The guy Sinatra is looking for throughout the film is named Nimmo. I just couldn't let that go by without comment. This is good light entertainment. Florida in the 1960's is not bad to look at. A few good laughs thrown in. All in all not a bad flick. Ms. Rowlands looked incredible. Almost Grace Kelly good looking. St. John was good. Conte was good. Simon Oakland did his usual great job. Oakland must have been working somewhere every day of the 60's and 70's. And Frank was Frank.

One could make a case that 'Tony Rome' is the best private eye movie of the 1960s. Also we could argue that it's the first neo-noir, depending how one defines these things. In any case a lot of the film's success can be attributed to Sinatra, who is just terrific. The Tony Rome persona is clearly in the tradition of the classic private detective. However, Sinatra gives the character a more laid back, hip quality than the usual Old School tough detectives we saw in the 1940s, played by the likes of Bogart, Mitchum and Dick Powell. Given the setting and lifestyle, the character of Rome is also an obvious first cousin to Travis McGee of the John D. MacDonald novels. Moreover, in its way the film anticipates Miami Vice of two decades later. The style and mood is more early than late 60s, and there is a whiff of 007 with the lush Miami Beach backdrop, zingy repartee, frequent consumption of alcohol, top-notch production values, and beautiful women. And like the Bond films of that era, some of the sensibilities are, by today's standards, decidedly un-pc. To wit: Rome's penchant for violence, to the point of sadism; and the depiction of most of the women characters as little more than sex objects. Still, the film provides a good time capsule-like view of what Miami Beach was like a half century ago. Perhaps the best thing about TR is the cast of quirky secondary characters, played to perfection by the fine supporting cast. Refreshing to see Richard Conte as a cop instead of a mobster. And Jill St. John makes for a fetching (semi)romantic interest for Rome. There's not much that's new in 'Tony Rome,' but there's not a lot that's wrong with it either.

If you want to go back to the "swingin' sixties" with a nod to 40's film noir this is your flick. Stylish, but already out of date is Tony Rome's nom de plume. Sinatra in a "vehicle" movie where it's his still formidable draw and the backdrop of a "cool" Miami is simply entertaining.A pre-cursor to the crusty not quite "over-the-hill" still cool private eye Tony Rome is a crime romp. Rome living close to the bone on a boat speaks volumes as to what this character is about. Since he couldn't quite fit into the department he's found his niche. And that niche is swinging with lovely ladies (Jill St. John is as good "window dressing" as ever captured on celluloid) and the grift that occurs between the have and have nots. With a pseudo complicated (i.e. simple) crime story Rome gets neck-deep in it as his ex-partner, now a lower-class hotel dick, pays his to return a socialite guest that passed out while missing. Complications and more than a few dead bodies ensue.Casting is excellent, the back-drop of Miami still in it's first hipster incarnation, and Sinatra all combine for a good time if not strapped on to a very compelling drama.

The detective genre experienced a brief comeback after the success of the movie Harper in 1966, a movie that Frank Sinatra passed on. But after seeing his buddy Dean Martin having success with his Matt Helm series, Sinatra decided to do Tony Rome in hopes that it would be the first in a series as well. Tony Rome is very similar to Harper in plot and tone, leading me to assume that Sinatra must of regretted not doing Harper after all.Harper was a flawed but entertaining film, Tony Rome is also flawed but not as entertaining, mainly due to the fairly uninteresting plot, not the actors. The actors are all game. The actresses aren't given a whole lot to do, other than sit and be window dressing. Jill St. John has some amusing scenes, but Gena Rowlands and Sue Lyon are wasted. Sinatra and the director Gordon Douglas had already worked together before, on the Rat Pack film Robin and the 7 Hoods in 1964. And after doing Tony Rome they would quickly follow that up with The Detective and Lady in Cement in 1968, which are also flawed but watchable.