Ocean's Eleven (or Ocean's 11) is a 1960 heist film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring five Rat Packers: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford.
Centered around a series of Las Vegas casino robberies, the film's other stars included Angie Dickinson, Cesar Romero, Richard Conte, Akim Tamiroff, Henry Silva, Ilka Chase, Norman Fell, Harry Wilson, and Buddy Lester, as well as cameo appearances by Shirley MacLaine, Red Skelton, and George Raft.
A remake, directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts (among others) appeared in 2001.
Plot
A gang of ten World War II 82nd Airborne veterans led by Danny Ocean (Sinatra) rob five different Las Vegas casinos (Sands, Desert Inn, Flamingo, Riviera, and Sahara) on a single night.
The gang plans the elaborate New Year's Eve heist with the precision of a military operation. Josh (Davis) takes a job driving a garbage truck while others work to scope out the various casinos. Demolition charges are planted on an electrical transmission tower and the backup electrical systems are covertly rewired in each casino.
At exactly midnight, while everyone in every Vegas casino is singing "Auld Lang Syne" the tower is blown up, Vegas goes dark. The backup electrical systems open the cashier cages instead of powering the emergency lights. The inside men sneak into the cashier cages and collect the money. They dump the bags of loot into hotel garbage bins, go back inside and mingle with the crowds. As soon as the lights come back on, the thieves stroll out of the casinos. A garbage truck driven by Josh picks up the bags and passes through the police blockade. It appears to have gone off without a hitch.
Anthony "Tony" Bergdorf (Conte), however, has a heart attack in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip and dies. Reformed gangster Duke Santos (Romero) offers to recover the casino bosses' money for a price. He learns of Danny Ocean and his connection to his fiancée's son, Jimmy Foster (Lawford), both of whom he knows to be in Vegas at the moment. Santos pieces together the puzzle by the time Bergdorf's body arrives at the mortician.
Santos confronts the thieves, demanding half of their take. In desperation, they hide the money in Bergdorf's coffin, setting aside $10,000 for the widow. The group plans to take back the rest of the money, and make no payoff to Santos, after the coffin is shipped to San Francisco. Alas, this plan backfires when the funeral home talks the widow (Jean Willes) into having the funeral in Las Vegas, where the body (with coffin) is cremated.
Filming
Peter Lawford was first told of the basic story of the film by director Gilbert Kay who had heard the idea from a gas station attendant. Lawford evenutally bought the rights in 1958 imagining William Holden in the lead.[1] Sinatra became interested in the idea and a variety of different writers worked on the project.[2] Shot on location in Las Vegas, "Ocean's Eleven" is considered to be the first of the Rat Pack films, but it is not the first in which its members appear together. This film formed a framework for subsequent vehicles tailored around Sinatra, Martin and Davis (Sergeants 3, 4 For Texas and Robin and the 7 Hoods).
Shot during the day and the wee hours of the morning on and around the Las Vegas strip, Frank Sinatra not only filmed his scenes in "Ocean's" but also a cameo appearance in the film Pepe along with performing on stage during the evenings at The Sands hotel. Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop joined him at the Sands on stage during filming. During the crime film's iconic closing shot, the Sands marquee can be seen in the background featuring the performers' names.
- Influences
While the concept of a casino-heist was used in the more serious film-noir's Five Against the House and Bob le Flambeur, the idea of a Las Vegas-related heist during a New Year's Eve celebration was seen in the equally grim Guns, Girls and Gangsters in 1958. An unofficial companion to Ocean's 11, released in the same year, was Seven Thieves, which although set in Monte-Carlo follows the same plot as well.
Cameo appearances
Shirley MacLaine took a break from filming The Apartment to shoot a scene with Dean Martin as a tipsy woman who interrupts him during the heist. George Raft played a casino owner and Red Skelton appeared as himself. It has been rumored that Milton Berle, Tony Curtis, Judy Garland, and Jackie Gleason were also offered cameo roles, but did not appear.
Ocean's 11 in popular culture
Oft referenced over the years, Ocean's 11 has become hailed as the definitive outing for The Rat Pack and one of star Frank Sinatra's most popular films. The iconic image of the main players was emulated by Quentin Tarantino in Reservoir Dogs (1992) while a remake starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon signalled the start of a lucrative franchise for the actors. Two sequels to the remake were made, Ocean's Twelve in 2004 and Ocean's Thirteen in 2007, the latter referencing the original Danny Ocean, Frank Sinatra, in the plot and featuring one of his songs, "This Town." One of the characters in the movie, Reuben Tishkoff, even makes a comment to the movie's main antagonist regarding a code of conduct between men who "shook Sinatra's hand".
Reception
In 2007 VH1 ranked Ocean's 11, both the original and remake, as the top Las Vegas movie of all time.
See also
References
- ^ pp.117-121 Levy, Shawn Rat Pack Confidential 1998 Fourth Estate Ltd
- ^ ibid
External links
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