Sammy Davis Jr.

Just released from prison, Max Washington must decide which of his previous professions to return to: burglary or tap-dancing. Max Washington has just been released from prison after serving time for burglary. He returns to his old hangout, a hoofer (tap-dancer) club. His former girlfriend Amy, who still works at the club as a tap instructor, is less than thrilled to see him. Her father, Little Mo, is happy to see him, because he has plans for a show involving Max. In addition, Max's old partners in crime have another job they want him to do. —Brian W Martz <B.Martz@Genie.com>

A U.S. actor gets a gig in South American Parador. When the dictator dies, he's forced to play him for real and gets his mistress. Can they change Parador? Little known actor Jack Noah is working on location in the country of Parador at the time the dictator dies. The dictator's right-hand man Roberto makes Jack an offer he cannot refuse: to play the dictator. Jack's acting skills fool the masses, but not close friends and employees of the dictator. —Rob Hartill

Opening. Sombre, Black. Minimum Titles. Priests intone the word 'Koyaanisqatsi' over rather sombre organ? music. Might make one imagine a requiem. To look at some cave ? painting. Remember the old days? Egypt? Priests? Gods? Bubbling fire. Industry. A smelting? works. (The music has broadened , to involve a soprano line - on the organ) Slow motion, of oil pump? No! It's a rocket take-off, all the fire. Next- the earth, mountain range. Seen from this rocket? Seen from a plane or helicopter (whose shadow you could probably see, if sharp.) Wonderfully odd stones- forget the name in geology. Grand canyon??? Second movement- a siren? like sound, repeated note on a horn? Sounds... imploring, speaks of distress? Calms down a bit- we inspect the stones, contours, colours. Rock formations, not like pebbles. Sorry. Look! No people? Is it saying. Desert landscape, with mountains. Start to hear the wind. The music repeats include another note- which make it sound more hopeful. Looking over the great plains??? sorry to be ignorant. Beautiful, I think is the idea. Beautiful and old. Like myself. I didn't say. Cut that last bit. Then, steaming. Volcanoes? Geysers?? A string element has been woven into the soundscape, sounds elegiac??? not too bad. Priests again. Koyan... can't spell. Actual, desert sands. and the wind ripples over their surface. So - just really... idea? let your mind be blown, by the ceaseless beauty of the earth. Shadows moving - first clouds, then shadows moving across the hills and vales. Very large, hills and vales. Mountains and... bats? in a cave. Fade to black. Third, movement? stage of music. A rasping - sounds more serious. Yet more clouds, but they are darker. Watching clouds. Then torrents of water- a waterfall. Niagara perhaps. See from above. Vertiginous. The sea. A trumpet solo is sounding more bonny now. The storm has gone??? don't be so sure. Return to beginning, seriousness. Waves. NB is Reggio his real name? When regio is Italian for director... Blaring fanfare, sounding much more certain , bold, happy. As we watch photography of clouds streaming over mountains. Or I do. Then. Fourth change. Buzzing on a plane through a valley- and turbulent flutes. ascend and descend the scale. meanwhile a bassoon??? rushing along the ground- and the different colours of farm fields. Wonderful. Music supported by brass. As if saying, yes I agree. So. I'll call that bit over. first 18 minutes. Now, difficult transfer... but now it moves into footage, of blasting a quarry? (don't hear the explosion) Man, as it were, is introduced- and he is ... a van that looks like it wouldn't be out of place on the moon. Polluting black smoke pouring from. (or no- first man, were the priests on the cave painting.) and here we have his massive bridges. and pipelines. stretching off into the distance. and pylons. The organ is back, screeching like a bird- be-ware! as there is footage of pylons. Crisscrossing the desert. A power station's cooling towers smoking. Massive reservoir and dam. Then the music goes a bit hyper. And the footage is of an oil refinery? Explosion in time with music. Atom bombs , Los Alamos? Music does not sound so threatening at this point. Bizarrely?? sunbathers. choir. Just outside the power station. Oblivious. People visiting the tower station. (choir are angels- saying look at those morons?) Clouds reflected in the side of a huge office block. Airplanes taxi in desert heat shimmers. Does the front of an airplane , look like an angry human face?? We marvel for a moment. Sixth? change. Repeated scales again- the flux, roads. Traffic. Spaghetti junction?? anyway, roads. Music exhibiting some of the thrill of driving, plus - the angelic choir -are concerned? for the plight of humanity?? More close-ups of the traffic. Give it a human face. A car manufacturer. Aerial. Tanks. Flurry on the strings and flute. More tanks. Fighter plane. View from back? of a stealth bomber??? as it flies. A bomb dropping. A rocket rising. Spacecraft jettisons one of its fuel canisters. Museum- hydrogen bomb? Man o'war. Parachutes- devastations of war. Shadows of clouds flick across New York City. Fast. in perfect silence. river trip on the Hudson??? NY river. That I have taken. A 'cello? The size , of some of the building? point. Violin quartet? and a sort of ghetto? derelict buildings. someone's broken a fire hydrant, in these squats. interior- lonely slide in a play park- broken street light. Broken pavilion? Birds flock. Then the trumpets sound, we must do something they say? fly overhead- there are many blocks of flats like this- one after another. Eventually, the detonation, of one. then another. then another. then cranes on the dock. A bridge. another high rise. another. another. staccato trumpets. Another. Don't know what that was. Explosion, bits flying everywhere. Back to: a glowering sky, turning strings- as though to say, the Gods are not happy?? Looking over a city. Calming down a bit. up to minute 39. Will come back.

