[Marty]

The Journal Of Popular Film & Television : Winter Edition 1999.....click here

"In the long run, Sinatra's television performances stand beside his movie roles as evidence of his greatness. Jerome Kern was once asked about the place of Irving Berlin in American music, to which Kern replied, "Irving Berlin is American music." A similar response is apropos concerning Frank Sinatra's place in American entertainment"

Albert Auster

(sorry about the format of the article, however my original link is no longer valid, that said this link should allow access to the full essay, although it should be noted that some of the references cited may not be of the same quality of the piece by Auster, but hopefully that doesn't detract too much from the piece itself.)

sadly the link is now a dead one, and unfortunately I've been unable to relocate a suitable substitute

[Nancy]

Brilliant! Thanks, Marty.

Thanks for this Marty.

[voice1]

There are too many mistakes in it. For instance, in the "Welcome Home Elvis" special, Nancy and her Dad sang a neat duet of "You Make Me Feel So Young (Old)" not "Young at Heart".

Another is the ascertion that "I'll Never Smile Again" was a hit for Frank during "The Great Depression". Huh???

It's errors like these that make me wonder about the rest of the article although the quotes from critics...."hot entertainer in a cool medium", are interesting.

[Edwin]

A keeper. Thank you.

Edwin

[Nancy]

I'm afraid I never went to the link and only read the paragraph Marty posted. (Thanks again Marty.) I do think it's terrific. The rest of it sounds sadly typical, I'm afraid.

Great link, Marty!

That is a very intriguing piece of writing, offering some very interesting condensed thoughts on Sinatra's 50s TV shows.
There are several mistakes - mostly minor, in a few cases major. (If wished for, I can make a list for those mistakes and post it here).

But the overall perspective is quite thought-provoking. What's a bit missing from the latter, is how critical judgement on FS's performances on these shows have changed since the contemporary critics he often quotes from.

Also, I seem to get the idea that the author himself actually has seen little (if any) of the stuff he writes about - otherwise, his short but unfavourable (relying on 1957 crictics' columns) remarks regarding Sinatra's dozen of "mini TV dramas" in the 1957/58 ABC TV series can't be explained. If at least he had examined the list of actors! Of course, the fact that from that weekly 57/58 series only the musical shows "get mentioned" today, with the dramas falling into (undeserved) oblivion, doesn't help.

From all of this, the author's summarizing evaluation of Sinatra's 50s TV-performances as having "failed" is by no means backed up by his article. He does mention several reasons for why they were no smashing success (which indeed they were not), but in terms of "failure", his judgement clings too much to "second-hand"-stuff. I bet, had he watched all of the stuff (most is available, if little officially) himself, his 'verdict' would have been presented in a much more differentiated manner.

Anyway, that's just my tuppence!

Bernhard.

[Marty]

A list of errors would be an advantageous addendum to the article Bernhard, as I stated in the introductory post, a number of unreliable sources had been quoted by the author.

Nevertheless it was an article which I felt was interesting enough in itself to be worth a wider audience, as I often feel that the television career of Frank Sinatra is the one facet that gets the most criticism, I feel rather unduly, despite the fact that especially later on his productions could be considered extremely revolutionary and far ahead of their time. The 1960s "specials" being a case in point, which for me exhibit a level of thought, production and execution which rank alongside the conceptual aspects of his LP work.

[Bob in Boston]

Originally Posted by Marty

sadly the link is now a dead one, and unfortunately I've been unable to relocate a suitable substitute

Remedied: Journal of Popular Film and Television: Frank Sinatra: the television years - 1950-1960

[Richard 55]

Thanks Bob, I enjoyed the article.

[Bob in Boston]

Another excellent article:

"Sinatra Meets Television: A Search for Identity in Fifties America" by Ron Simon

It's contained in the book, Frank Sinatra: The Man, The Music, The Legend, edited by Jeanne Fuchs and Ruth Prigozy (University of Rochester Press, 2007, 165 pages, hardcover).

[Amazon] [SFF thread: New Book]

Unfortunately, the article does not appear to be available online. From the book's Introduction and Contributors List:

In a study of Sinatra's television career, "Sinatra Meets Television: A Search for Identity in Fifties America," Ron Simon focuses on the different Sinatra personalities offered to viewers and the conflict between those personalities and the contemporary taste for the "average man" as exemplified by Gary Moore and quintessentially, Perry Como. Simon's essay offers a detailed history of Sinatra and the new medium that would soon become, as Simon notes, "America's favorite pastime."
---
RON SIMON presented an earlier version of this paper at Hofstra University's Frank Sinatra conference in November 1998. Simon is television and radio curator at The Museum of Television and Radio as well as adjunct associate professor at Columbia University and New York University. He worked with the Sinatra family in presenting the 1965 Rat Pack special and international concerts taped for television at the Museum.