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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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The Frank Sinatra Show with Ella Fitzgerald (1959)

Rating: 3 Stars (out of 4)

Rainy Day

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The Frank Sinatra Show with Ella Fitzgerald on DVD.

This new DVD release from Music Video Distributors features a single 60-minute episode of Frank Sinatra's variety show, taped on December 10, 1959 and sponsored by Timex. The show was originally set in Palm Springs, but was shifted at the last minute due to unexpected rain; and much of the show's improvisatory quality comes from that change. Guests include Peter Lawford, Sinatra's then-girlfriend Juliet Prowse and Hermione Gingold, but the real reason to watch is the three numbers by the great jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald ("There's a Lull in My Life," "Just You, Just Me" and a duet with Frank, "Can't We Be Friends"). Apparently mastered from the original tape, the quality is only so-so, and though the soundtrack is clear and bold, it has a definite hiss to it.

Extras include biographies, discographies and other info for each of the performers, plus trailers and promos for other Quantum Leap productions.

November 27, 2004