"Big" Jim Stevens (Edward G. Robinson), undisputed boss of the Chicago underworld, gets an unexpected birthday present from his ambitious lieutenant, Guy Gisborne (Peter Falk). Instead of a stripper popping out of the cake, Big Jim gets shot by all the guests. Gisborne takes over. He orders all the other gangsters in town to pay him protection money. Gisborne says that Jim was not even an US citizen and was a no-good boss (as under him everybody was fighting each other rather than taking care of business) and he intends to make a lot of changes around town. Gisborne outlaws all independent operations and wants a cut from every pie. Gisborne demands a 50% cut from every business as the protection money. The news does not sit well with Big Jim's friend and fellow gangster, Robbo (Frank Sinatra), and a gangland war breaks out. Sherrif Glick tries to argue that the people were sick of Jim as there were 34 killings under his reign I 2 months. Gisborne has 85 guns under his command, and he can hit everything at once, if he so desires. Robbo recruits pool hustler Little John (Dean Martin), who demonstrates his pool skills while singing, plus quick-draw artist Will (Sammy Davis Jr.) and a few other hoods, but they are still greatly outnumbered. In addition, the corrupt Sheriff Octavius Glick (Robert Foulk) is on Gisborne's payroll. Gisborne and Robbo come up with the same idea, to destroy the other's gambling joint on the same night. Robbo chooses Gisborne's gambling joint as that is his pride and joy and the flagship of his underworld criminal empire. Gisborne as $250,000 tied up in the gambling joint. The 2 crews pass each other at a traffic intersection and both joints are destroyed at nearly the same time. The loss to Robbo is nearly $400,000. Gisborne calls Robbo and offers to build a new gambling den together, and become partners, but Robbo refuses and prefers to have Gisborne as the enemy. Big Jim's refined, well-educated daughter, Marian (Barbara Rush), shows up. She asks Robbo to avenge her father's death (wrongfully attributed to the sheriff), a request which Robbo flatly refuses. Marian offers to pay $50,000 to Robbo for her demand. Gisborne disposes of the sheriff for his failure to kill Robbo before he could strike his gambling joint. Gisborne wanted Sherrif to reduce his cut from 25% to 10% for the expenses to rebuild the gambling joint, but Sherrif resents that the entire blame for the failure to kill Robbo was being attributed to him. Gisborne kills the Sherrif and buries him in a concrete slab that is laid to set up the new administrative block for the police department. Marian then invites Robbo to dinner and gives him $50,000, thinking that Robbo did as she had asked. Robbo refuses the money, but Marian attempts to seduce him into joining forces to take over the whole town. Marian says that Jim also wanted to retire and the man he wanted to take over was Robbo. Robbo turns her down. When she sends the money to his under-repair gambling club, Robbo donates it to a boys' orphanage. Alan A. Dale (Bing Crosby), the orphanage's director, notifies the newspapers about this good deed. A new Chicago star is born: a gangster who robs from the rich and gives to the poor. Robbo finds it useful to have the public on his side. Robbo and his gang receive a lot of letters from old age homes, women shelters and orphanages asking for donations of cash. Dales comes over to introduce himself to Robbo. Dale is very erudite and most of his words are not understandable by Robbo or any of his gang. Dale offers to help Robbo by writing his speeches and managing his public image. Dale says that he never anticipated the huge positive response to Robin Hood comparison he made in the papers and can build on it. Robbo invites the delighted Dale to join his gang, having him handle all the charities. Dale starts the Robbo Foundation and opens a string of soup kitchens, free clinics and orphan shelters. He even gives green, feathered hats and bows and arrows to the orphans, while thoroughly milking the Robin Hood image. In the meantime, Robbo and Little John teach Dale a little about "Style." Robbo's joint re-opens and it is a hit. Gisborne, whose place is now empty, is infuriated. He and the new sheriff, Alvin Potts (Victor Buono), organize a police raid. Robbo has anticipated this. when a few switches are pulled, the entire club is disguised as a mission. The sheriff and Gisborne burst in to find Robbo's gang singing gospel songs and preaching the sins of alcohol, complete with hymnals and tambourines ("Mr. Booze"). Robbo is framed for Glick's murder. At the trial, Gisborne and Potts claim that Robbo planned the whole thing. Dale tries to teach the despondent orphans to view this as a lesson ("Don't Be a Do-Badder"). The jury finds Robbo innocent. Wearing a green suit, Robbo publicly thanks everyone in Chicago ("My Kind of Town"). When he returns to his club, Robbo finds every one of his charities is now a front for counterfeiting. The soup kitchen smuggles fake bills in soup cans over state lines. Robbo also finds Little John living it up in Marian's mansion. Marian is willing to keep Robbo as a front, as long as she is in charge. Robbo shows his contempt for her and leaves. Little John decides to go with him. Marian finds another willing partner in Gisborne. However, the gangster is not a match for Robbo and ends up dead. Robbo tells a shocked Marian to clear out of town. She instead turns public opinion against him, starting a Women's League for Better Government and framing Robbo for the counterfeiting ring that she and Little John started. Unable to fight an angry mob of women, Robbo and his gang flee. Robbo and his merry men are reduced to working as Santa Clauses to solicit charitable donations. They watch dumbfounded as Marian steps out of a car with her latest partner, Alan A. Dale. He casually gives them money before going off with Marian.

