'THE FIRST DEADLY SIN'.....SINATRA BOWS OUT WITH A DEAD-ON-ARRIVAL COP FLOP.....

 The First Deadly Sin (1980)

     A sad case, this one. 

     After a decade off the big screen, Frank Sinatra returned to cinema for one last lead performance. 

     Why he bothered is anyone's guess, since he wanders through this film either terminally bored or distracted with this mind on something else. 

      All the elements did look promising......a script by Mann Rubin taken from Lawrence Sanders pulpy and perverse New York police thriller. Though Roman Polanski had to flee the U.S. before he was scheduled to direct the film, that chore fell to Brian Hutton, the director of those wild, propulsive World War II crowd-pleasers, "Where Eagles Dare" and "Kelly's Heroes". 

        And top-of-the-line star Faye Dunaway joined the cast as Sinatra's desperately ill, dying wife. 

         So what went wrong?  Just about everything and the resulting film is one of the most dreary, depressing slogs we've ever had to struggle to stay awake through. 

         Mann Rubin's bare-bones script disembowels the Sanders novel, leaving nothing left of it but the makings of a connect-the-dots, made-for-TV cop movie. 

          Dunaway's confined to a hospital room for the entire film, mumbling and whispering as she slips in and out of a coma.....which was pretty much the same effect the movie's pace was having on us.

          A barely awake Sinatra trudges through the story, trying to catch a serial killer psycho (David Dukes) who wacks random people on the back of their heads with a curved, mountaineering ice pick.

         There's a few mild perks along the way to give the movie a pulse every so often. It's always nice to see veteran character actors James Whitmore and Martin Gabel as, respectively, a helpful coroner and armor expert who help out Sinatra with the clues. The always watchable Anthony Zerbe turns up as an officious, blustery new captain of Sinatra's precinct and you can also spot cult actor Joe Spinell as a sleazy lobby doorman at the killer's apartment building. 

        But it's Sinatra's overall disinterest and torpor that keep the film in low gear from beginning to end. And director Hutton does nothing whatsoever to bring any visual or dramatic excitement to gloomy ennui that settles over the film like a dark cloud. 

      After close to two excruciating hours, the film at last lurches into its final confrontation between Sinatra and madman Dukes.  And in keeping with the rest of the film, it's an abrupt, dumb and nihilistic finish to an altogether worthless waste of time. 

      Strictly for hardcore Sinatra completists who need to view every title on his IMDB list of credits. 

       Everyone else should steer clear.

        1 star (*).