I'm one of the lucky people that actually have this film on DVD (don't ask). Even so, I DVRed it when I saw it was on TCM, so that I could watch it again and pull up scenes whenever I felt like it. The film isn't bad- at least not for the first hour or so- the ending degenerates pretty badly perhaps because it had to be rewritten due to the problems between Winters and Sinatra.
All that is neither here nor there, this film is worth watching principally because it features the best singing of the best singer of all time. When people don't "get" Sinatra I often direct them to Youtube to watch Sinatra's rendering of "She's Funny That Way" from "Meet Danny Wilson"- if you don't "get" it after that, you're not going to. You've seen the set up a thousand times- some unknown singer is given a chance to sing and just blows everybody away (CODA is a recent example) with their voice. Only this time, nobody has to act like their getting blown away- Sinatra's voice, breath control and phrasing of this old chestnut is absolutely stunning. He recorded the tune a number of times but this, for my money, is the finest version. All the singing is so top notch that you can hardly believe that those who had left Sinatra for dead wouldn't listen to this and think "Maybe we jumped the gun."
All that is neither here nor there, this film is worth watching principally because it features the best singing of the best singer of all time. When people don't "get" Sinatra I often direct them to Youtube to watch Sinatra's rendering of "She's Funny That Way" from "Meet Danny Wilson"- if you don't "get" it after that, you're not going to. You've seen the set up a thousand times- some unknown singer is given a chance to sing and just blows everybody away (CODA is a recent example) with their voice. Only this time, nobody has to act like their getting blown away- Sinatra's voice, breath control and phrasing of this old chestnut is absolutely stunning. He recorded the tune a number of times but this, for my money, is the finest version. All the singing is so top notch that you can hardly believe that those who had left Sinatra for dead wouldn't listen to this and think "Maybe we jumped the gun."