Frank Sinatra
By Chris Rojek;
Polity Press, 192 p.
Released November 30, 2004

"Sinatra's capacity for self-discipline was quixotic.  He could be careless, imperious and inscrutable, but if a project took his fancy, or if he wished to create a good impression, he could be punctilious to an excruciating degree.  For example, he involved himself in all aspects of his famous Columbia and Capitol recording sessions in the 1940s and 1950s, taking pains to ensure that he had eye contact with all the orchestra, and not hesitating to challenge the arranger if he was dissatisfied with the sound.  He acquired the reputation of being a military martinet in the recording studio at this time.  The pianist Stan Freedman comments: "I remember him being very aware of what he wanted, and getting it!  If he thought a lute or oboe part should be left out of one section, he would say so.  He didn't have to take charge, but nominally he was in charge - and everybody knew that." (quoted in Granata 1999:56)."  [pg. 96]

Frank'ly Dickens: A Pop Culture Myth Reinvents Itself
By Patricia A. Vinci;
Xlibris Corporation, 124 p.
December 22, 2004
 

"With a career that allowed him to set his own working hours, Dickens was able to live on impulse.  It wasn't unusual for his friends to receive a last-minute note asking them to join him on a horseback excursion to some pub, in the outskirts of London, to take in a pint of ale and a hot chop.  At other times, it was an invitation to go even further on extended trips to places where Dickens could procure ideas for his books... ...With a career that allowed him to set his own working hours, Sinatra also was able to live on impulse.  It wasn't unusual for his friends to receive a last-minute note asking to to join him on an airplane excursion and be sure to bring along their passport.  You were never sure where you would end up with Sinatra, but there was no need to worry about bringing any clothes along with you for the trip.  Sinatra would buy you new ones when you got there! [pg. 42-43]

Frank Sinatra: The Real Story Of Ol' Blue Eyes - A Narrated History [Docubook]
Request Audiobooks, [3CD]
Released May 1, 2005

Book Description There are few lives lived more over the top than that of the man known as the "Chairman of the Board," leader of "The Rat Pack," and the "World’s Greatest Entertainer." This DocubookTM narrated documentary provides a candid account of the private relationships, heartbreaks and triumphs so astonishing and intriguing that parts sound like fiction. Frank Sinatra’s friends and fans recount the story of his life on stage and behind closed doors. Sammy Davis, Jr., Henry Winkler, Juliet Prouse, Edie Albert, Ann Miller, James Bacon, Ernest Borgnine, Shirley Jones and others talk about his generosity, his passion for song, and his penchant for temptation. The legend and the legacy, the secrets long hidden from the public eye, money and morality are all revealed here. Most of all, this is the story of the man who did it his way.

REVIEW:  Somehow, in all the hoopla surrounding the release of Sinatra: The Life (reviewed below), this sneaky little audio book was snuck onto the market without any fanfare at all.  Unfortunately, for me, and for any fan of Sinatra's who has had to endure the increasing flood of shoddy "tributes" which have inundated the marketplace since his death, Frank Sinatra: The Real Story of Ol' Blue Eyes is yet another slap in the face.  Instead of creating a new documentary about Frank, all ReQuest Audiobooks has done is take the already horrific documentary They Were Very Good Years (which is available on DVD), and transcribe it onto audio CD.  That's right - it's the exact same documentary, only now you can listen without any of the bother of actually seeing Frank.  So, basically, somebody stuck the DVD into a player and pressed the record button on their audio player.  Ugh.  For your convenience, here's the gist of the quality of this 'documentary' (taken from my review of the DVD):

One of the worst documentaries I've ever seen, They Were Very Good Years is to documentary films what Ed Wood (the creator of such anti-films as Plan 9 From Outer Space) was to independent cinema.  Grossly edited together, painfully narrated by someone who sounds like Walter Cronkite with a bad cold, showing no regard for historical time lines, and written without any style or intelligence, this five-part miniseries is a hacked-together disaster, and has unfortunately shown up in many guises over the years, in five, three and this two-disc edition.

So here, we have just the latest attempt to repackage and resell this extraordinarily inept product.  So just to warn anyone who's thinking of splurging on this piece of garbage, this is the bottom of the barrel in both production and performance.  Consider yourselves warned.

