HBO’s “Frank Sinatra: All Or Nothing At All” Reviewed

Frank Sinatra would be one of the greats without the Capitol Years, where he gained control of every aspect of his craft, but including the Capitol years  he is the greatest singer of the 20th Century, a man like a force of nature who knew how to project  both his humanity and his one of the gods persona, in equal measure. From 1954 to 1962, Sinatra recorded sixteen albums that remain at the heart of his legacy. When you think of Sinatra the pop star, well maybe you go with a mish mash from any point of his career (except the late 60s) through to the time I saw him, in 1996 at Radio City, two years before his death. But for art? The Capitol Years. It last for around 20 minutes in this documentary. 

Let’s make Sinatra nice n easy for you: born in 1915, an only child to a midwife (read abortionist) Mom and a fireman dad, he got slung out of his house at sixteen, and went across the river to nyc, where he saved his shekels, took singing lessons, joined a big band and then Tommy Dorsey’s big band, where he became the main attraction, got himself out of the contract (“I’ll give him an offer he can’t refuse”: though he denied it), was the earliest Beatlemania type star. Went in and out of fashion, was close to the NAACP, built Vegas, became an oscar winning actor, buddies with JFK and Don Giancarlo, managed a late career return with “New York New York” (good) and Duets (not as such) and died.

Now, the Vegas years with the Rat Pack alone would make a four hour documentary, the JFK years, hell that string of Capitol albums, the birth of the bobbysoxers,  any one of those topics needs hours to explore completely. If Alex Gibney’s “Sinatra: All Or Nothing At All” was to matter it needed time to explore Alex’s complex, oh so American subject, and maybe, with a lot more than four hours at his disposal,  he could’ve told us something, anything, we don’t know.  As he proved on the disappointing “Going Clear” Scientology expose, Alex is in too big a rush to get the last word

Alex uses a 1971 retirement concert (it didn’t stick) eleven song setlist to tell the Sinatra story  and the problem with the concept is it makes his life episodic instead of messy, drifting and lived in. It doesn’t feel quite right. So much to tell and it keeps on getting clipped off, and so much information to impart everything feels in short shrift. You question his judgement. Why so much about wife Mia Farrow and such short shrift to his much longer marriage (1976 – 1998)  to Barbara Sinatra? Why spend as long on JFK as Frank Junior’s kidnapping (a non story), particularly since it doesn’t illuminate their relationship whereas the JFK story is central to the myth of Camelot. Everything is seen through a glass, darkly, the wrap around Walter Cronkite interview is used to impart great chunks of information and the information as we get it isn’t weighted properly. It feels… lazy, like Gibney wants to get on to his next documentary.

Really, this is the definition of a missed opportunity, it needed a vision of Sinatra and the time to allow it to unfold, it needed an insight into the man more complex than he was mercurial (all people in power are mercurial: it is one of the perks of having power).

Where’s Ken Barnes when you need him?

Grade: C+