Frank & Bing & Grace & Louis.

For my Fine Arts requirement, I took a class called "Introduction to Jazz" in Spring 2009. It was a really fun primer to a uniquely American art form--it certainly diversified my iTunes library. We had one session on Frank Sinatra as a jazz artist towards the end of the semester. The first day of class, however, we watched a YouTube video of Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong singing a song called "Now You Has Jazz." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC3VTBG0tRc)

The clip was from High Society (1956). The film stars Bing Crosby as C.J. Dexter-Haven (aka Dexter), a jazz cat trying to win over his ex-wife and neighbor Tracy Lord, the lovely Grace Kelly. Our pal Frank Sinatra also stars in the film as Mike Connor, an undercover tabloid journalist who becomes attracted to Tracy while covering her wedding to businessman George Kittredge, played by John Lund. The plot erupts into a sort of love-square, or a triangle with Kelly at the center.

A few observations:

--The film's portrayal of Crosby as a jazz musician is odd, considering the presence of Louis Armstrong and his band. Crosby doesn't do anything particularly jazzy, other than sing in his normal crooner style. The "Now You Has Jazz" number is really quite vanilla--a comfortable introduction to the dangerous, outsider world of jazz music for the stuffy gala crowd. Considering the prevailing trends in jazz music at the time of the film's release, the number in High Society is a bland swing composition. In the mid-1950s, jazz had transitioned from the familiar, approachable Benny Goodman-type big band dance arrangements to the esoteric, challenging styles of bebop, cool jazz, and hard bop. In 1956, anyone familiar with the jazz scene would have already heard the work of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk. "Now You Has Jazz" is friendly--it is, appropriately, Bing Crosby-style jazz. 

--Sinatra and Crosby aren't set at odds as crooners in High Society. They have one number together, a delightfully silly drunken duet. Crosby establishes himself vocally early in the film--he has the first musical number. It makes sense for his character to be singing. After all, Dexter is a jazz musician. The backstory is that Dexter wrote a song called "Samantha" as an ode to his young wife Tracy. When Sinatra sings, it's a little more incongruous. Tabloid journalists aren't supposed to have pipes like that! 

--Sinatra seems like the third-tier musician in the film. Crosby wins, I think because his character is a musician and he can sing. But for me, Louis Armstrong beat Sinatra for the second spot. Armstrong plays himself in a very odd narrator role. He opens the film in a bus with his band, singing the "High Society Calypso," a prologue for the film. Throughout, Armstrong pops in and comments on the action and progress of the narrative. Armstrong validated Crosby as the primary musical character by providing accompaniment for Crosby's first song. Crosby sings to Caroline Lord in the garden, and a few bars into the song, the camera pans the yard as Crosby strolls around. When Crosby walks past an open door, we see Armstrong inside, playing the accompaniment for the song with his band. This little detail makes Crosby's performance much more believable and realistic. When Sinatra sings, he doesn't have any visible accompaniment, so it feels much more like a movie or a Broadway show. 

Frank & Marlon.

I have a sizeable crush on Marlon Brando. Not creepy, threatening Don Corleone Marlon Brando, but strapping, young, On the Waterfront Marlon Brando. 

Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra starred in Guys and Dolls in 1955. Brando played suave high roller Sky Masterson, and Sinatra played "old reliable" Nathan Detroit. While watching the film, I put aside my Brando infatuation to try to determine the models of masculinity that the men portray.

As Nathan Detroit, Sinatra plays a guy with a huge social network. Detroit is the purveyor of the "oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York", so he always knows where the action is and who the players are. In addition to a pack of gambling buddies, Detroit also has Miss Adelaide, his long-suffering nightclub singer fiance of 14 years. Nathan doesn't even have to try to get Adelaide to fall in love with him--this lack of romantic conquest is a distinct change of pace from the earlier Sinatra films we've watched. Detroit is reluctant to tie the knot with Adelaide because he doesn't want to be tied down, even though they've been engaged for such a long time. The Nathan Detroit character is surprisingly similar to the Rat Pack persona that Sinatra puts forth in the mid/late 1950s. Sinatra poses himself as this hat-wearing, swinging playboy type, and it becomes his most enduring incarnation. 

Like Sinatra's Detroit, Brando's Masterson is suave and confident, but he expresses that confidence in different ways. Masterson takes on Detroit's challenge to take Mission "doll" Sarah Brown to Havana. He is extremely certain of his ability to make Sarah fall for him. This brazen assertiveness comes with a slight lack of self-awareness--Masterson doesn't realize that he could (and does) fall for Sarah too! 

