Come Blow Your Horn

1963 "I tell ya, chum...laughs it is!"
6| 1h52m| NR| en
Details

The story of a young man's decision to leave the home of his parents for the bachelor pad of his older brother who leads a swinging '60s lifestyle.

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HeadlinesExotic Boring
Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
mark.waltz and he's going to really turn the life of his (much) older brother Frank Sinatra upside down. Newcomer Tony Brill portrays an innocent unaware of what he is getting himself in for moving onto Sutton Place in Manhattan. Free of his meddling parents (Molly Picon and Jack Kruschen) and their Yonkers home, Brill allows brother Sinatra to take him out on a glorious shopping spree to mold him into a younger version of his older brother. Before you know it, Brill has taken over and Sinatra finds himself acting like his domineering father whose constant slamming of doors causes chandeliers to fall.This hysterically funny Neil Simon comedy isn't a great movie, but gets a higher rating simply because of its laugh quotient. There are also several moments that seemed like song cues, and one time, when Sinatra breaks into the title song (during the shopping spree), it actually happens. Brill is hysterically funny going from innocent to ring-a-ding-ding playboy, throwing a "Breakfast at Tiffany's" like party, and getting perhaps too big for his britches when Sinatra gets him to pretend to be a movie producer from Hollywood.Kruschen and Picon are so funny, but nothing is more hysterical than watching the lovable Picon playing reluctant frustrated secretary when she begins to answer Sinatra's phone calls after popping in on Brill unannounced to beg him to return home. The sight of this diminutive woman running around this obvious playboy's apartment looking for a pencil is a visual you won't forget. Picon makes her Jewish mother endearing and so lovable that you want to just pick her up and hug her.While Picon and Sinatra don't share scenes until the end (because of the obvious difference in their appearances), I half expected Picon to tell Sinatra "We needed to share one scene in this movie" when he asked her why she was there. It is mentioned that Sinatra (who works for Kruschen's factory that makes glass fruit) takes off both Jewish and Catholic holidays (as well as Halloween!) so perhaps Kruschen and Picon have a mixed marriage; That is never confirmed.Then, there are the ladies in Sinatra's life: the beautiful red-headed Jill St. John (too intelligent seeming to be playing a bubble-head), Phyllis McGuire (as the sadomasochistic business associate from Dallas) and Barbara Rush (as the wife and mother type). The film may seem a bit too much like a stage play in some scenes (minus the songs it seems to be about to break into), but is still a lot of fun.
whpratt1 If you like Frank Sinatra and remember some of these old time actors, and some very talented ones, this would be a good film for you to watch and enjoy. The story evolves around a New York Jewish Family who all try to create some nice Jewish accents, except Frank Sinatra, who does not even make the attempt. Lee J. Cobb,(Harry Baker), is the father to Alan Baker,(Sinatra) and calls his son a BUM and a do nothing Playboy,(which he really is in this film) Molly Picon, (Sophie), is the mother to the Baker family and gets upset with having to answer the many telephone calls she has to answer in her son's apartment. Barbara Rush( Connie) is very attractive and has a great romantic interest in Alan Baker along with many other hot chicks. Even Dan Blocker,(Eckman)"Gunsmoke" TV Series, finds time to give Alan Baker a right upper hook to the jaw. Nice 1963 film with even Frank Sinatra singing a few musical tunes I did not recognize.
ianlouisiana "Come blow your horn" marks the start of Mr Sinatra's descent into self-parody .He was at least ten years too old for the part of a perennial bachelor grooming his younger brother into a carbon-copy of himself.Even in 1955 for "The Tender Trap" he looked vaguely disturbing as he pursued the much younger Debbie Reynolds.You almost expected him to break into "Have some Madeira m'dear" and twirl the ends of his metaphorical moustache.By 1963 his style of ageing hipster,tight trousered Italian shod charm was wearing a bit thin.All the women in his movie world were large-breasted bouffant-haired long-legged airheads,the men cool wise-cracking "in with the in-crowd" kind of guys,but not quite as cool and wise-cracking as Mr Sinatra himself of course. Neil Simon's plays have a peculiarly American popularity in much the same way that the late Terence Rattigan's had an appeal for a mainly British audiences.The arcane social practices of his middle class characters are often as mysterious to us as Mr Rattigan's must be to a U.S. audience. "Come blow your horn" features Miss Molly Picon and Mr Lee J.Cobb as a bickering angst ridden Jewish couple(is there any other kind on Broadway ?)with Mr Sinatra and Mr Tony Bill as their two sons.A harsh critic might rail at the casting of Mr Sinatra as a middle-aged single Jew,but hey,this is Broadway,right? Mr Bill is fine in a small furry animal kind of way,perhaps a marmoset or lemur,unused to appearing in daylight.Mr Sinatra is Las Vegas smart,like a third-rate lounge act,existing in a state of permanent priapism,no wonder his mother worries about him.An assortment of "broads" move to and fro within their orbit,the less fortunate ones catching their eye.Mr Dan Blocker,lately "Hoss" in "Bonanza",steals the movie by being the only recognisably human character.He is far better than the film deserves as a cuckolded husband. When I saw this film at the "Carlton" cinema in Forest Gate,East London over 40 years ago,the world was much more easily amused.When the opening shot of Mr Sinatra's parents' house came up on the screen,the appearance of the word "Yonkers" was greeted with gales of laughter.In order to achieve the same effect today Mr Sinatra would have to blow away several " 'ho's" with a large calibre shotgun,whilst chomping on a cigar and screaming "Die Motherfxxxxxxx" before soaking their still twitching bodies in petrol and setting fire to them.They could call it "Come blow up the 'hood"
vchimpanzee This was my first Frank Sinatra movie. I have seen clips of his work, and I have enjoyed his singing for years, but this was the first time I really took a good look at his acting.Sinatra plays Alan Baker, a crafty ladies' man who is a disappointment to his overbearing father, who is also his boss (and given Alan's work ethic, that's a good thing). His 21-year-old brother Buddy, who also works for his father and has a 'gee-whiz' quality about him, does everything he can to please his parents, but never manages to satisfy them. One day Buddy decides to move in with his brother. This does not please the father one little bit, and the mother is not happy either. Alan wants his brother to be just like him, so he has the brother 'made over' and, when he has too many girlfriends, lets Buddy pose as a Hollywood producer and take out one of the girls, who wants to be an actress. Alan still has two women to juggle, and unfortunately, one of them is married and a big client of his father's company. And her husband is Dan Blocker (who comes across, unfortunately for Alan but not for us, more as Little Joe than Hoss).Sinatra is good, giving the impression of a much younger man than he would have been when the film was made. He doesn't seem like the Sinatra I knew at first, but later becomes more serious and more like the familiar image. He also gets to sing one song, doing a great job. The actors playing the stereotypically Jewish parents are wonderful (Religion isn't mentioned, but the image of Jewish parents is a familiar one). I haven't seen much of Molly Picon's work, but from seeing this performance and one episode of 'Gomer Pyle, USMC', I can't see anyone portraying the guilt-inducing Jewish mother any better. The actor playing the father made quite an impression as well.This was a good movie, and though slightly off-color, nowhere near as naughty as movies being made today.