Lady in Cement (1968)

Starring: Frank Sinatra, Raquel Welch, and Richard Conte
Grade: C-

How you don’t bring back Nancy Sinatra’s all-timer “Tony Rome” theme from the first movie and instead give us an entirely new, sitcom-like tune with no lyrics, and the same riff is played throughout half of the movie, is pretty much the embodiment of how Lady in Cement compares to the first film.

Summary

On his boat Straight Pass off the coast of Miami Florida, private investigator and gambling addict Tony Rome (Sinatra) is playing poker with his friend Rubin (Pat Henry) and loses the hand. Rubin jokingly says that along with the money Rome owes, he also loses his share of the map that Three-Finger Jack gave him. It’s a treasure map leading to the Eleven Treasure Galleons Sunk in 1591 at the Fowey Rocks. Rome takes a look at it and thinks Jack is hustling them both, but Rubin points out that they’re coming up to the Fowey Rocks now. To check it out, it’s decided Rome will go underwater in scuba gear. Getting to the sea floor, Rome finds a dead and naked blonde woman with her feet submerged in a block of cement.

Ah, the title makes sense now.

As Rome examines the woman, a few sharks swim towards him, but he’s able to fend them off with some elusive movements and his knife. He swims back to Rubin who asks if there was any sign of the 11 galleons. Nonchalantly, he tells Rubin about the dead blonde. Right away, Rome reports the body to the Coast Guard. Back at the police station, Rome is discussing the case with Rubin, Lt. Dave Santini (Conte) and cop Jerome. Jerome tells them that according to the autopsy report, there was hardly any water in her lungs, so she was killed beforehand. Apparently, she was stabbed with a knife. Once Jerome leaves after complimenting her pelvis (he literally says, “What a pelvis!”), they discuss the peculiarities of the case. Santini thinks whoever did this thought the woman would never be found, but Rubin thinks it’s the opposite because why else would you put the body near where treasures of silver and gold might be. Santini wonders if things are slow in the Vice Squad since Rubin has so much time on his hands, but Rubin argues he had a busy week with all of his out-of-work activities. Santini asks Rome the same thing while commenting how he’s the only person Santini knows that owns a yacht but still eats cold TV dinners. Just then, they are interrupted by an office who hands Santini a picture file for a missing persons case. Rome tries to leave, but Santini wants him to stay to look at the picture files to identify the woman. Apparently, there isn’t enough left of her to recognize (which is weird because her face is completely visible in the opening) and there aren’t any fingerprints. Right after, Santini gets a call from Manny, Rome’s bookie. Rome tells Santini to relay that he’s out of town because he’s short. Santini tells Manny this but also threatens to take him in for impersonating a female if he books one more bet off the police line.

Rome looks through the files and doesn’t find the woman. Regardless, the murder of the woman is public, so Santini says there will be more pictures coming in for him to look at. Afterwards, Rome goes back to his boat on the docks. His neighbors John and his wife Birdie are there working on chores on their own boat, though it’s mostly just John bossing her around. When Rome walks by, John tries to give him advice on a new horse racing bet, but he doesn’t want to hear it since he lost the last time off of John’s advice. Rome does ask if he has any messages though, and it was a call who just left an address. No name was given. Since they stressed the urgency, John thinks it’s a new client. Rome goes to the address and it’s another houseboat owned by Maria Barreto (Lainie Kazan) and Sondra Lomax. Upon opening the door, the large Gronsky (Dan Blocker) attacks Rome and throws him to the floor. They both draw guns at the same time, but Gronsky convinces Rome to throw his to the side just because it’s smaller. Gronsky asks why he’s here, so Rome admits he’s a private detective and someone called him to meet there. Gronsky demands his wallet. Checking it, Gronsky admits he is the one who called Rome. Next, he puts his gun away and helps him up. He asks about the dead blonde and if she had a certain birthmark on her abdomen, but Rome never got that close to her to know. Hearing this, Gronsky deduces it wasn’t Sondra and tells Rome he’s hired. Confused, Rome asks what exactly he’s been hired to do, and it’s to find Sondra. Apparently, she was supposed to live in this place with Maria, but she never showed. When Rome asks why he hasn’t checked with Maria herself, Gronsky says he has his reasons. He wants Rome to find her for him. Rome is fine with it, but it will cost $100 a day plus expenses. Unfortunately, Gronsky is low on cash at the moment, so he gives him a watch worth $300 at any pawn shop. However, he wants Rome to hang on to the ticket because he’s going to buy it back from him when he has the money.

