OCEAN’S ELEVEN landed on 10th place in 1960’s release roulette, a smart money bet that the supercilious smirks of ‘The Rat Pack’ would bring in the suckers. Along with playing host to Frank Sinatra, his pals and a roster of guys & dolls, the fanciful “ain’t we hip?” plotline served as a two-hour commercial for Las Vegas’ cash cartel of the Flamingo, Sands, Desert Inn, Riviera and Sahara. To quote Chairman Frank: “We’re not setting out to make Hamlet. The idea is to hang out together, find fun with the broads and have a great time.” *

A squad of former WW2 Army buddies scheme to stage a New Year’s Eve heist of five showcase casino’s. Led by ‘Danny Ocean’ (Sinatra), they include lounge singer ‘Sam Harmon’ (Dean Martin), garbageman ‘Josh Howard’ (Sammy Davis Jr.), rich fella ‘Jimmy Foster’ (Peter Lawford), recently paroled and ill ‘Tony Bergdorf’ (Richard Conte) and ex-boxer ‘Mushy O’Connors’ (Joey Bishop). Things go smoothly…until they don’t.

Bolstering the Rat Pack hierarchy and hangers on are a batch of creditable supporting players and several “guest stars”. Angie Dickinson is wasted in a nothing part as Ocean’s skeptical wife. Cesar Romero is typically dapper as a gangster who horns in on the take. Patrice Wymore (newly widowed by Errol Flynn) has a few okay moments as coy temptress. Akim Tamiroff blusters and grimaces madly (and tiresomely) as a fixer. George Raft and Red Skelton show up briefly for padding. A brief, welcome burst of sass comes from Pack mascot Shirley MacLaine as a lady who’s had six too many cocktails.

The jokes are weak, the pace slow (127 minutes is about 27 too long), the actual caper only mildly interesting. Harry Brown and Charles Lederer claimed screenplay guilt (Billy Wilder said he helped on the script—why he’d claim credit for this is a mystery) and it was produced and directed by Lewis Milestone, the directing part no doubt a major headache for the veteran since he had to work around the schedules, hi-jinks and demands of the festive-minded head Rats.

Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen were enlisted to come up with a couple of songs, one for Dino—“Ain’t That A Kick In The Head” gets reprised three times; you’ll feel like kicking the TV—and Davis does what he can with “Eee-O-11”.

Sure bets were laid down for $2,800,000, the payoff rang up $16,100,000, lucre luck that parlayed pack partying into Sergeants 3 and Robin And The 7 Hoods.

The rest of the eleven were Henry Silva, Buddy Lester, Norman Fell, Richard Benedict and Clem Harvey. Others in for the lounge acting: Ilka Chase (caustic socialite-turned-actress, pretty bad here), Robert Foulk, Jean Willes, Hank Henry (a Frank amico), Lew Gallo, Don Barry, Murray Alper, Pinky Lee and one-time cowboy star Hoot Gibson, reduced to a bit as a cop, uncredited in his final moments on screen. * This slick (now stale) in-joke stole marquees from four worthier 1960 heist flicks: the pretty good Seven Thieves (Edward G. Robinson, Rod Steiger, Joan Collins and Eli Wallach clean a casino in Monte Carlo) and a trio from Britain—the Jack Hawkins-led class act The League Of Gentlemen ,Two Way Stretch (with emergent loon Peter Sellers) and The Day They Robbed The Bank Of England (with new bloke Peter O’Toole).  

Remade to great success in 2001, spawning two lesser sequels and a dandy 2018 gal-power spinoff Oceans 8.

My beautiful sister Patti was a showgirl in Vegas when these guys were The Big Deal. She met ’em all, liked them, and like a lot of people at the time got a kick out of their clowning. As a kid I thought The Rat Pack was uber-cool (until 007 came along), but watching them at a remove reveals the lazy goofing fits better as a memory. Some things are best left where they were.