Sinatra: The Life (May 17, 2005)
By Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan;
Knopf, 592 p.
Released May 17, 2005
 

"A star is a special thing," the social scientist Leo Rosten said on the Walter Cronkite program to mark Frank's fiftieth birthday.  "A Picasso.  Frank Lloyd Wright.  Frank Sinatra.  We shower them with special license, like the royalty of an earlier time.  We say 'Gratify your desires.  Satisfy every whim.  Don't resist temptation.  Live for us.  Live as we would live is we were beautiful or brilliant or lucky and very, very rich.' "Mr. Sinatra generates excitement.  He tantalizes the public and defies it with his private escapades.  He's a complicated man... He has an animal tension.  A suggestion of violence, even of danger." The public forgave Frank his flaws and "shenanigans," Rosten thought.  At the time, though, people did now know the full extent of the simmering violence of the man, nor how often it manifested itself."  [pg. 321]

The Rough Guide To Frank Sinatra: The Songs, The Style, The Voice
By Chris Ingham;
Rough Guides, 400 p.
Released August 29, 2005

"There are many Frank Sinatras to consider.  From when he first became a star in 1943 until his death in 1998, the different manifestations of the man have created a variety of images.  Yet the crooning idol of the "bobbysoxers" seems to bear little resemblance to the consummate actor of From Here To Eternity, the stylish, swinging bachelor of Songs For Swingin' Lovers!, the leering lush of the Rat Pack years or the faintly bitter tuxedoed monolith of the 1970s and 1980s.  With every season there's another Sinatra."  [from the Introduction, pg. v]

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"Sinatra returned to politics and made friends among a new class of gangsters - the Republican Party.  The million-dollar question is: why did he do it?  There is no simple answer.  Sinatra did not suddenly lurch to the right - it was a long, drawn-out process.  He had wealth and fame beyond most people's dreams.  Bit by bit it distorted his view of the world and of himself. . . . The contradictions in Sinatra's life grew wider until, in April 1973, he resolved them by nailing his colours firmly to the Republican mast.  Nixon asked Sinatra to sing at the White House.  One of the songs he asked Sinatra to perform was 'The House I Live In'.  The irony was not lost on some - one of the great songs of the Popular Front era was being sung to one of the movement's most vicious opponents.  But any song that survives its historical beginnings can be turned into its opposite."  pgs. 100-101

REVIEW:  This book ought to play very well with today's political mobocracy.  Despite being written in 2005, the distemper on display will fit in very nicely indeed with the demagogues who litter the landscape of both parties extreme fringes.  Mr. Smith's acerbic prose is dense with accusations, pillories, slander, and a virtual minefield of rapacious bile directed solely against the Republican Party.  But this book, written for a Communist-leaning audience, only manages to shoot itself in the foot with it's unending stream of vindictiveness.  By the author wearing his heart so clearly on his sleeve, he shows exactly how black it is.  In many ways, this book reminds me of Donald Clarke's similarly myopic All or Nothing at All - it too, pulled in Sinatra's name in a book that clearly could exist without Sinatra's presence; but where Clarke's book was a historical treatise masquerading as a biography, Smith's book is a hysteric political rant.  The author builds up Frank's early leftist leanings, from his reading of Karl Marx, to his bombastic, (and naive) statements about political and ethical disparities.  And despite his supposed high-mindedness in pointing out Sinatra's political stances, the author isn't below dredging up Frank's mafia ties, his romantic dalliances, and his professional ups and downs.  I was impressed only with the author managing to stuff so much propaganda into such a slim tome.  More a childish tantrum than a meaningful tract, When Ole Blue Eyes Was a Red ultimately deserves the same fate as the Berlin Wall.

Frankly - Between Us: My Life Conducting Frank Sinatra's Music
by Bob Popyk and Vincent Falcone;
Hal Leonard Corporation, 256 p.
Released September 5, 2005

"I was at home in the kitchen with my wife when I got a phone call.  It was Mr. Sinatra's manager.  We were supposed to go to Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and, of course, I was planning to go as the pianist.  I guess he chose that engagement to see if I could handle the conductor spot.  He was testing me.  He believed in trial by fire, so there was no breaking me in slowly.  He wanted to start me as conductor at Radio City Music Hall, with every dignitary and famous New York musician in the audience.  That was the kind of confidence he had, not only in me, but also in himself. His manager called me up and said, "Hey Vinnie, Frank wants you to conduct, can you handle it?"  I thought for a couple of seconds.  What am I going to say? No?  I knew I had only two choices.  If I said no, I would never get another chance.  If I said yes, I would either make it or fail.  Failing wasn't an option for me, so I said, "Yes, of course, yes!"  [pgs. 64-65]