All of this seems fine with Rome. He just wants to know why Gronsky wants to find Sondra, but he just tells him to do it. Otherwise, bad things will happen. Rome won’t be able to contact him either. Gronsky is the one who will find him. He also threatens Rome to not try and tail him either. Once he departs, he finally tells Rome his name, and Rome is weirded out by Gronsky’s first name being Waldo, which is totally valid. Before leaving, Rome finds something on the table from a strip club called Jilly’s. After talking to one of the girls at Jilly’s, they point out Maria for him. She’s one of the dancers. Once she’s done performing, Rome goes over to talk to her. After he orders some champagne on her request, he asks of the whereabouts of Sondra. Maria walks around it while flirting with Rome but admits Sondra has a habit of getting lost when the rent is due. The last time she saw her was the night before at Kit Forrest’s (Welch) party. Apparently, Kit is some sort of socialite that Rome is aware of. Still flirting with Rome, Maria gives him advice to stay away from Sondra because she has a boyfriend. He asks for pictures of Sondra, but she doesn’t have any. The manager of the club in Danny Yale (Frank Raiter) interrupts the two and tells Maria to go back to dancing. Maria tries to protest since they just ordered champagne, but Rome says they’ll drink it later at her house. Pivoting, Rome questions Danny about Sondra and mentions how he’s trying to figure out who the blonde is that they found in the ocean. Danny is sure that couldn’t have been Sondra because she got in touch with him in the afternoon to tell him she’s quitting. Once Rome calls Danny a liar, Danny calls for his henchman Seymour. Seymour puts two sugar cubes in Danny’s drink and stares intently at Rome. Danny knows he doesn’t have to tell Rome anything and lets him hear it.

Rome considers getting persuasive, but Danny mentions that Seymour wouldn’t like it, while telling Rome that Seymour played tailback for the Green Bay Packers. Rome goes to Kit Forrest’s house and greets her as she comes out of the pool. Kit, in what could be the wildest opener to a random stranger possibly ever, asks Rome, “Well, shall I scream “rape” now or wait and phone in a complaint?”. Apparently, this is supposed to be cheeky, but it comes off as insane. Anyway, he introduces himself and she has no idea who he is, asking if he was at her party. Eventually, they get down to business and they talk inside while she takes two “bullshots” since Rome turns down his. He asks about Sondra being at the party, but Kit admits she was drunk pretty early into the party, even going as far as to say she has a drinking problem. She wonders aloud how she would have turned out had she not inherited a fortune from her father. Kit continues to deflect while Rome continues to press. Eventually, she goes to her bedroom to change and makes a phone call to alert Al Mungar (Martin Gabel) and his son and business consultant Paul (Steve Peck) of what’s going on. They leave their golf outing immediately to come to Kit’s house. At the same time, Rome looks at a painting of Kit in one of the rooms of the house and notices the signature of the artist on it being Arnie Sherwin (Richard Deacon). As Rome asks again about the details of the party once Kit enters the room in her new wardrobe and hairstyle, she answers the door instead after mentioning how she’s seen Rome at the racetrack. Al shows up with Paul and a couple of others and starts threatening Rome off the bat. He responds with some sarcasm, and the two head outside to talk. With two henchmen behind them, Al tells Rome how he hopes for Paul to marry Kit. Both men stop once they see Al’s wife working out. She greets them because she wants to meet Rome, but Al sends her away.

Moving along, Rome admits he’s lost thousands in some of Al’s gambling joints. However, Al says that’s his old businesses. Everything he runs now is legitimate. Rome mentions Jilly’s, but Al insists it’s a respectable business. Rome asks why he’s so entrenched in Kit’s business, but Al chalks it up to them being neighbors. Obviously, he’s underselling it, and Rome implies Al is still doing hits, so Al gets mad and threatens him again to leave everyone alone. Later, Rome goes to Maria’s house only to find a crime scene. Maria has been killed, and Santini is there investigating. Rome admits they talked, so Santini wants to know details because he now has two murders on his hands. Rome tells Santini to look into Danny, Seymour, Al Mungar, and Kit. When asked what ties them all together, Rome slyly responds with, “Could be cement”. The next morning, Santini shows up to the Straight Pass with files of a few more blondes from missing persons. Additionally, he went to see Kit and heard about Rome’s meeting with her and his questions about Sondra. Kit told Santini that she told Rome everything she knew, which was virtually nothing. When Rome asks Santini if he pressed her at all, he just talks about her status making it difficult. The same is said about Al, who Santini saw after Kit. Additionally, Danny never left Jilly’s. However, Santini does have a lead on the Maria case. The woman who lived across the street from Maria saw a large man run out of Maria’s houseboat. Rome clearly thinks it’s Gronsky but doesn’t say it directly. Santini knows Rome has some information and tries to inquire further, but Rome insists he knows nothing. Then, he shows Santini the door because he has a woman coming over for a “diving lesson”.

