ROBIN AND THE 7 HOODS (1964) **1/2 In a film about the mafia-produced by and starring Frank Sinatra-you might think that there's a point to be made, that he's out to issue some great and profound or at least insightful or far reaching statement. No. The face Frank showed the public was that of an entertainer, he felt need to neither educate nor proselytize, much less give away trade secrets. Hell no, this is a musical for heaven's sake! Oh sure he knows how to make it feel a little too real at times, and sure he can't help making it look like a lot of fun, but the moral at the end of the story is the one that farmer's want to tell their kids as they put them to bed. So you get a little too much Frank (unless you love him and can never get enough), about the right amount of Dean Martin, and not quite enough Sammy Davis, Jr. Bing Crosby is thrown in…not because they thought he would sell on main street, but because Frank removed Peter Lawford from his role at the last minute after JFK famously changed his plans to hang out at Frank's house and stayed at Bing's instead (so Frank more/less told Lawford "If Bing's better than me, he's better than you too!" and threw him out of the Rat Pack)…and the big surprise, probably best performance, is Peter Falk. He made a fun detective, but I'm not sure they shouldn't have turned him loose in a few more-and more real-gangster flicks.
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