Lady in Cement

1968 "A beautiful body under water. A private eye in over his head."
5.8| 1h33m| R| en
Details

While diving for sunken treasure, street-smart gumshoe Tony Rome finds the body of a gorgeous blonde, her feet stuck in a block of cement. Soon after, tough guy Waldo Gronski hires him to find a missing woman named Sandra Lomax, and Rome wonders if there's a connection. He sets about trying to locate the woman, and in no time finds himself mixed up with a beautiful party girl and a slippery racketeer.

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20th Century Fox

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Reviews

ThiefHott Too much of everything
Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.
Console best movie i've ever seen.
Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.
rodrig58 It is not just a joke with blondes, this blonde really caught her both feet in a piece of cement and waves on the ocean floor, where she meets Frank Sinatra. It's 1968's cool music (Hugo Montenegro) and the chicks are even coolest (Raquel Welch is one of them). The rest is just talk. And, unfortunately, in the only scene we see some blood, that does not look genuine, as shown in movies today, you can tell from a post that it is paint. I agreed to give it 2 points because I'm a generous guy. And for Raquel Welch's sexy ass. Not worth wasting one hour and a half watching it. Only if you love Raquel and Frank Sinatra.
seymourblack-1 The second and last Tony Rome film "Lady In Cement" was released in 1968. Its bright colours, perky background music and slang terms (like "fuzz" and "split" etc.) are typical of the period but there are also some features which aren't. The practice of murder victims being anchored underwater in cement shoes was prevalent in the 1920s and 1930s and the movie also draws influences from the films noir of the 1940s and 1950s. For example, the sequence in which the "lady in cement" is found by Rome, strongly evokes an underwater sequence in "The Night Of The Hunter" (1955) and a character called Gronsky is identical to Moose Malloy from Raymond Chandler's "Murder My Sweet" (1944). A scene in which Frank Sinatra gazes at a large portrait of Raquel Welch's character is also a conscious replication of a motif which was frequently seen in the noirs of the 40s and 50s.In this movie, Tony Rome is a typical noir private detective working on a missing person case that involves murder and gangsters but also shows certain characteristics of James Bond (e.g. fighting off a shark, being surrounded by semi-clad young ladies etc.). The incongruities highlighted above could be regarded as disconcerting but in this movie seem to have been used purely for laughs.Private eye Tony Rome (Frank Sinatra) is scuba-diving somewhere off the Miami coast at a location where some Spanish treasure had reputedly been lost many years earlier when he sees the nude corpse of a blonde woman whose feet had been set in cement. Shortly after reporting the incident to the coastguard, he gets approached by a hulk of a man called Waldo Gronsky (Dan Blocker) who hires him to find his lost girlfriend, Sandra Lomax. Rome's investigations take him to the go-go bar where Sandra used to work as a dancer and he speaks to her roommate and gets a hostile reception from the camp owner Danny Yale (Frank Raiter) and his bartender boyfriend.Having learned from her roommate that Sandra had been at a party at the home of Kit Forrest (Raquel Welch) on the night when she died, Rome goes to visit the alcoholic heiress who tells him that she can't remember much about the night in question. Shortly after, Rome has to make a quick exit after being threatened by her protective neighbour and ex-mobster, Al Mungar (Martin Gabel). After Sandra's roommate is found dead and a couple of thugs try to kill Gronsky, Rome gets into a whole series of tight spots (including being framed for the murder of Danny Yale) before he eventually brings his investigation to a successful conclusion.Despite the nature of its plot, "Lady In Cement" is essentially a light-hearted confection which enables Sinatra to indulge in numerous in-jokes and have fun with women who are half his age. He does well in conveying how jaded Rome has become and is also good at delivering some snappy one-liners. Among the supporting cast, Dan Blocker makes the strongest impression as the larger-than-life Gronsky. The emphasis in this movie is very much on the humour and judged on this basis, it clearly succeeded.
MartinHafer A few days ago, I watched Frank Sinatra's film "Tony Rome". Now just watched "Lady in Cement"--a sequel in which our incredibly relaxed and quite glib private detective hero investigates a VERY strange murder. When the film begins, Tony is scuba diving and discovers a body! But it's no ordinary body--it's a nude blonde whose feet were planted in cement! Obviously, the woman had been murdered--and disposed of in a very elaborate fashion. The trail leads to a gorgeous lady (Raquel Welch), a giant of a man (Dan Blocker) and an ex-mobster. Can Tony sort it all out and avoid getting himself killed? I liked "Tony Rome" a lot and "Lady in Cement"--just not quite as much. It's a good film but occasionally the plot seems a bit convoluted and far less interesting than the characters themselves (particularly Sinatra). The music was also a bit too much after a while. It is also a LOT more sexually charged than the first film--earning an R-rating for nudity and strong language. But it also had a really nice underwater sequence, plenty of action and LOTS of smug comments from Tony. Worth seeing.
bkoganbing While playing tag with a pair of sharks Frank Sinatra as Tony Rome discovers the body of a woman with cement overshoes at the bottom of the ocean. As he says it was obvious someone did not want this body to be discovered. Which begins the tale of Sinatra's second Tony Rome film Lady In Cement.Sinatra as Rome is still living the good life on his boat and betting whatever he does earn on horses. He still has a good in with the Miami Police in the person of Richard Conte as Lieutenant Santini, but the in only goes so far as we see when Sinatra is framed for a murder and Conte has to go after his good friend. Of course in a rather long chase sequence toward the end of the film Frank does get the better of Conte and half the Miami PD. In order to appreciate Lady In Cement and Tony Rome you have to really dig Sinatra's whole hipster, Rat Pack shtick from the times. If you don't both films will leave you cold. But Lady In Cement was far worse in that Frank attacked the nascent gay liberation movement with a few well chosen imitation lisps mocking the gay characters in the film. After the Stonewall Rebellion a lot of establishment figures even in the entertainment world mocked the movement and Frank Sinatra was no exception. Interesting because in The Detective Sinatra played a detective who got a coerced confession of a gay suspect in the murder of a gay man and then when evidence showed New York had executed the wrong man took it upon himself to get justice applied rightly.A few in jokes for wannabe swingers abound in Lady In Cement, the strip club where the deceased woman worked was called Jilly's after Sinatra favorite eatery in New York. And at one point Frank remarks to leading lady Raquel Welch that he 'once knew a broad who collected bull fighters' a reference to former Mrs. Sinatra, Ava Gardner. I've got to wonder what Ava must have thought of that. Even more important how did Richard Deacon who was a closeted gay man and had a small part in the film must have felt about some of Sinatra's lines in the script?Still the smarmy lisps of mockery really have made Lady In Cement not wear well over the years. Definitely for die-hard Sinatra fans.