LADY IN CEMENT (1968) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Gordon Douglas
Frank Sinatra, Raquel Welch, Dan Blocker,
Richard Conte, Martin Gabel, Lainie Kazan,
Pat Henry, Richard Deacon, Virginia Wood
Frank's second outing as wiseguy private eye Tony Rome, who's out diving off his boat one day when he comes across a woman at the bottom of the sea with her feet encased in a block of cement. That leads to an investigation involving a gangster (Martin Gabel), a giant (Dan Blocker) and Raquel Welch as a woman who has money and a drinking problem and looks real good in a bikini. Sinatra gets to act tough and tell people off, which apparently he liked to do, but the actor who gets your attention is Blocker, who does just enough to make you wonder what he might've done with a part like Lennie in "Of Mice and Men". Watch for the references to "Bonanza" and a once-famous commercial for canned vegetables, and consider how many people these days would even get the joke.