This mystery has just begun, and Tony Rome is too entrenched in it to drop out now.

My Thoughts:

Was it too much to ask for an improvement?

Lady in Cement is the sequel to the much more successful Tony Rome and continues the adventures of the underrated private detective protagonist. Instead of building on its barely-above-average predecessor to get us excited for another go-around with a main character capable of handling a franchise, Lady in Cement settled for mediocrity. The team behind the movie seemed content in putting out a sequel that is shockingly worse than the first film. Keep in mind that the first movie wasn’t even that good to begin with. Now, I said it in the review for Tony Rome, and I’ll say it again here: Frank Sinatra’s work as the main character is deserving of a franchise. The protagonist is really cool, the atmosphere that is the underbelly of Miami is thrilling and worthy of exploration, and the tone and premise allows for anything to happen within this story, especially since the author of the Tony Rome books in Marvin H. Albert helped write the screenplay. Sadly, nobody involved in the production takes advantage of the situation. Everything is too contained. Instead of trying to be better, the people involved are completely fine with doing a by-the-numbers sequel. No one is asking for the second movie to reinvent the wheel, but there should be some effort to try and progress the series rather than moving in a lateral direction. Though it’s true that not a lot of sequels are better than the original movie, those who do take on the challenge of potentially creating a series always go for the “Let’s go bigger and better!” approach to build onto the foundation established. With this in mind in these cases, the screenwriters and director can find a way to work on elements that could be improved upon from the first movie while making the action more exciting, the comedy funnier, the romance sexier, and the story more compelling.

Lady in Cement succeeds at none of this. You can legitimately argue that there was not a single thing improved upon in this sequel compared to Tony Rome.

First of all, there is concerted effort to try to be funnier by including more scenes that are perceived to be comical situations. Unfortunately, most of it is cringeworthy. The earliest example is Rome going to see a male cop who is working undercover as a female hooker. Why they couldn’t get a female cop on this case specifically is beyond me (Check out South Park‘s “Butters’ Bottom Bitch” episode for a great example of this idea done better). Nonetheless, Rome meets with the guy in the bathroom, as the cop fixes his makeup and tells him details about Gronsky and how he’s robbed gas stations and poker games. After the guy says he’ll make a call for Rome to find out where Gronsky hides out, Rome helps him with his fake tits so he can go back to the date he’s on with some random customer. He leaves the bathroom with Rome, and Rome’s comment to the customer of him not taking long implies he had sex with him. With this, the customer leaves the undercover cop in a haste, so the cop just annoyingly says to himself, “Men”. The whole sequence is distracting and uncomfortable and nowhere near amusing enough to justify its existence, yet it seems to go on forever. The same could be said during the scene in which Rome goes to artist Arnie Sherwin’s house to question him on Sondra, his connection to her, and if he can draw her from memory. As they talk, Arnie is still using a woman as a model for the painting he’s working on in that moment and she squeals several times throughout, “Arnie, can I go to the john?”. It’s just plain weird, never mind unfunny. A lot of Rome’s quotes do keep the humor afloat though. There’s this and moments like when the cops try to take down Gronsky and the one cop has to hit him in the head with the butt of his gun several times to make a difference (peak the cop’s reaction when Gronsky doesn’t go down), Rome’s response of “greedy” when he’s asked to give up both of his guns, and the craps playing sequence in the mortuary, which was arguably the best scene in the movie if you don’t count the action sequences (with Rome fighting Danny and Seymour being a big highlight).

It was also comical for Rome to accept the second Gronsky offer and forcing Santini to leave the room since the situation became a client privilege thing that he couldn’t listen in on.

Raquel Welch is on Jill St. John’s level in terms of hotness but is only half the actress John is (if that), and Welch’s character of Kit Forrest is woefully underwritten. She’s the centerpiece of the mystery but her true feelings and motivations on the matter aren’t defined enough for the audience to care about her. Plus, she was drunk at the crime scene in question, so she’s pretty much useless in terms of Rome gathering details for his case. Even so, he keeps questioning her and gets mad when she has nothing else to give him. Is she withholding information, or was she actually drunk and just doesn’t remember? Either one is possible, but the performance is so subpar, and the character is written so poorly, you can’t tell what she is supposed to be to anyone. Granted, Kit later admits to a bad picture being taken of her with her and a married man and it was being used to blackmail her, but it’s so late into the movie that we don’t really care. Up until the climax, Kit seems just as unsavory and untrustworthy as everyone else Rome encounters, yet we have no reason to believe this. That’s the work of a script not fully developed and bad acting. Kit doesn’t give up much for the viewer to latch onto and the performance matches the disappointing inclusion of her character. For those hissing at the criticism of Welch’s acting, keep in mind that she didn’t know her character was written to be an alcoholic. It has been documented in an interview VERBATIM that she somehow missed this rather important fact about her character, despite the entire mystery being written around her inability to recall what happened at her party because she was drunk, her introductory scene having her tell Rome directly that she has a drinking problem, her drinking in most of her scenes, and Rome later telling her that she drinks too much.

