O.K., Tony doesn't die, but this film killed an otherwise promising franchise. While the original, Tony Rome, wasn't a monumental piece of film-making this one fell flat at the box office.Lovable loser Tony Rome is back. He's still cool in his deadbeat style, but this time he's on a case that just doesn't gel. Revisiting the ingredients that made the original a fun romp falls flat this time as the story just hasn't got legs. It starts off startling enough with the underwater discovery of a nude (torso up) blonde on the bottom of the sea. The story could have gone any number of ways from here, but the direction it took - mobster gone straight and jealousy among lovers, including bashing gays, seems mis-placed to be kind.The high points here include good turns by Raquel Welsh and Dan Blocher. As a character actor Blocher really lights up the screen. His presence is formidable and begs for more screen time. Raquel Welsh is fantastic window dressing, if not quite as effective as Jill St. John in Tony Rome. Sinatra is totally relaxed and rolling nicely with the character. Blame the writers and the screenplay because with the cool backdrop of Miami Beach and the straight man role reprised of homicide chief Richard Conti this could have extended Tony Rome into at least another two or three films. It didn't, however, and this is still worth a watch if not very compelling.

Detective Tony Rome (Frank Sinatra) returns to the screen after his self titled debut, this time it's a film that's played for erm…laughs. While on a diving trip, Rome finds the body of a blonde beauty at the bottom of the sea, her feet as you might expect, encased in cement. Rome immediately on the case after being hired by man mountain Waldo Gronsky. Rome finds himself immediately at risk as he has to investigate some mafia types, who turn the tables on him and he is himself found to be the main suspect, he must now go on the run and hope to solve the case alone. The portly Sinatra tries hard to sell us the lame jokes and make us believe he is a good detective, oh and not to mention being sexually attractive to the foxy Raquel Welch, but he fails miserably, in this ham fisted vanity project. The frankly laughable denouement that surrounds every female is quite astounding, every woman in the film is a dither head, who likes bending over is front of the camera, Director Douglas of course obliges in zooming in on the cracks of their asses each time as they flex their posterior muscles. There's even a ridiculously campy gay character that beggars belief, this was a film made by "real men" for "real men" to reaffirm their own flagging sexuality, it's a shameful shambles.

LADY IN CEMENT (1968) ** Frank Sinatra, Raquel Welch, Dan Blocker, Richard Conte, Martin Gabel, Lainie Kazan, Christine Todd. Sinatra reprises his Tony Rome gumshoe character in this other-wise routine detective yarn as he comes across the titular character (Todd), an ehtereal beautiful blonde at the bottom of the sea, while scuba-diving off the coast of sunny Florida, where he finds himself embroiled with the mob, the cops, a love interest in the comely form of heiress Welch - at her most bodacious, and the formidable Blocker as his client Waldo Gronsky, who may or may not have killed her. The on-location vibes and the honeys -including the buxom (and svelte!) Kazan, as well as a few cameos (i.e. Richard Deacon - "DICK VAN DYKE SHOW"'s Mel Cooley - as a beatnik artist! and BS Pully - the original Big Jules from Broadway's GUYS & DOLLS - as a peep show attendee) liven things up in this stagnant slice of pulp fiction.(DIR: Gordon Douglas)

If you take a look at what I wrote about Tony Rome a couple of years ago, you can apply a lot of it to Lady in Cement. Once again, this is a movie that I probably enjoy more than I should. That's because for the most part, it entertains me. Plot details hardly matter as the whole thing is little more than a vehicle for Frank Sinatra to show his supposed coolness. I'll just say that Lady in Cement is well paced with very few dull moments. Other than a handful of really seedy looking locations, it's a harmless enough way to spend an hour and a half. To be as light as much of it is, however, there are a few nice twists and turns along the way. In fact, the identity of one of the killers really caught me off-guard. Sinatra may be the "star", but he's not the attraction here for me. Instead, Dan Blocker and Raquel Welch are the films highlights – and in two very different ways. Blocker is very entertaining as the huge behemoth of a man, Waldo Gronsky. And Raquel is equally entertaining in her own way as wealthy socialite Kit Forrest. Finally, as with Tony Rome, I get a real kick out of the shots of a mid-60s Miami. Forty years later it looks almost like a foreign country. I suppose the thing that bothers me the most about Lady in Cement is the amount of lame comedy found in the script (although the scene with Blocker watching Bonanza on television made me laugh out loud for some reason). You'll find comedy in Tony Rome, but I don't remember this much. The worst is the over-the-top gay-bating that Sinatra tries to use as humor. It has a terribly dated feel to it and, as some would argue, is quite offensive.