Frank Sinatra: You Only Thought You Knew Him
By Ted Schwarz and Nick Sevano;
S.P.I. Books, 450 p.
Release Date Unknown
REVIEW PENDING

The authors reveal: The truth behind Sinatra's remarkable movie career from the films where he sang a song that had nothing to do with the plot, to his great success in From Here to Eternity, to the myth of the Johnny Fontane role in The Godfather. Frank did it "his way" only when he stayed within the Mob's rules. When he got out of line in Las Vegas, Frank was the subject of a sit-down and Nick was present while Sinatra was told to shape-up or die. How Joe Kennedy, in the 1960 JFK Presidential campaign, used Sinatra, Sammy Davis, and other Sinatra contacts, and then refused to allow them to get near JFK fearing their Mob affiliations could disparage his son. The inside stories of the businesses that Nick owned with Frank and that he witnessed as an insider: from a music publishing company, to restaurants, to the Cal-Neva Lodge where Marilyn Monroe failed in her 1st attempt at suicide. Plus the many insider stories of, the scandals, the women and the triumphs.

"...Sinatra was the very embodiment of beatness, and his voice resonates throughout many of their seminal works.  Jack Kerouac's novel about Buddhist enlightenment and the San Francisco poetry scene, The Dharma Bums, quotes no fewer than three Sinatra songs, "Learnin' the Blues," "We'll Be Together Again," and "Wee Small Hours," seamlessly and not ironically integrating them into its mediations on Eastern religion.  Kerouac's close friend Allen Ginsberg also drops allusions to Sinatra freely and follows his music well into the sixties.  His 1971 volume, The Fall of America, ... tracks Sinatra's evolving style in the mid-sixties, notes the elegiac melancholy of September of My Years, as well as the flirtation with Black vocal styles in That's Life."  [Roger Gilbert, "Singing In The Moment" ~ pg. 60]

REVIEW:  This book, the result of a Frank Sinatra Conference at Hofstra University, is a typical exercise in recent efforts to meld popular culture with scholarly exercises in dissection, and boasts several interesting, amusing, and occasionally absurd essays ranging from Sinatra's musical phrasing, to his questionable dancing skills.  The book is divided into two major halves: Part 1: Sinatra and His Music contains such overheated topics as Joseph Fioravanti's "Hanging on a String of Dreams: Delirium and Discontent in Sinatra's Love Songs" to Ruth Prigozy's intriguing "Dick Haymes: Sinatra Stand-In or the Real Thing?"  David Finck tackles "The Musical Skills of Frank Sinatra" and David Wild addresses "Frank Sinatra and His Curious but Close Relationship with the Rock 'n' Roll Generation".    Part 2: Sinatra and Popular Culture continues the trend with Roger Gilbert's "Sinatra and the Culture of the Fifties," Blaine Allan's "Frank Sinatra Meets the Beats" (quoted above), Philip Furia strains with "Sinatra in (Lyrical) Drag" and Jeanne Fuchs contributes the why-bother essay: "Frank Sinatra: Dancer."  There's more, but you get the picture: imagine a bunch of Sinatra-holics and intelligentsia gathered in a large auditorium and showing power-point presentations and reading from their notes, all to polite applause and occasional muted laughter.  I enjoyed several of the essays, especially Ron Simon's informative "Sinatra Meets Television: A Search for Identity," Walter Raubicheck's "Bogart's Influence on Sinatra's Film Career" and Patric M. Verrone's "Sinatra Satire: Fifty Years of Punch Lines."  But for every finely-turned paper, there are also a handful of stiffs: the laborious "Dancing To Sinatra: The Partnership of Music and Movement in Twyla Tharp's Sinatra Suite" and David Finck's been-there, done-that "Musical Skills of Frank Sinatra" which brings nothing new to the table.  A decent (and decently priced) compilation of essays which might appeal to the Sinatra Brain-Trusts out there.

