Ocean's Eleven (1960 film)
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| Ocean's Eleven | |
|---|---|
 Ocean's Eleven DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Lewis Milestone |
| Produced by | Lewis Milestone |
| Starring | Frank Sinatra Dean Martin Sammy Davis Jr. Peter Lawford |
| Music by | Nelson Riddle |
| Cinematography | William H. Daniels |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | August 10, 1960 (U.S. release) |
| Running time | 127 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Ocean's Eleven is a 1960 heist film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring five Rat Packers: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. Other stars included Angie Dickinson and Cesar Romero, as well as uncredited cameo appearances by Shirley MacLaine and others. A remake appeared in 2001, followed by a sequel, Ocean's Twelve, in 2004. The title of this film is also often presented as Ocean's 11.
The original 1960 film was not a critical favorite and was regarded as mostly a vanity project for the Rat Pack. The 2001 remake was regarded by most critics as superior to the original although it should be noted that other than the general premise and the main character's name, the remake bears little-to-no similarities with the original.
[edit] Plot
In the movie, a gang of ten World War II Airborne veterans led by Danny Ocean (Sinatra) rob five different Las Vegas casinos, (Sands, Desert Inn, Flamingo, Riviera, and Sahara) on a single night.
The Rat Pack plans the elaborate heist with the precision of an Army operation. Sammy has a job driving a garbage truck while others work to scope out the various casinos. Demolition charges are planted on an electrical transmission tower and the backup electrical systems are covertly rewired in each casino. At exactly midnight on New Year's Eve, when everyone in every Vegas casino is singing "Auld Lang Syne" (in unison), the tower is blown up, Vegas goes dark, and the backup electrical systems open the cashier cages instead of powering the emergency lights. The inside men sneak into the cashier's cages and stick up the cashiers while they collect the money. They dump the bags of loot into hotel garbage bins, go back inside, and mingle with the crowds; when Auld Lang Syne is over, the lights come back on and the robbers walk out of the casinos. A garbage truck driven by one of the members picks up the bags, and passes through the blockade set up by policemen.
Anthony "Tony" Bergdorf (Richard Conte), however, has a heart attack in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip and dies. Meanwhile, reformed gangster and finance mogul Duke Santos (Romero), offers to recover the casino bosses' money for a price. He learns of Danny Ocean and his connection to his fiancée's son, Jimmy Foster (Lawford), both of whom he knows are in Vegas at the moment. Santos manages to piece together the puzzle by the time the dead team member arrives at the mortician. He confronts them with this information, and asks for half of what they have. In desperation, they take all the money and dump it into the coffin of the dead team member, and give the widowed wife of the man 10,000 dollars to send it to San Francisco, where they would presumably pick it up. However, this plan goes wrong when the wife (Jean Willes) decides to keep the money for her son's education, and to cremate the man (and unwittingly, the money). In the end, the team comes off with no gains at all, and some of them in a worse position than before.
[edit] See also
Ocean's Eleven (2001 film) - The Remake