If she is that aloof to the character she is portraying and the lines she says directly in front of the camera that explain the lone character trait she has, then it really encapsulates how bad she actually is.

The returning Richard Conte is given even less to do in this movie than he what he was given in the film’s predecessor, one of my more important critiques of Tony Rome that could have easily been fixed in this sequel. Funnily enough, the only noteworthy thing Santini did was get hit with an uppercut by Rome when he tried to take Rome in for the murder of Danny because they found a knife in him from Rome’s boat, even though they both know it was a frame job. Speaking of which, Frank Reiter’s performance as Danny Yale was way too over-the-top to be taken seriously, despite him having the juiciest role, and the scene with Paco Gonzalez was almost a complete waste of time since the viewer is already aware of Arnie Sherwin being an artist.

The only person who walks out of Lady in Cement unscathed is Frank Sinatra. Though Tony Rome hasn’t changed a single bit since we saw him last and the same could be said for Sinatra’s performance, it’s still good enough for you to want to see the mystery through. He still gets his funny quips in, as there are a lot of great responses that he has throughout to keep up his status as a smart aleck, but I was somewhat disappointed with how Rome was handled otherwise. He doesn’t evolve much as a character. Granted, this was released a year after Tony Rome, so he wasn’t going to change much anyway, but he had nothing to work towards from a personal perspective. His dynamic with Ann Archer in Tony Rome was at least intriguing in that he has to stop himself from pursuing her because he has his case to worry about. However, he wants to and will once the case is over. Here, he’s focused solely on the case and nothing else really. Raquel Welch’s Kit Forrest is supposed to take Archer’s spot in the story, but it never reaches that level. It’s either because Rome doesn’t trust her, he isn’t as interested as he leads on to be (the exact same could be said about her), or there is that little of chemistry between the two stars, which is why the ending isn’t as satisfying as it’s portrayed to be. Even so, nothing is motivating enough for Rome in this case. There is nothing drawing him in. The first film wasn’t great at drawing Rome in either, but Lady in Cement is that much worse. In fact, Gronsky basically strong arms him into accepting the case by just saying, “You’re hired”. This is following Gronsky sitting Rome on a countertop like he was a five-year-old. It’s kind of funny, especially with Sinatra willing to give in to Dan Blocker’s imposing frame and admit he’s a little freaked out by saying things like, “If you’re trying to scare me, you’re doing a hell of a job”, despite the fact that Rome is the one pointing a gun at Gronsky’s face later on in the movie.

When “The Mad Russian” says a measly .38 won’t stop him though, you kind of believe him. By the way, why does the poster say Rome carries a .45 when he doesn’t? Did the studio even watch the movie?

The details of the case are murkier than Tony Rome and that’s saying something. There is so much about Kit Forrest’s party and who Sondra doesn’t know, who she does know, who saw her at the party, who she has troubling relationships with, but at some point, you just stop giving a fuck until a gun gets involved. In the final revelation, you just shrug at the explanation given because there are so many details the viewer stopped caring for well into the story, though Rome’s pseudo, Jack Sparrow-like offer to give up Gronsky to the killer was a cool moment even if he didn’t have any intention of doing it.

On a side note, I disagree with Rome’s major point of Kit not being able to kill someone with a letter opener. Mr. Rome, John Wick killed someone with a book. Please grow up and understand that anything is possible.