Frank Sinatra: The Family Album
by Charles Pignone;
Little, Brown & Co., 144 p.
Released November 1, 2007

Asked once late in his career to name a favorite song or album, Sinatra said, "I've sung and recorded so many wonderful songs over the years it would be impossible to name one in particular as my favorite.  Many of them are special to me for one reason or another.  It's difficult to pick a favorite album.  The ones that stick in my mind are Only the Lonely, Wee Small Hours, and Come Fly With Me because I think the orchestrator's work and my work came together so well.  [pg. 67]

Frank & Friendly: A Unique Photographic Memoir of a Legend
by Terry O'Neill, edited by Robin Morgan;
Evans Mitchell Books., 128 p.
Released October, 2007

"When I look back on our times together I remember Miami in 1968.  He'd arrived on the set at noon, work through till seven at night then go back to the Fountainbleau Hotel and prepare for a concert.  And he did that day after day, week after week.  Think about his career; the Oscars, the No 1 singles, the hit albums, scores of movies, thousands of concerts - nobody will ever come close to Frank."   [pg. 126]

REVIEW:  Sinatra: Frank and Friendly is one of those books that screams CLASS!  A hardcover book boxed in a heavy slipcase, and printed on heavy, gloss photographic paper, this book is clearly meant to be gift-quality material.  Fortunate that it's been released just in time for the holiday season, eh?  These black and white photographs, taken by Terry O'Neill and pulled together with brief quotes from various sources by editor Robin Morgan captures late-period Sinatra, when he was working on Lady in Cement with Raquel Welch onward.  Within the pages, there are several striking images, iconic in their starkness, with a silhouetted Sinatra wreathed in cigarette smoke (pg. 12) or a riveting action sequence captured in split-seconds; pensive moments when Frank seems lost in thought, unaware that a camera was trained on him, or explosive guffaws that reveal the adeptness of O'Neill's trigger finger.  Besides the on-site movie pics, O'Neill also followed Frank on a couple of his concert dates, and shows a canny ability to capture the essence of Sinatra: the performer in action.  It's clear that Terry O'Neill, whose is noted for creating posters for James Bond films, as well as Versace fashion campaigns, has a rare photogenic eye, and allows the viewer to see aspects of Sinatra that only those close to him have seen before.  The book's subtitle, "a unique photographic memoir" reveals that the majority of these photographs haven't been published before, and for fans, this book is a rare, and precious look at not just Sinatra the legend, but Sinatra the human being.  A perfect (albeit somewhat pricey) gift for fans.  

Sinatra: ...but buddy, I'm a kind of poem
edited by Gilbert Gigliotti; 
Entasis Press., 174 p.
Released January 26, 2008

Product Description: GIlbert L. Gigliotti's anthology of verse referencing Old Blue Eyes in every possible way will delight both Sinatra fans and poetry fans alike.  The sixty poets Gigliotti has included offer a multiplicity of views that are, as Gigliotti says in his introduction to the book, "as contradictory as the man himself . . . at times harsh, satiric, sentimental, erotic, comic, and tragic." Poets include: Gerald Early                               David Lloyd Landis Everson                         Kathleen Norris Maria Mazziotti Gillan                Diane Raptosh Allen Ginsberg                           Jack Ridl Beckian Fritz Goldberg             Ravi Shankar William Hartman                       Ruth Stone George Jessel                           Virgil Suarez David Lehman                           Robert Wrigley

REVIEW:  This latest entry in the Sinatra literary canon is nothing if not unique; a first-ever collection of poetry with Frank as the author's primary muse.  I'm not entirely sure what to think of this secondary use of an artist as inspiration for art.  I know that Andy Warhol is famous for starting the trend of using celebrities as pop art, but is it really worthwhile, or even necessary?  Sinatra ...but buddy, I'm a kind of poem, edited by Gilbert L. Gigliotti brings together a raft of poetic talent, whose names, unless you're an English poetry major, might not ring many bells, despite the inclusion of familiar spirits like Allen Ginsberg and Ravi Shankar.  And, to be honest, I'm not certain how to review this little tome - poetry is, by its nature, subjective, and unless you're a huge Sinatra fan, and a reader of poetry, I'm not certain that this volume has much interest or value outside of its seemingly limited audience.  The poetry itself is all of a modern bent, with the abandonment of rhymes or meter all the rage at the moment, leaving most of the poems reading more like prose; and faintly grim prose at that.  The mood of most of the authors appeared to me to be one of discontented regret; the Sinatra invoked here is a lingering memory which recalls a brighter past, or an unrealistic ideal, while spotlighting how stark and empty modern reality has become.  This tone creates a Wasteland-like acrid taste which I didn't find terribly compelling, although for fans who enjoy listening to Frank's bleaker
platters such as Only the Lonely or Where Are You? may find these poems similarly enjoyable.  But I think the strongest criticism I can throw on this collection is that despite invoking Sinatra's name, I didn't find much of Frank in the pages - his moods, his spirit, (for lack of a better word) is absent - I would've liked to have felt more of the heartbreak or Joie de vivre which Frank brought to his art in the pages here, but it's here only fleetingly: the apt portrait found in Landis Everson's "Our Boy, Sinatra" or the faded romance found in Maria Mazziotti Gillan's "My Funny Valentine."  The book contains some brief notes about some of the poems, as well as author biographies and a helpful introduction by the editor.