A gang of World War II 82nd Airborne veterans are recruited by Danny Ocean (Sinatra) and Jimmy Foster (Lawford) to rob five different Las Vegas casinos (Sahara, Riviera, Desert Inn, Sands, and The Flamingo) on a single night. The gang plans the elaborate New Year's Eve heist with the precision of a military operation. Josh Howard (Davis) takes a job driving a garbage truck while others work to scope out the various casinos. Sam Harmon (Martin) entertains in one of the hotel's lounges. Demolition charges are planted on an electrical transmission tower and the backup electrical systems are covertly rewired in each casino. At exactly midnight, while everyone in every Vegas casino is singing "Auld Lang Syne" the tower is blown up and Vegas goes dark. The backup electrical systems open the cashier cages instead of powering the emergency lights. The inside men sneak into the cashier cages and collect the money. They dump the bags of loot into hotel's garbage bins, go back inside and mingle with the crowds. As soon as the lights come back on, the thieves stroll out of the casinos. A garbage truck driven by Josh picks up the bags and passes through the police blockade. It appears to have gone off without a hitch. Their ace electrician, Tony Bergdorf (Conte), has a heart attack in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip and drops dead. This raises the suspicions of police, who wonder if there is any connection. Reformed gangster Duke Santos (Romero) offers to recover the casino bosses' money for a price. He learns of Ocean being in town and his connection to Foster, who is the son of Duke's fiancee. Santos pieces together the puzzle by the time Bergdorf's body arrives at the mortuary. Santos confronts the thieves, demanding half of their take. In desperation, the money is hidden in Bergdorf's coffin, with $10,000 set aside for the widow (Willes). The group plans to take back the rest of the money, making no payoff to Santos, after the coffin is shipped to San Francisco. This plan backfires when the funeral home talks Bergdorf's widow into having the funeral in Las Vegas, where the body is cremated along with all the money.