There is a little bit more action this time around that does liven up the tedious and complicated puzzle Rome finds himself in, like Rome and Gronsky’s uneasy partnership against some bad guys and later cops (“Stay loose” x2) and the chase sequence between Rome and Santini after Rome punches him and steals his car before calling the police to stop Santini in his car. It was a fun idea to make Rome seem like he was against the world trying to solve this case, especially when he was being framed for murder, but this plot development wasn’t capitalized on like it should have been. They literally do a special news bulletin during an airing of Daniel Boone to say Rome is a killer and is on the loose when he sneaks into the Fontainebleau. This should set up a manhunt where Rome is being chased like he’s Jason Bourne. Considering Rome’s diet consists of alcohol and cigarettes, it should be easy to catch him too, adding to the suspense. In a careless and upsetting development, after he hides out at Kit’s place for a scene, Rome just moves on to the next location without a care in the world! This is what I’m talking about here in terms of trying to go “bigger and better” with a sequel and why it’s crucial. The manhunt for Rome, after he punched his only friend on the force to escape, could have completely changed the trajectory of second half of the film. This development alone should have added loads of tension and suspense into the action to temporarily scare the audience into thinking that Rome might not pull this off, as there are too many factors working against him without aid of any kind (where was his buddy Rubin in all of this?). However, the golden idea is horribly managed.

In the scenes following the news bulletin, Rome barely attempts to sneak around or look behind him when he goes back to the hospital to find Gronsky escaped, and he doesn’t look remotely anxious when showing up to Mable’s Massage studio to finally talk to him, which was the scene after that. Considering that the hospital was crawling with cops because it turned into a crime scene after Gronsky destroyed the place, Rome should be a little nervous, no? If he’s caught and his case goes unsolved, he could be on trial for murder! Shouldn’t he be a little worried he could be caught by showing up to a place filled with law enforcement officials, especially because he’s easy to spot since he’s the only person who dresses like that in Miami? All Rome does to act incognito is him just standing behind a wall. Somehow, that’s sufficient enough! Somehow, he didn’t see anyone in the elevator, the hallway leading up to that floor, the lobby, or the parking lot! Not a single person crossed paths with him that forced him to hide for a single second. For a “manhunt” for a potential murderer that punched out a cop, this is a serious lack of effort on everyone’s part or god-awful direction that didn’t care about the details. In director Gordon Douglas’s defense, Sinatra was reported to be awful on set, so this could be chalked up to Douglas just wanting to get this over with. Regardless, the city of Miami making Rome public enemy number one and him moving so freely afterwards is too maddening to forgive because it could have fixed the movie or been enough to get a higher grade. How does he get back to Kit’s house for the climax with the massive Gronsky when the entire neighborhood is damn near under a lockdown since they are looking for Rome? Do you see what I’m saying? Is it too much to ask for a little more exhilaration, apprehension, or just a little bit of unpredictability in a crime thriller no less?

Can someone tell me why in the first meeting between Gronsky and Rome, they draw their weapons at the same time, but Gronsky convinces Rome to drop his gun just because his gun is bigger? Why would Rome do this? It’s still at close range, and they’re at an even draw. It doesn’t make any sense for Rome to just give up in the moment. Also, why is Paul this dynamo that has managed to attract bombshell Kit and the unknown Sondra? What does he bring to the table that we don’t know about? There’s nothing revealed about him specifically about how he’s such a catch. Even with the scenes he’s in, he barely talks until the ending, where he suddenly takes over the film in importance while the audience is still trying to remember his name. The real shock is that Al Mungar was somehow telling the truth when he was the most obvious troublemaker of them all. On a side note, even with all the facts presented, I still don’t believe Danny didn’t have anything to do with this because he was acting too strange and deviously confident for someone who is innocent. Now, reread those previous points of this paragraph. The screenplay makes a case for basically everyone to be implicated as the killer instead of the guy who is actually the killer. This is why Lady in Cement is considered to be so frustrating and woefully underwritten. On top of that, the big payoff in the climax was just as middling as the first movie’s, though now I’m starting to think they just like the style of it because it fits the grounded approach to the detective genre. Either way, you don’t walk out of it as satisfied as you’d like.

Lady in Cement is a lazy successor to Tony Rome. It’s not a terrible movie, but it’s so annoyingly lazy that I want to give it a lower grade because it could have been so much more. That’s what irritates me more than anything. It bothers me that a Frank Sinatra and Raquel Welch-led movie botched the opportunity it had to utilize its star power to attract enough attention or popularity to generate big box office numbers and to at least get us to a third film in the franchise. They had the stars to bridge the gap. All they needed was just a little bit effort and it would have been enough. Sadly, it wasn’t there, and audiences responded in kind. If the effort, or lack thereof, was to continue into a third Tony Rome movie, it may not have been worth seeing, which is a shame because Albert’s third and last Rome novel My Kind of Game was just sitting there waiting to be adapted. You know what’s strange about all of this? The Detective is a better film than Tony Rome and Lady in Cement, but I liked the character of Tony Rome much more than Sinatra’s Joe Leland in The Detective. That’s how much potential was squandered in the span of two years.

Fun Fact: Sammy Davis Jr. was originally supposed to play Rubin.