When Frankie Went To Hollywood: Frank Sinatra and American Male Identity
by Karen McNally; 
University of Illinois Press., 248 p.
Release Date: March 6, 2008

"Beyond these connections with female-oriented lyrics and performers, many of the, in Sinatra's terminology, "saloon songs" with which his is most closely associated express personal loss from a specifically male perspective.  By labeling these songs "saloon songs" rather than "ballads," Sinatra distinguishes himself from his earlier emotionally expressive performances, and places them firmly in the male domain.  Their narrative style means that Sinatra' s performances have a cinematic quality even outside a film setting, and they often connect Sinatra to a sense of modern urban anxiety.  Both "Angel Eyes and "One for My Baby," which appear on the 1958 album Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely, function as male laments to the loss of a relationship." ~ pg. 99

REVIEW:  Anyone who's read this site regularly knows how I feel about socio-psychological attempts to define what made Frank Sinatra unique in our culture.  If you can't make such an attempt entertaining, then don't waste my time.  My gut was telling me from the get-go that Karen McNally's When Frankie Went to Hollywood: Frank Sinatra and American Male Identitywas going to be about as much fun as a root-canal, and I was painfully right.  I was hoping that the author would perhaps take the tack of investigating Sinatra's film roles, and how they dove-tailed into post-war societal roles, but even that was setting my hopes high.  McNally writes with all of the charm and style of your least favorite English teacher, dropping power-words like "American Male Identity" and "Italian-American Male Identity" as if they were A-bombs, slathering the text with dry-as-toast aphorisms which failed to engage or interest me in her thesis.  And what is her shockingly new idea that she's presenting?  That Frank Sinatra was a curiously sexual, Italian-American Male!  Whew!  The author plows through several films, albums, and statements culled from interviews to point out every crumb that supports her mantra, (and she's not shy about repeating the point ad nauseum), that Frank's political, social, and professional life was riddled with distinctly Italian-American Male viewpoints, as if she's stumbled upon the Holy Grail.  But as she labors page after page of pointing our how virile, sexual, and Tarzan-like (naked to the larynx) he is, at the end of reading it, I felt ready to give myself a cleansing purge to wipe the taste of this heartless, numbing read out of my mind.  The truth is, that this subject has been covered already, and with considerably more charm, style and humor in The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin' by Bill Zehme, and if you're craving a peek into what made Frank such an American Male icon, that you check out that amusing tome, and leave this one to gather dust on the shelves of University bookstores, which is where it's aspirations lie.

"My Life - My Way" - Frank 'Ol' Blue Eyes Sinatra
by Ed Starkey; AuthorHouse Press., 208 p.
Release Date: July, 2008
ZERO STARS

"I wake up quite alone in the half acre of bed, in the soundproof, shadowy expanse of bedroom.  I feel the bulge of pain behind my eyes, the sourness of tongue, the painful, bitter effects of a hangover.  With willful effort, I swing my legs out and sit up slowly making a wry face while scrubbing at the thinning harshness of my dark hair.  Worming my feet into the fur of the thick white rug, I see myself in the distant mirror, the slender doll-man in the bright pajamas.  Reaching for the big button board set into the headboard, I punch the one for the drapes.  An electric motor whines as it opens the heavy drapes that cover the big window sill, letting in in [sp] a flood of sunlight. In a gesture of agony, I instinctively shield my eyes while holding out the other in defense.  I gasp, "Not the torture of floodlights!  I beg of you!  Take them away!  Take them away!"" ~ pg. 36-37

