Robin and the 7 Hoods

Gordon Douglas’s 1964 musical may be most famous for introducing the Frank Sinatra-sung “My Kind of Town,” a paean to Chicago. It was also the last movie made by the Rat Pack (a name the loose group of actors didn’t call themselves — they preferred “the Summit”). This Hollywood concoction doesn’t, though, live up to the cleverness of its title. It’s contrived and vapid.

Taking place in early 30’s Chicago, Robin and the 7 Hoods‘ Robin is Robbo (Frank Sinatra) a gangster whose boss, “Big” Jim (an uncredited Edward G. Robinson), is massacred by Guy Gisborne (an excellent and early Peter Falk). Gisborne wants to consolidate the entire Chicago underworld, but Robbo has other ideas and goes to war, hiring out-of-towner pool hustler Little John (Dean Martin). Wrecked gambling joints and murdered public officials ensue.

The plot is complicated by “Big” Jim’s daughter (Barbara Rush) showing up and attempting to seduce the pack. When she offers Robbo money he doesn’t want to accept, it’s donated to a boy’s orphanage run by Alan Dale (Bing Crosby), who popularizes this new Robin Hood in the press and insinuates himself into the group.

Robin and the 7 Hoods is bursting with talent. Peter Falk is the scene stealer, playing a conniving thug with some of the same mannerisms Marlon Brando employed ten years later in The Godfather. Second prize goes to Robbo’s sideman Will (Sammy Davis Jr.), who belts out a bombastic ode to the joys of shooting guns:

I always feel high when a rod is nearby.
‘Cause I like the fun of reaching for a gun
And going bang bang! I come alive!

Among the cast: the great Hans Conried (uncredited), Victor Buono (Batman‘s King Tut), Phil Arnold, and a very young Toni Basil (hit song: “Mickey”) as a flapper. You’ll also recognize the voice of narrator Paul Frees, whose resonant diction always recalls to me his narration of George Pal’s The War of the Worlds.

The screenplay by television writer David R. Schwartz isn’t in the same league as the actors; it aims to be funny, but becomes mean-spirited and grisly. Robin and the 7 Hoods also suffers for being a musical. Nearly every song could have been cut from the film, making the long movie tighter and less wearying. Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn’s songs often seem erratically created and placed; Dean Martin, for example, sings a song about his mother when introduced. Why? Bing Crosby sings a hypocritical song about doing good to his orphanage, for no reason that has anything to do with the plot, and Crosby, Martin, and Sinatra sing a song about dressing well, with the same result.

The final product is a conglomeration of ideas hashed out and inelegantly crammed together, shot on sound stages. Just a bit of location shooting could have allowed some literal fresh air into the stuffy atmosphere. The production did have its problems. Rat Packer Peter Lawford was replaced by Bing Crosby after a friendship-altering misunderstanding/disagreement between Lawford and Sinatra. The production was also nearly shuttered when Sinatra’s son, Frank Sinatra Jr., was kidnapped and held for ransom (a kidnapping scene was then cut out of the film). What was going on outside the movie is more interesting than the movie itself.

—Michael R. Neno, 2018 Nov 19