Frank Sinatra: Signature Collection

Good collection of classic Sinatra films at an ultra-low price
"The Frank Sinatra Collection" includes three classic films:

"The Man with the Golden Arm" (1955) 1 hour 59 minutes, B&W
Notable for Sinatra's performance as a junkie going through cold turkey withdrawal from heroin.

"Till the Clouds Roll By" (1946) 2 hours 17 minutes, Color
Almost every big name of the day puts in an appearance in this Jerome Kern biopic. Precious little Sinatra, but he does get the honor of performing the big finale number.

"Suddenly" (1954) 1 hour 15 minutes, B&W
Sinatra as a would be assassin waiting for the Presidential motorcade. After 1963 Sinatra had this film noir withdrawn from circulation. (Because the copyright wasn't renewed this one fell into the public domain and a lot of bad copies are floating around.)

The inclusion of "The House I Live In" (1945) as a ten minute bonus feature more than justifies the price of the entire collection.

The DVD package says, "Carefully Re-Mastered for...

Getting Your Money's Worth, and Then Some
This is a fantastic trio of Sinatra films, and though he is only in the last scene of "Till the Clouds Roll By," his performance singing "Old Man River" warrants it being a "Sinatra film." Both "The Man With the Golden Arm" and "Suddenly" are in black and white, and show their age by being quite grainy, but are well worth watching and especially owning if you're a Sinatra fan. "Till the Clouds Roll By" is in color and in remarkable condition, and the running time on this version is 2 hrs. and 17 minutes. An added bonus is a ten minute film to teach kids about the evils of bigotry (although this being a WWII film, it is not exactly Japanese-friendly). Included are 2 songs, "If You Are But a Dream," and "The House I Live In." The audio on these songs is poor, but shows us the era when Frankie made the girls swoon, and we can understand why.

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM (1955)

Viewing this film is like lifting a rock to see what has been existing under its dark...

Good Low Budget Film Noir
If you like old film noir movies, you can't go wrong with this very inexpensive Sinatra set. Man With The Golden Arm is memorable and captivated me in terms of venturing into Sinatra films. Suddenly is pure low budget noir, quick paced and entertaining-Sinatra is one really evil dude in this picture, so be prepared! Till The Clouds Roll By is a very long musical extravaganze-nothing in terms of plot but great to just fast forward to a few noteworthy performances (Sinatra closes with an incredible "Old Man River"). All b&w, somewhat grainy.......but at this price, a winner.

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