Ocean's Eleven (1960)

1960 heist film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring five Rat Packers: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford.

Centered around a series of Las Vegas casino robberies, the film's other stars included Angie Dickinson, Cesar Romero, Richard Conte, Akim Tamiroff, Henry Silva, Ilka Chase, Norman Fell, Harry Wilson, and Buddy Lester, as well as cameo appearances by Shirley MacLaine, Red Skelton, and George Raft.

Plot Synopsis;

A gang of World War II 82nd Airborne veterans are recruited by Danny Ocean and Jimmy Foster 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 takes a job driving a garbage truck while others work to scope out the various casinos. Sam Harmon 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, however, 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 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. 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.

Peter Lawford was first told of the basic story of the film by director Gilbert Kay who had heard the idea from a gas station attendant. Lawford eventually bought the rights in 1958 imagining William Holden in the lead.[1] Sinatra became interested in the idea and a variety of different writers worked on the project. When Lawford first told Sinatra of the story, Sinatra joked "Forget the movie, let's pull the job!" [2] Shot on location in Las Vegas, "Ocean's 11" is considered to be the first of the Rat Pack films, but it is not the first in which its members appear together. This film formed a framework for subsequent vehicles tailored around Sinatra, Martin and Davis--each, as with "Ocean's 11," with a number in its title: Sergeants 3, 4 For Texas and Robin and the 7 Hoods.

Shot during the day and the wee hours of the morning on and around the Las Vegas strip, Frank Sinatra not only filmed his scenes in "Ocean's" but also a cameo appearance in the film Pepe along with performing on stage during the evenings at The Sands hotel. Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop joined him at the Sands on stage during filming. During the crime film's iconic closing shot, the Sands marquee can be seen in the background featuring the performers' names.

A remake, directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia and Julia Roberts (among others) appeared in 2001.

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The Apartment

Starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine
On 1st November 1959, in New York, C.C. "Bud" Baxter is a popular clerk of "Consolidate Life", an insurance company with 31,259 employees. The secret of his success is a well located apartment where he lives that he sublets for his superiors, making him climb to the executive position of 2nd Administrative Assistant very early. He likes the elevator girl Fran Kubelik, a reserved woman considered a "jackpot" among the executives. Fran is the secret lover of the director Jeff D. Sheldrake, a married man that seduced her convincing that he will divorce his wife to stay with her. When Fran tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment after a meeting with Jeff, she stays with Baxter while recovering, and he falls in love for her. Later he has to come up to a decision between his excellent position in the company and his love. (IMDB)

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Plot Synopsis;

C. C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a lonely office drone for an insurance company in New York City. Four different company managers take turns commandeering Baxter's apartment, which is located on West 67th Street on the Upper West Side, for their various extramarital liaisons. Unhappy with the situation, but unwilling to challenge them directly, he juggles their conflicting demands while hoping to catch the eye of fetching elevator operator Miss Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine). Meanwhile the neighbors in the apartment building, a medical doctor and his wife, assume Baxter is a "good time Charlie" who brings different drunken women every night. Baxter accepts their criticism rather than reveal the truth.

The four managers write glowing reports about Baxter — a little too glowing, so personnel director Mr. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) suspects something illicit behind the praise. Mr. Sheldrake lets Baxter's promotion go unchallenged on condition that Baxter offers his apartment to him as the sole customer. Still delighted about his promotion, Baxter asks Miss Kubelik to The Music Man after Sheldrake offers him tickets to the play when he has other plans. She agrees, then stands him up when Sheldrake takes her out for drinks. Later, on Christmas Eve, Baxter arrives home with a woman he has picked up in a local bar and is astounded to find Miss Kubelik in his bed, fully clothed and overdosed on sleeping pills. Mr. Sheldrake had borrowed Baxter's apartment for the evening and evidently left Miss Kubelik there.

Baxter sends his bar pickup home and he and his neighbour the doctor keep Miss Kubelik alive and safe without notifying the authorities. She explains that she had an affair with Mr. Sheldrake the previous summer, ended it when his wife returned from vacation then caved in to his appeals and promises later in the fall. When Sheldrake offered her money instead of a Christmas present she realized the ugliness of the situation and tried to commit suicide. The act shows a startling side of her usually sunny personality. Baxter tries to comfort her with assurances of Sheldrake's concern but she refuses to speak to him on the telephone.

Kubelik recuperates in Baxter's apartment for two days, long enough for her taxi driver brother-in-law to assume the worst of Baxter and come to blows. Sheldrake's catty secretary, one of his former mistresses, finally "educates" Mrs. Sheldrake about her husband's infidelities. Faced with divorce, Sheldrake moves into a room at his athletic club and continues to string Kubelik along while he enjoys his newfound bachelorhood. Baxter finally takes a stand when Sheldrake demands the apartment for New Year's Eve, which results in Baxter quitting the firm. Kubelik realizes that Baxter is the man who truly loves her and she leaves Sheldrake on New Year's Eve to be with Baxter that evening and runs to him. They end as two misfits, both out of a job, playing a game of gin rummy. When Baxter declares his love for Kubelik, her reply is the now-famous final line of the movie: "Shut up and deal."
(Wikipedia)

Jack Lemmon as C.C. "Bud" Baxter Shirley MacLaine as Fran Kubelik Fred MacMurray as Jeff D. Sheldrake Ray Walston as Joe Dobisch Jack Kruschen as Dr. Dreyfuss David Lewis as Al Kirkeby Hope Holiday as Mrs. Margie MacDougall Joan Shawlee as Sylvia Naomi Stevens as Mrs. Mildred Dreyfuss Johnny Seven as Karl Matuschka Joyce Jameson as the blonde in the bar Willard Waterman as Mr. Vanderhoff David White as Mr. Eichelberger Edie Adams as Miss Olsen

Link; Wallpaper Gallery Shirley MacLaine in "The Apartment"