Movie: Lady In Cement (1968)

This post is purely in the interest of completion. A while back I watched Tony Rome, the Frank Sinatra P.I. movie, and liked it just enough to check out the sequel. I can now attest that Lady In Cement ain’t no Tony Rome.

Gold Medal novelist Marvin H. Albert this time takes a hand in adapting his own book. Tony goes diving and finds the titular murder victim. He tools around Miami looking for her killer and engaging in loads of cheesy repartee. The mystery’s solution will surprise no one; it’s transparently obvious who done it, although by the end I still wasn’t 100% on why. There’s some nice footage of the Fontainebleau Hotel and an entertaining performance by Bonanza’s Dan Blocker, even though he’s miscast. It’s a lousy movie, and I sort of enjoyed it. What can I say? I miss P.I. films, and there’s something about ‘60s smarm that fascinates me.

Frank’s enormous hat from Tony Rome makes a cameo, and this movie also ends with a zoom into a woman’s shapely backside, belonging in this case to Raquel Welch. I applaud the filmmakers’ consistency of vision.

Miscellaneous: Links

Yeah, I’m gonna have to ask you to just go ahead and read this A.V. Club interview with actor Gary Cole.

If you are in New York, I command you to attend the Film Forum’s French Crime Wave series. In particular, next Monday’s Alain Corneau double-bill of Série Noire, based on Jim Thompson’s A Hell of a Woman, and Police Python 357. Or you could just fly me out and give me a place to crash. Whatever works for you.

Aw, yeah. You know what time it is? It’s time for two hundred and forty dollars’ worth of pudding.