At the end of the film, Sky and Sarah share a joint wedding with Nathan and Adelaide. Brando doesn't seem the type to fall for a whirlwind romance, but is more plausible that Sinatra would keep a girl waiting on him for 14 years. 

Frank & Don.

Frank Sinatra released "In the Wee Small Hours" in 1955. The LP marked Sinatra's foray into the concept album, and it is characterized by a "mood of late-night isolation and aching lost love".

Sinatra's 1955 album inspired the title of a Season Three episode of AMC's hit drama Mad Men. "Wee Small Hours" is set in September of 1963 and the episode first ran in 2009--8 and 54 years after the release of the album, respectively. Despite the passage of time, Sinatra's album remains relevant to set the tone of the television episode.

Mad Men chronicles the work and womanizing of Don Draper, creative director at New York firm Sterling Cooper. "Wee Small Hours" begins just then with an early morning phone call for Don from client Conrad Hilton. Don leaves his wife Betty and their new baby, presumably to go to work, but on his way to the office, Don sees his daughter's primary school teacher jogging. He picks her up in his car and tries to pick her up for "coffee", but she resists his advances. Don never plays the jilted lover--he always gets the girl (and eventually succeeds with the teacher), but so far, Sinatra's "In the Wee Small Hours" fits the mood of this episode.

Other characters have their own "Wee Small Hours" moments as well. Betty begins her relationship with politician Henry Francis; (spoiler!) they marry after Betty divorces Don at the end of the season. At Sterling Cooper, a client comes on to Sal, the closeted art director. Jilted and embarrassed, the client calls the agency and demands that Sal be fired for being "uncooperative".

By the end of the episode, Sal has called his wife to tell her he loves her, Betty and Henry have shared their first kiss, and Don has slept with the teacher. The episode ends at night, just as it began. Much of the action that transpires in "Wee Small Hours" follows the "late-night longing" theme of Sinatra's album.

In characteristic Mad Men style, the only musical soundtrack to the show is the song that plays just after the last scene and through the credits. Despite the title of the episode, Sinatra does not make a musical appearance in this final song. The writers of Mad Men create a very particular and subtle mood for the episode by naming it after Sinatra's album but not invoking Sinatra's music.

(This link will take you to a John Mayer cover of  "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning."  It's also relevant, considering that Don Draper and John Mayer share a talent for making women swoon and for treating ladies with complete disrespect.)

From Here to Eternity.

I don't see what the fuss is about.

Frank Sinatra won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Private Angelo Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953). 

Sinatra's role in the film was small. Granted, Maggio was an important figure in terms of plot advancement, but he had limited screen time and not a whole lot of dialogue. This is the role for which Sinatra fought so hard, used Mob muscle, had Ava Gardner beg and plead with the studio? 

I don't get it.

Maybe the film (and Sinatra as Maggio) received such hype and acclaim because it was Sinatra's first departure from the musical comedy genre and his first foray into serious drama. Like the previous films we have screened for class, Sinatra plays a military man, but From Here to Eternity uses the military to set up the context of the lives of the characters on base and of the power structure in place. 

In the Maggio character, Sinatra finds an avenue to prove how tough and masculine he can be. Maggio drinks copiously, flirts freely, and fights frequently. He is court marshaled and sent to the stockade for 6 months as punishment for a barroom brawl and for insubordination. Maggio finds his way out of the stockade with a carefully planned escape, but on his way back to his friend Prewitt, Maggio falls out of the back of his escape vehicle. He has been beaten recently, and the combination of the injuries from the beatings and from the fall prove to be too much for Maggio--he dies an uncomfortable death on screen, in the arms of his friend. 

Maggio would have had no place in Anchors Aweigh, It Happened in Brooklyn, or On The Town. He is too rough around the edges, too ethnic (he is frequently referred to as a "wop" by an antagonizing character). Only shiny, happy, perky Sinatra can sing and dance with Gene Kelly.

On The Town.

On The Town is a slight departure from the previous two films we have watched for class. Instead of playing the romantic buffoon opposite a male costar (like in It Happened in Brooklyn or Anchors Aweigh), this time, Frank Sinatra plays it coy with two male costars! Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Jules Munshin are sailors on shore leave (another recurring theme) in New York City for a day, and they want to make the most of their time by seeing the sights and meeting some "Manhattan women".