REVIEW:  OK, this one was sheer, unmitigated torture.  I guess I'd have to classify this book as easily the most puerile, painful read I've ever had to endure for the sake of this site.  How to describe it?  My Life - My Way by Ed Starkey is what I guess you'd call a "fictional autobiography" - yep, that's right.  Written in the first person, and psychotically attributed to "Marty Tanner" in the introduction, this book is reputedly Frank's own story, in his own words, as written by "Marty Tanner" yet authored by Ed Starkey.  In fact, the introduction states that this is Frank's own story, not to be published until after his death.  Huh?  So who really wrote the book?  Marty, Ed, or "Frank"?  Well, disregarding that for the moment, the book quickly dives into three preludes - and "Introduction" (by Marty Tanner), a "Prelude", which rips through Sinatra's early years in a super-brief two pages, and then, a "Prelude to the Fifties" which sets up the ACTUAL beginning of the book: "The Fifties" and later on, the Sixties.  OK, so whoever wrote this book tries to capture Frank's voice, but I find it hard to swallow that Frank would be so enamored with dull recitations of facts about the decades he lived in, or would display such an affinity for purple prose, which is slathered onto every page with all the delicacy of a tar brush on a Picasso painting.  The melodrama flies fast and thick, with Frank intoning: "Ava!  Ava! AVA!" (in undoubtedly his best Malon Brando tone).  But not only that, the author(s) also reveals a prurient interest in literary pornography, graphically panting through innumerable, lurid play-by-play accounts of Frank and Ava Gardner's trysts, all of which are written with a surfeit of detail, but a modicum of style. Between these two extremes, My Life - My Way paints Frank as an insecure, whining sycophant, constantly worrying about his image, his voice, his record sales, his torturous relationship with Ava and the press, and filled with dry lists of "this is what was popular in 195_".  This book was so inept, so raw, and so licentious, that it's no wonder the author had to self-publish it - no legitimate publisher would ever touch it.  And if the Sinatra Family gets a whiff of it, I have no doubt that their lawyers will quickly come salivating.  It's the Pavlov's Dog of the publishing world!  My Life - My Way might be hysterically funny if you can get past the aching sincerity of it, but I couldn't; it was a dire read, and a book I was only too glad to get to the end of.

"With his sinewy, tightly wound body, Sinatra's physicality reveals a man on the edge; as M.A. Schmidt, the Hollywood correspondent for The New York Times, reported after watching Sinatra during filming, "He tenses... but the tension is caused by concentration, not by uncertainty... When the action was over, his whole body seemed to melt into relaxation."   Like any first-class actor, Sinatra conveys volumes of information through a subtle movement of his eyes, precisely delineating his character's combination of psychosis and overweening confidence.  The smallest physical movements all speak to that same psychosis, the sudden sharp hand gestures suggesting the barely suppressed violence of a seriously disturbed character."  pg. 149

REVIEW:  This book reminded me a lot of Rhino's thunderously extensive box set devoted to Frank's film music (the similarly-titled Frank Sinatra In Hollywood) - über -complete, but not a lot of fun to wade through.  Sinatra In Hollywood, by author Tom Santopietro is for the fan who loves Sinatra, the actor.  Easily the thickest tome ever devoted to Sinatra's screen work, ...In Hollywood doesn't shy away from any of Frank's films, but treats each one to close, analytical scrutiny - which works fine for dynamite films like The Man With The Golden Arm or Pal Joey, but left me gasping for air while treading through pages of detail for lesser films.  The book doesn't content itself with being simply an examination of the films, the author interweaves details about Sinatra's personal and professional life as well, giving the films context, which is something previous books of the same stripe lacked.  The author's writing is fluid and clear, making this an easy read, despite its thickness, but for my tastes, it could've used more judicious editing; the author tends to gush with unabashed enthusiasm over Sinatra's acting prowess, sounding at times like a giddy schoolboy, but for those of us who view many of Frank's film roles with a more critical eye, it can quickly become tiresome.  The other big sticking point with this book (and it's been mentioned by other reviewers) is that many of the films plots are described in painstaking detail - pages and pages of movie storyline are included, which begs the question, is the author assuming that whoever buys this book is unfamiliar with the plot of From Here To Eternity?  Do we really need a blow-by-blow account of Can-Can?  It pads the book considerably, not just the rehashes, but the author's own commentary on the film plots.  To my way of thinking, this book isn't quite sure what it's supposed to be; part biography, part filmography, but not really useful as either, Sinatra In Hollywood ultimately proves itself be too much attention paid to a hit-and-miss part of Frank's career.