A Hole in the Head

Frank Sinatra and Edward G. Robinson

A Hole in the Head is a hectoring and scattershot widescreen concoction, the curate's egg of Frank Capra's filmography. This 1959 flick was written by Arnold Schulman based on his recent play. The major change in the transfer of the material to the screen was changing the main character's background from Jewish to Italian to fit leading man Frank Sinatra. Sinatra plays an operator from New York, the broke owner of a second rate hotel with a fondness for females and the track. The role is a good fit for Sinatra's limited, but real acting talent and casual approach. As Sinatra's brother, Edward G. Robinson is misused. The character is a straight and narrow shop owner who disdains his brother's swinging lifestyle. Robinson could play a virtuous character, The Whole Town's Talking is a good example, but he is too interesting an actor to play a staid killjoy. He and Sinatra are not believable siblings.

The teaming of Robinson and the always welcome Thelma Ritter as a husband and wife doing a tiresome Bickersons routine causes the film to clunk rather than chime with comic harmony. The two want Sinatra to cast off his lowdown ways and find a respectable woman for a wife, especially because he is taking care of a latency aged son intolerably played by Eddie Hodges. The father son scenes are hard to sit through, especially Hodges and Sinatra warbling the mega-hit "High Hopes". Sinatra has better chemistry with Carolyn Jones who plays his main squeeze, a free spirit beatnik type who both surfs and plays the bongos. When Jones leaves Sinatra and the film at midpoint, the picture loses what little spark it had. 

Carolyn Jones

Robinson and Ritter set up Sinatra with a comely and bland widow played by the comely and bland Eleanor Parker. Donna Reed had been cast, but the shoot impinged on the shooting schedule for her hit television. Reed gave ambiguous notes to both good and bad girl roles. Parker adds little. The foisting of respectable woman upon Sinatra's heel caused Andrew Sarris to call this Capra's "new look in conformity" after an eight year absence from the silver screen. Parker's red hair matches that of Sinatra's son and late wife, signaling to the audience that she is the obvious mother substitute in waiting. 

Besides the usual hokum, the most glaring fault is the film is Capra's struggles with color (Deluxe) and the wide screen (Cinemascope). Except for a scene at the Fontainebleau pool, there is little Miami flavor to the film. A lot of the flick was shot in SoCal and the rear projection used is garish. The camera tracks around the lobby of Sinatra's hotel to antic rather than comic effect. Capra's set-ups are the same as if he were shooting a film in the favored aspect ratio of the 1930s: 1.37:1. There is always a lot of dead and negative space in the film that is not used to meaningful effect.

Keenan Wynn shows up late in the film as a Runyonesque big shot. He fits in well with both Capra and Sinatra. I enjoyed brief bits from James Komack (later producer of Chico and the Man and Welcome Back Kotter), Dub Taylor, and Ruby Dandridge, mother of Dorothy and an interesting figure in her own right. However, on the whole, I found A Hole in the Head to be a stale and tiresome affair. Pocketful of Miracles, Capra's next and last film, is a much more pleasing example of the director in his dotage.