In the previous two films we have seen, Sinatra's character is shy and uncertain around women. It is only towards the end of the films that Sinatra gains confidence and discovers that the girl for him has been right under his nose the entire time. In On The Town, Sinatra begins the film by playing up to the country bumpkin stereotypes of being simple, inexperienced, and modest. Through his exposure to progressive women in the film, Sinatra breaks from his Peoria past and becomes more confident and suave.

The three female characters in the film represent modern, metropolitan women. They break gender norms and defy stereotypes, but at the end of the day, they end up falling in love with the sailors and sacrifice the independence they have gained. The first female character we meet is Ivy, who is the Miss Turnstiles pin-up girl of the month. Kelly falls for her when he sees her picture in the subway. She is a lovely girl who enjoys all the pastimes of New York's social elite. A dance number introduces Ivy as "a frail and flower-like creature, but oh boy! What an athlete!" After she paints and dances, Ivy pantomines winning a race against a group of young men. Ivy "roughs up" the boys and finishes the number perched jauntily on top of a pile of her vanquished competitors, a perky smile on her exquisite face.

After Kelly falls in love with Ivy, the sailors walk outside to hail a cab. To their surprise, the cabbie is a woman. "Hey! He's a girl! What are you doing driving a cab? The war's over." Brunhilde, or Hildy, replies saucily, "I never give up anything I like." Hildy ends up with Sinatra, but only after she aggressively demands that he "come up to [her] place". She also tells him, "Stick with me kid, I can teach you plenty." Hildy is so forward about her attraction to Sinatra, so bluntly honest, that it takes him by surprise. A kid from Peoria like Sinatra isn't used to girls coming right out and asking to be kissed. Hildy's confidence and self-awareness, combined with her brash approach to romance, provide Sinatra with a new model of womanhood. And it turns out that he likes it (and Hildy) very much.

The third female character in On The Town is Claire, an anthropologist. We meet Claire when she compares Jules Munshin's character to a neanderthal specimen in a museum. Claire, in addition to being a well-educated young woman, is intensely sexual and suggestive. When Sinatra asks, "Hey, how come a girl like you is interested in this stuff?", Claire responds, "I've been running around with all kinds of men. My guardian thought if I took up an objective study of men, I'd get it out of my system!" The song she sings ("Prehistoric Man") is chock full of double entendres, shimmies, and winks. Claire sings, "Bear skin/Bear skin/He just sat around in bear skin/I really love *bare* skin!" In this number, Hildy is desexualized because she runs around apelike, playing drums with the men. This sets up a stark contrast between Hildy and Claire.

The biggest shock of all comes at the end of the film when it is revealed that Ivy, Miss Turnstiles, has been working as a "cooch dancer" at Coney Island. Kelly accepts her for it, and the men put on a show in order to save Ivy.
One way in which On The Town differs from the other films we have analyzed is that this time, Sinatra sticks with the same girl for the whole film. He doesn't have to change his mind or discover that the woman who he has been pursuing is actually destined to be with his costar. In On The Town, the pairings are clear from the very beginning.

It is only through his encounters with these enlightened, fresh female characters that Sinatra's character is able to develop from a reserved, small town boy into the self-assured sailor who gets his girl. This parallels Sinatra's actual persona development to some extent--it was only through his encounters with devoted women and crazed fans that he was able to cloak himself in a mantle of machismo.

Sinatra & American Studies.

I was able to get a seat in the Sinatra class because it was crosslisted under my major, American Studies. The course is intended for FTT (Film, Television, and Theater) majors, although I believe there are a few seats reserved for Gender Studies students as well. Reading Pete Hamill's book Why Sinatra Matters, I couldn't help thinking about the study of Frank Sinatra in the context of American Studies. 

Hamill's book revolves around the central thesis that Sinatra is important--he matters. And he matters because he "transcended several eras and indirectly helped change the way all of us lived"(6). Much has been made of Sinatra's Italian heritage. Because of his immigrant roots, Sinatra has come to embody the up-by-the-bootstraps success story of a poor city kid making it big and becoming a star. In addition to considering the importance of ethnic identity to Sinatra's image, we can also examine technology and crime as important tools of Americanization that led to Sinatra's success. 

