The second and last Tony Rome film "Lady In Cement" was released in 1968. Its bright colours, perky background music and slang terms (like "fuzz" and "split" etc.) are typical of the period but there are also some features which aren't. The practice of murder victims being anchored underwater in cement shoes was prevalent in the 1920s and 1930s and the movie also draws influences from the films noir of the 1940s and 1950s. For example, the sequence in which the "lady in cement" is found by Rome, strongly evokes an underwater sequence in "The Night Of The Hunter" (1955) and a character called Gronsky is identical to Moose Malloy from Raymond Chandler's "Murder My Sweet" (1944). A scene in which Frank Sinatra gazes at a large portrait of Raquel Welch's character is also a conscious replication of a motif which was frequently seen in the noirs of the 40s and 50s.
In this movie, Tony Rome is a typical noir private detective working on a missing person case that involves murder and gangsters but also shows certain characteristics of James Bond (e.g. fighting off a shark, being surrounded by semi-clad young ladies etc.). The incongruities highlighted above could be regarded as disconcerting but in this movie seem to have been used purely for laughs.
Private eye Tony Rome (Frank Sinatra) is scuba-diving somewhere off the Miami coast at a location where some Spanish treasure had reputedly been lost many years earlier when he sees the nude corpse of a blonde woman whose feet had been set in cement. Shortly after reporting the incident to the coastguard, he gets approached by a hulk of a man called Waldo Gronsky (Dan Blocker) who hires him to find his lost girlfriend, Sandra Lomax. Rome's investigations take him to the go-go bar where Sandra used to work as a dancer and he speaks to her roommate and gets a hostile reception from the camp owner Danny Yale (Frank Raiter) and his bartender boyfriend.
Having learned from her roommate that Sandra had been at a party at the home of Kit Forrest (Raquel Welch) on the night when she died, Rome goes to visit the alcoholic heiress who tells him that she can't remember much about the night in question. Shortly after, Rome has to make a quick exit after being threatened by her protective neighbour and ex-mobster, Al Mungar (Martin Gabel). After Sandra's roommate is found dead and a couple of thugs try to kill Gronsky, Rome gets into a whole series of tight spots (including being framed for the murder of Danny Yale) before he eventually brings his investigation to a successful conclusion.
Despite the nature of its plot, "Lady In Cement" is essentially a light-hearted confection which enables Sinatra to indulge in numerous in-jokes and have fun with women who are half his age. He does well in conveying how jaded Rome has become and is also good at delivering some snappy one-liners. Among the supporting cast, Dan Blocker makes the strongest impression as the larger-than-life Gronsky. The emphasis in this movie is very much on the humour and judged on this basis, it clearly succeeded.
In this movie, Tony Rome is a typical noir private detective working on a missing person case that involves murder and gangsters but also shows certain characteristics of James Bond (e.g. fighting off a shark, being surrounded by semi-clad young ladies etc.). The incongruities highlighted above could be regarded as disconcerting but in this movie seem to have been used purely for laughs.
Private eye Tony Rome (Frank Sinatra) is scuba-diving somewhere off the Miami coast at a location where some Spanish treasure had reputedly been lost many years earlier when he sees the nude corpse of a blonde woman whose feet had been set in cement. Shortly after reporting the incident to the coastguard, he gets approached by a hulk of a man called Waldo Gronsky (Dan Blocker) who hires him to find his lost girlfriend, Sandra Lomax. Rome's investigations take him to the go-go bar where Sandra used to work as a dancer and he speaks to her roommate and gets a hostile reception from the camp owner Danny Yale (Frank Raiter) and his bartender boyfriend.
Having learned from her roommate that Sandra had been at a party at the home of Kit Forrest (Raquel Welch) on the night when she died, Rome goes to visit the alcoholic heiress who tells him that she can't remember much about the night in question. Shortly after, Rome has to make a quick exit after being threatened by her protective neighbour and ex-mobster, Al Mungar (Martin Gabel). After Sandra's roommate is found dead and a couple of thugs try to kill Gronsky, Rome gets into a whole series of tight spots (including being framed for the murder of Danny Yale) before he eventually brings his investigation to a successful conclusion.
Despite the nature of its plot, "Lady In Cement" is essentially a light-hearted confection which enables Sinatra to indulge in numerous in-jokes and have fun with women who are half his age. He does well in conveying how jaded Rome has become and is also good at delivering some snappy one-liners. Among the supporting cast, Dan Blocker makes the strongest impression as the larger-than-life Gronsky. The emphasis in this movie is very much on the humour and judged on this basis, it clearly succeeded.