Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack’s ‘Ocean’s 11’ Turns 60: ‘It Was Living Every Man’s Fantasy”
A new breed of high-living musketeer was introduced to the moviegoing public on August 4, 1960, and you could spot its flair right in the movie trailer’s tagline: “One for All and All for Kicks!” That was Ocean’s 11, a breezy caper that serves best as a time capsule of a swinging era defined by the swaggering, legendary Rat Pack.
“You really are a rat,” a jilted conquest (Patrice Wymore) sneers at the undisputed leader of the crew, Frank Sinatra, during this cavalcade of wine, women, song and larceny on the iconic Las Vegas Strip. “It’s going to be a summit to top them all,” that trailer promised.
And so it was. Though they made a number of films together in various combinations — the most notable usually had a number in the title — none showcased the chemistry and camaraderie of the core Rat Pack group with as much pizzazz. In the classic final shot, a marvel of self-reflective braggadocio, they walk past the marquee of the Sands hotel, which brandished their real names as the celebrity headliners they were: Frank Sinatra. Dean Martin. Sammy Davis Jr. Peter Lawford. Joey Bishop.
“It was living every man’s fantasy,” costar Henry Silva reflected in the 2001 behind-the-scenes documentary The Ocean’s 11 Story, which suggests the main reason for even doing the film was to give the gang an excuse to hang out with each other in the desert resort city that had become their preferred playground.
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Lawford, Sinatra’s well-connected movie star pal, owned the rights to the story, which involves former World War II paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne who reunite in Vegas to pull off a heist. Engineered by gambling man and womanizer Danny Ocean (Sinatra) and his irresponsible well-heeled sidekick Jimmy Foster (Lawford), the scheme targets the vaults of the Strip’s five major casinos — the Sands, the Flamingo, the Sahara, the Riviera and the Desert Inn — during a New Year’s Eve blackout.
The plot is just a pretext for banter, boozing and brotherhood, with women mostly relegated to the ogling sidelines. Angie Dickinson (awarded the sole female star billing) appears as Ocean’s ex, who wryly quips of their failed marriage, “It drowned in champagne.” Fellow Rat Pack “mascot” Shirley MacLaine floats on a bubbly high in a brief comic cameo as a soused casino patron who makes a play for Martin as crooner Sam Harmon. (His version of “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head?” featuring vibraphonist Red Norvo and his quintet is the musical highlight. Most of their movies had at least one.)
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According to the documentary, the shoot (by Lewis Milestone, best known as the Oscar-winning director of 1930’s considerably more sober All Quiet on the Western Front) was a chaotic, scattershot affair, with scenes sandwiched in between sets of the performers’ popular act, two shows a night in the Sands’ fabled Copa room. Sinatra famously resisted filming more than one take and reportedly ripped out several pages of the script when he felt one night’s production took too long.
As if the script even mattered. Ocean’s Eleven is the quintessential Rat Pack movie because of its attitude — its devil-may-care insouciance — with an undimmed-by-time spotlight on a band of cool cats before ego and circumstance pulled them apart.
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When Steven Soderbergh gathered a new generation of movie stars four decades later for a sleek remake, even the combined wattage of George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon (and cameos from Dickinson and Silva) couldn’t erase the golden afterglow of the dapper dudes from the ’60s who put this joint on the map.
Ain’t that a kick in the head?
Remind 
The Rat Pack
March 2025
No one represented the swingin’ style and devil-may-care attitude of the 1960s more than the quintet of entertainers known as the Rat Pack.
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