As an Italian-American, Sinatra was subject to significant ethnic discrimination. He was the subject of class assumptions and eventually became a symbol and a representative for working class America. Sinatra was shaped by "the stark conflict between what America promised and what America delivered"(49) during his childhood in Hoboken. Despite having witnessed this contrast and the hardships faced by other immigrants, Sinatra remained committed to his Italian-American identity. He refused to change his last name to the more stage-friendly "Satin". Instead, he elected to retain his surname Sinatra. Ironically, "Sinatra" is actually an Americanized version of "sinestra", the Italian word for left.

Hamill notes that so many of the composers who crafted the classics of the era in which Sinatra grew up were of immigrant stock themselves. Irving Berlin from Siberia, Yip Harburg from Russia, Harry Warren from Italy; "All were very American, creators of most of those songs that became known as the 'standards' of twentieth-century American music"(95). These earlier immigrant musicians paved the way for immigrant stars like Sinatra. At the same time that Sinatra was gaining popularity, so were integrated swing and jazz bands. Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman--all the great jazz band leaders were beginning to include musicians of other races in their performance groups. This process of democratization through music was a telltale sign of things to come. 

Technology, another democratizing force, played an integral role both in the Americanization process for immigrant children and in the rise of Sinatra's stardom. Hamill writes about how the motion picture, the phonograph, and the radio "would provide one form of national unity, allowing people form every region and every ethnic group to share common emotional experiences"(52). Virtually every home had a radio, so all kinds of people could listen to programming in English or even in Italian. Immigrant children immersed themselves in the English language through radio, and hearing English words spoken or sung fostered their cognition. Technology, as a force for Americanization, was critical to Sinatra's success as the creator of "an urban American voice"(93). 

Continuing with the immigrant theme, we can interrogate Sinatra's alleged Mob connections as a part of his image. The Mob, according to Hamill, "was not a synonym for the Mafia. It was an alliance of Jews, Italians, and a few Irishmen...who organized a supply, and often the production, of liquor during the thirteen years...of Prohibition"(79). The Mob was an entirely new concept, an American invention created by immigrants who "believed that it was foolish to abide by the old Sicilian traditions of excluding non-Sicilians in the name of honor and respect....This was America; you worked with any nationality if it was in your common interest"(79). The Mob represented the democratization of crime--the opportunity to partake in illegal activity and make a quick buck doing so became an option for all. No longer restricted by la via vecchia, the immigrants bucked tradition and opened the Mob up to anyone willing to participate, including, as the story goes, Sinatra. Equal opportunity law-flouting. What's more American than that?

Technology and crime served as processes of democratization and Americanization which, in concert with his immigrant identity, catapulted Sinatra to the height of fame. And after The Fall, technology and crime helped bring Sinatra back to his former glory. 

Frank & Justin.

Is it blasphemous to draw a comparison between Frank Sinatra and Justin Bieber?

The front page of today's New York Times Arts section has a review of Bieber's recent concert at Madison Square Garden. Two color pictures accompany the article--a large photo of white denim-clad Bieber, and a smaller photo of the hordes of screaming girls who attended the show. Bieber, 16, has attained true teen idol status. He is the newest member of the heartthrob club; he is in the company of dreamboats like David Cassidy, James Dean, Elvis Presley, and, of course, Frank Sinatra.

Sinatra is often seen as the original teen idol because of his popularity with bobbysoxers in the 1940s. Audiences of adoring teenaged fans fell under Sinatra's spell, the "Sinatrance". Men questioned whether the swooning, shrieking, and fainting that Sinatra's voice provoked were brought on by frustrated romances of women and girls whose boyfriends, fiances, and husbands were heading off to war, or whether their fanatical devotion to Sinatra was simply the result of feminine silliness. Either way, Sinatra's songs successfully seduced a generation.

Bieber's fans exhibit much of the same obsession that the bobbysoxers showed to Sinatra 70 years ago. Like Sinatra, Bieber capitalizes on their adolescent fervor. As heir to the teen-pop throne, Bieber uses some of the same tantalizing tactics that Sinatra used to captivate audiences. The Times article notes, "[Bieber's] songs cracke with the first blush of seduction and power--sweet enough to deceive his youngest fans, and probably their parents too, but absolutely delivered with a devious glint in his eye." 

The Times has an excellent collection of photos from Bieber's concert here: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/09/01/arts/music/20100902-beiber-ss.html

A video at this link http://www.paleycenter.org/sinatra-the-bobby-soxers shows bobbysoxers going crazy over Sinatra. This article http://www.pophistorydig.com/?tag=bobbysoxers has good pictures and gives a nice summary of bobbysoxer Sinatra-fever.