While I have been a fan of the remake for many years now, I never had the opportunity to see the original film. So when the original Ocean's 11's Blu-ray release was announced, my interest was piqued. I have to say, even 50 years later, Ocean's 11 holds up really well.
When Spyros Acebos (Akim Tamiroff) comes up with a plan to rob Las Vegas blind, he calls upon an old associate, Danny Ocean (Frank Sinatra) to put together a crack team to pull off the caper. Ocean turns to the men he can count on the most, his military buddies from the 82nd Airborne.
Danny's second in command is Jimmy Foster (Peter Lawford), and his rich mother will inadvertently fund the whole heist. Danny and Jimmy work to recruit the rest of the troupe. These others include Sam Harmon (Dean Martin), Josh Howard (Sammy Davis Jr.) and Tony Bergdof (Richard Conte). There are, of course, several other players adding up to the team's eleven members, but the focus of the film is on these few characters.
So what is the job? At the stroke of midnight on New Year's, while everyone is distracted and singing, the team will cut the power to The Strip, crack open the back rooms to five casinos and rob them all at the same time. If they can get out in one piece, each member of Ocean's 11 will walk away with a cool million (my how the times have changed).
The casinos being cased are the Sahara, Riviera, Desert Inn, Sands and The Flamingo, and the different team members need to infiltrate each location in various ways. Some, like Martin's character, become entertainers, while others take less glamorous jobs like waiters and other lowly, unnoticed positions.
While the heist seems to go off without a hitch (about halfway through the film), the plan takes a turn for the worse when Bergdof, the crew's master electrician, has a heart attack. What starts off seeming like a random event grabs the attention of Duke Santos (Cesar Romero), a former mobster who will be marrying Foster's mother soon. Santos is hired by the robbed casinos to get the money back, for a share of the stolen dollars of course, and when he realizes that his future step-son's entire military unit is in town, he starts to see a way to get more than the 30% promised by the casinos.
Ocean's 11 has one of the better endings I've seen in a long time, and one I really didn't expect. All of the actors do a great job, but then again, what else would you expect from the Rat Pack. Although, I have to say, the acting feels a bit over-the-top when compared to today's styles, but putting the film in the proper context helps a lot.
Ocean's 11: 50th Anniversary doesn't have any special features over the DVD version already on shelves, but what it has is interesting. There is a commentary track by Frank Sinatra Jr. and Angie Dickinson (who plays Danny Ocean's wife), as well as a clip from Sinatra (Sr.) hosting The Tonight Show with Dickinson as a guest. During this reunion, the pair talk a good bit about working together in the film. The only other extra is five short featurettes, one on each of the casinos involved in the heist. These talk about everything from how the individual casinos have changed to how Las Vegas itself has changed.
Ocean's 11 is a pretty good movie that most film buffs will want to own in one incarnation or another. While the Blu-ray version isn't really necessary, the transfer to the higher definition is done really well and the picture looks good. I will say though, unless you are a big Rat Pack fan, a fan of the remake movies, or a film buff, Ocean's 11 is more of a rental than a purchase.
