The video and sound quality are remarkable, especially considering the date and the source, and of course it's a revelation compared to the bootleg copies. The set list is a fascinating combination of tried and true Sinatra standards ("All of Me", "The Lady is a Tramp"), interesting new arrangements ("Baubles, Bangles, and Beads"), attempts to stay hip in the 1970s ("Didn't We," "Something"), the rather surreal (an audience singalong of "America the Beautiful"), and, perhaps best of all, a riveting piano/vocal performance of "Send in the Clowns."
Then there's the monologue leading up to that Sondheim weeper-turned-saloon song, as Sinatra holds court, describing how the song is a request from an unnamed man in the audience "holding up one of them torches." Suddenly, though, I sensed that something was missing here - so I pulled out my old bootleg CD copy of this performance and sure enough — the monologue has been edited! Sinatra's raunchy riff on Elizabeth Taylor ("Mrs. Warner") is now missing...
"Madronn' did she get fat! I mean she was so beautiful - she was so beautiful. Somebody blew her up with a tire pump or somethin'. She's a great dame. She's marvelous. I once offered her $10,000 just to let me look at it. I wouldn't touch it, just let me look at it, that's all. She doesn't know — excuse me, Father — she doesn't know what I was talking about, and neither does he. 'Cause he ain't never seen it either. You better not have seen it! Otherwise I won't show up at Mass!"
The audience howls with laughter, as you can probably imagine, but it's MIA on this "complete" official edition DVD. (Note how a cocktail magically appears in Frank's hand after the edit at 00:49:27. Not even Mr. S can make a drink materialize that fast!)
Why is it okay for Sinatra to take potshots at Claudine Longet ("one of the great marksmen of all times"), but not Liz Taylor? And then, during the "introductions" monologue later on, there's yet another edit. While acknowledging the presence of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in the audience, this ill-advised off the cuff remark has been removed...
"Even if he is colored, he's a Hell of a man. He knows that, we tease him all the time. I'm glad to see ya, Thomas. He's my fella."
Too politically incorrect, perhaps? Well, that's Sinatra: Vegas, folks. Deal with it. Of course, when he calls Paul Anka "that little Arab," it doesn't get edited out.
Article comments
1 - Connie Phillips
Congrats! This article has been forwarded to the Advance.net websites.
2 - Stephen V Funk
A little more background on the DVD edits and Nancy's response... on the SinatraFamily.com online forum, a link to Will Friedwald's New York Sun review of Sinatra: Vegas is posted, which includes the following comments about the DVD:
"Sinatra [...] refers to [Mayor] Bradley as being "colored" - an aside that is mysteriously deleted from the DVD. I can't imagine why it's okay for Sinatra to poke fun at Jews and his fellow Italians, but not at blacks, especially since he literally kvells with delight that both Bradley and his wife are in the audience, and is obviously jazzed that Los Angeles now has a black mayor. He literally seems to be taking this fact as a personal point of pride. The producers also snipped out Sinatra's attacks on William Randolph Hearst and Louis B. Mayer, as well as a scathing Andrew Dice Clay-like appraisal of Elizabeth Taylor's reproductive organs. On the unedited tape, Sinatra declaims, it turns out correctly: "I'm layin' 11 to one that you don't use this on television!""
Later in the same thread, a SinatraFamily forum reader posts this comment: "I find it interesting that Will points out the "sanitizing" of the DVD with Frank's less than PC comments eliminated. No one else has mentioned that."
To which Nancy replies: "Because it isn't true. WF didn't look or listen. But that's not unusual for him." Quite a slam on Will Friedwald... Nancy then apparently read the review more closely and posted:
"<< The producers also snipped out Sinatra's attacks on William Randolph Hearst and Louis B. Mayer, >> That is absolutely not true."
Interestingly she does not deny that Sinatra's remarks about Liz Taylor and Mayor Bradley were edited out (and they definitely were!) As far as I can tell, though, she is correct in saying that the rest of the monologue has been left intact. I'm not sure why Will Friedwald thinks the W.R. Hearst and L.B. Mayer comments were edited -- they are clearly included on the DVD. Maybe he has a different bootleg copy than the rest of us...