Sick Product of a Sick System

Absolutely Fantastic

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

***SPOILERS**** The film "Double Dynamite" was released just before Frank Sinatra's break-out movie "From here to Insanity-Eternity" that eventually saved his fledgling both singing and acting career and made him the entertainment icon that he was to become. In the film Sinatra plays a $42.50 a week bank teller Johnny Dalton who can barley make ends meet who's girlfriend fellow bank teller the well endowed, in the bra department, Mildred "Mibs" Goodhue-played by Jand Russell-who's getting a bit sick and tired of waiting for him to ask her to marry her and plans to get involved with the boss' son stuck up and full of himself Bob Puilser Jr.,Don McGuire.It's when Johnny saves big time bookie "Hot Horse" Harris,Nestor Palva, from being beaten to a pulp by a couple of hoods working for his competition he invites Johhny to his gambling den and placed a couple of bets for him that ended up with Johnny winning some $60,000.00 on the ponies. It just happens that back at the bank where Johnny and "Mibs" work the same amount of cash is missing with Johnny possibly being the #1 suspect in the crime. It's here where Johnny's good friend singing waiter and all around BS artist Emile J. Keck, played by Groucho Marks taking time off from his TV show "You Bet your Life", steps in and things are never the same again.***SPOILERS**** It soon turns out that it was "Mibs" not Johnny who's short $75,000.00 in her bank stock and is arrested for bank fraud. That's until Emile has her adding machine checked out finding out that it over-counted what she handed out to her customers and under counted what she had left. this settled the matter and had Johnny soon tie the knot with "Mibs" and have Emile invited to the wedding as the best man. It was really Groucho Marks who was the star of the movie sealing every scene, even those with Miss Russell and her two bazooka's, that he was in. As for Frank Sinatra he did in fact get a chance to sing a number of songs, one a duet with Jane Russell, in the movie but his voice wasn't the same as it was back in his "Bobbie Sox" glory days in the 1940's. It wasn't until his next movie as Maggio in "From Here to Insanity-Eternity" that restarted his career and got him his one and only Academy Award as well as the fame the was soon to follow.

I watched this film with a close friend who is also very interested in the history and art of film, and even given the usually beneficial aspect of a shared viewing, this is a film which one forgets even as they are watching it. Basically nothing of interest happens, Jane Russell is wasted, Frank Sinatra is no help, and only Groucho manages to get off a meager handful of scenes worth noting, even though the writing is sub-par at best. Jane is a particularly interesting case: a woman whose best roles are sexy and tough as nails is here reduced to a rather prim and mundane character. And even the expectation of a few good songs is not met, even though both Frank and Jane (and even Groucho) are known to deliver in this area. A film only worth watching if you're a completionist of some sort. Very lackluster

Just watched this on a Netflix disc. It's the only teaming of Frank Sinatra, Jane Russell, and Groucho Marx. It's largely because of the last name that I had in interest in seeing this and I wasn't disappointed as he's as funny as you expect him to be with all those wisecracks that cracks me up the way he does them. Sinatra shows his vocal chops to good effect when he duets with both Marx and Ms. Russell on their numbers. The supporting cast is also good of which one of them, William Edmonds, is one of the players from my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life-he played Mr. Martini there. Here, he has a much bigger role of a restaurateur who's Groucho's boss as Groucho is a waiter here. The plot-about an embezzlement-gambling mixup-gets partially confusing but the way it's performed here, at least it wasn't boring, that's for sure! So on that note, I say Double Dynamite is worth a look.

Think about it. Sinatra, Groucho, and Jane Russell starring in a movie written by Harry Crane and with songs by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn. Sound great. Well, it's not. Sinatra is a bank clerk who is wrongly accused of stealing money from his bank. His singing is great; it's probably never been better. However, instead of the flip Sinatra character of the 1950s, director Cummings asks Sinatra to play a timid young man, a role that never really suited him well. (Think about "The Kissing Bandit"! Compare that to "Meet Danny Wilson", Sinatra's next film where he gets to play that cocky guy!) Groucho is as funny as usual, but the script is contrived, there are too few sight gags, and the direction is slow. We are even cheated on the musical numbers. The two songs, "It's Only Money" (sung by Frank and Groucho) and "Kisses and Tears" (sung by Frank and Jane, accompanied by the jazzy Phil Moore Four) are good, but I wish there were more. Groucho did better with his brothers and Sinatra did better with Nelson Riddle!