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 In
1992, Warner Brothers snapped up the screen rights to Nick Tosches'
award-winning Dean Martin biography, DINO: Living High in the Dirty
Business of Dreams. The project was immediately offered to another
proud Italian-American, Martin Scorsese. A more viable or upstanding
choice couldn't have been made. Like Scorsese's films, the book pulled
no punches and was heavy with expletive.
But despite
his longtime hopes of bringing the life of Dino Crocetti, a.k.a.
Dean Martin, to the big screen, Scorsese, at first, didn't take
the gig. He wanted to make a film about American celebrity, about
constructing an image that would eventually become a cage, and it
wasn't until his Goodfellas/Casino collaborator, Nick Pileggi,
came aboard to adapt the book that he gave in.
In Dirty
Business, released two years before Dean Martin's death in 1996,
Tosches wrote of the Italian-American century, using Martin as the
central figure. It was perfect. It would have allowed the Scorsese/Pileggi
take on Martin to blend the worlds of Mean Streets, Casino, King
of Comedy, New York New York and Goodfellas. Just imagine
the scenes that could be crafted to Dino's "Ain't That a Kick in
The Head." Then again, Scorsese might not have been that obvious.
Dean Martin was, after all, more of a raging alcoholic than a raging
bull.
Still, industry
insiders agree that Scorsese might be the only man alive who can
make a Dean Martin movie as cool as Dean Martin himself.
But we may
never know for sure.
When he accepted
the Warner offer, Scorsese was setting up Bringing Out The Dead,
with infamous writing partner #2, Paul Schrader. He was also working
on a documentary about Italian Film Directors and a bio-movie about
George Gershwin. When Pileggi turned over a second draft of the
Dino script in the spring of '98, things got weird.
Time magazine
announced that John Travolta was the strongest candidate for the
Frank Sinatra role; Travolta, in turn, hinted that he might do it.
Variety reported that Scorsese had tapped Tom Hanks to play Martin.
 When
Sinatra died in June of that year, interest in the film intensified.
HBO had already started production on The Rat Pack, starring
Ray Liotta as the Frankster. Little, Brown & Company released Pete
Hammil's, Why Sinatra Matters, and Nancy Sinatra's tribute,
An American Legend was re-released. Countless other titles
were published within months of Sinatra's death as well. So much
energy was concentrated on Dino, Frank, and their cronies in the
summer of '98, that it was a shock when Scorsese announced that
he would not make the film.
Could it be
that the legendary filmmaker didn't want to dine with the others,
lest he be judged as they would be?
No siree.
Simply put,
Scorsese's dream cast was booked. He couldn't haven't proceeded
with the project as quickly as he'd intended, so he bowed out.
And maybe
it was just as well; Scorsese is known for not doing something if
it can't be done right. But that's also further evidence that he's
the only choice for the job.
Scorsese wanted
Travolta to play Sinatra. Yeah, I know -- a head scratcher at first.
But Travolta has surprised us before. And Hugh Grant as Peter Lawford
might've been Grant's time to shine. For the role of Joey Bishop,
Scorsese had chosen Adam Sandler. Okay, if his screen time was as
limited as Bishop's was in the Rat Pack, it'd be somewhat easy to
swallow. Jim Carrey was the clear choice for Jerry Lewis. Of course,
by 1998 you'd have to have bought him the Vatican to take a backseat
to Hugh Grant, so we might not have missed him anyway.
 HBO's
Rat Pack could have been a good indicator of the success
of Scorsese's project -- had Scorsese's name been removed, that
is. As it happened, HBO had problems other than the lack of the
perfect director; The Rat Pack didn't make it through production
without being assaulted by Tina "Pit Bull" Sinatra. The New York
Post reported that Tina had been so hell-bent on stopping it, she'd
gone to Ted Turner, the biggest shareholder in Time Warner, HBO's
parent company, and asked him to kill it. Turner refused to get
involved.
So Tina attacked
the production in TV Guide, calling it "a blatant raping of not
only what my dad did, but of all those other brilliant performers."
She added, "There's no regard for the truth. It turns them all into
caricatures of themselves."
The Post also
reported that Liotta had received a box on the set; inside was a
model horse's head covered in fake blood. The prop was similar to
the one in The Godfather, left in a studio head's bed when
he refused to give the Sinatra-inspired Johnny Fontaine character
a role in a movie. This head came with a nasty note: "From the desk
of T.S."
 Still,
without Scorsese's Dino project, the HBO movie may be the only one
that even comes close to the magic of the real Rat Pack. 'Cause
there's no telling what to expect from Steven Soderbergh's forthcoming
and arguably uncalled-for remake of Ocean's 11.
After George
Clooney, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts signed on, rumors about the
continuing casting for this do-over sprang up faster than Luxor
security: The Cohen brothers replaced by the twins from Twin Falls
Idaho; Mark Wahlburg replaced by Matt Damon, Bruce Willis in, then
out, then in again. A Mike Tyson part abruptly reworked to mere
background boxing action, Pitt's part (Dino's originally) "beefed
up" upon request. Don Cheadle refusing to work with Don Rickles,
Michael Douglas in, then out, etc. And the latest, on-location rewrites
to accommodate newcomer Johnny Depp, suggest even further vacillating.
There was
a swagger captured in the original that no Clooney, Soderbergh or
Scorsese can recreate—okay maybe Scorsese. But as the Rat Pack
was caught at its swingin' best—headlining Vegas clubs by night
and shooting Ocean's 11 by day—it's doubtful there was
any vacillating going on.
Too bad Frank
himself isn't here to corner a few of the principals involved and
warn, "Look here friends, this's hallowed ground."
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