue toward the end, but at other times, the film isn't very involving, and frankly given how shady many of the characters are, black and white would have fit this film better than bright color. But, then again, this was in changing times (several scenes and images in this film would not have passed muster even two years earlier), so probably they would not have tried it in black and white.

Follow-up to 1967's "Tony Rome" is saddled with a tired, tangled plot concerning a murdered blonde in Florida and the investigation led by ultra laid-back private detective Tony Rome, who lives on a houseboat and discovered the girl's body while scuba-diving. Frank Sinatra returns to the role almost sheepishly; he isn't sleepwalking, exactly, but his interest in the scenario is blasé at best. Tracing the girl's killers to Miami high society (after Rome's buddy, police lieutenant Richard Conte, accuses Tony of the murder!), Sinatra is matched with hot stuff Raquel Welch as an alcoholic party girl (she makes her first appearance emerging from a swimming pool, bikini-clad of course). But Sinatra and Welch share few sparks in their scenes together--he's much more attentive to Lainie Kazan as a go-go dancer, and has more rapport with Dan Blocker as a mad Russian fond of twisting heads around. Adaptation of Marvin H. Albert's novel "The Lady in Cement" by Albert and Jack Guss, this mystery yarn is an absolute mess, unnecessarily crowded with suspects, heavies, gay stereotypes, brassy broads, hoods and junkies. By the time Sinatra's Rome lays out who-did-what-to-whom, interest has waned. Hugo Montenegro's bouncy score manages to keep things jazzy just up to the final reel. **1/2 from ****