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.
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