Frank Sinatra, the crooner with the velvet voice: should we watch the documentary on the tumultuous life of the singer and seducer, close to the mafia?

Sunday May 7, 2023 at 10:45 p.m., Arte broadcasts Frank Sinatra, the crooner with the velvet voicejust after the movie L’express du colonel by Ryan. The opportunity to look back on the often tumultuous life and career of the most famous sulphurous baritone of the 20th century.

Fly me to the moon, My Way, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, One For My Baby… Frank Sinatra recorded 1,200 songs during his career, which he considered nearly all completed. The son of Italian immigrants, raised near New York in a working-class neighborhood, he had always aspired to success. A fan of Bing Crosby as a teenager, he gradually built his character, worked on his voice and refined his lyrics. He made his debut as a singer in the family bar with a megaphone, then as the fourth member of a local band called The Hoboken Four. He gradually rose through the ranks until he was sold out in Las Vegas. A brilliant journey, but not without a dark side, told in Frank Sinatra, the crooner with the velvet voice, a documentary aired on until Sunday May 7, 2023 at 10:45 p.m.

The heartthrob of these ladies

Pour until, Annette Baumeister recalls the Sinatra years. From 1915 until his death in 1998, “The voice” establishes its legend throughout the world. The documentary remains unfortunately on the surface on the essential of what animated the singer who became an actor, in films like L’express du colonel by Ryan (1965)… except when it comes to his relationship to women. A real charmer, his velvety voice and his piercing blue eyes disturbed the fairer sex and even pushed teenage girls to skip school to come and cheer him on stage. So that in 1938, Frank Sinatra goes through the prison box, accused in turn of “seduction” et “of adultery”. Until the end of his life, he will not be able to swear loyalty to anyone. Not even to the talented Ava Gardner, for whom he had abandoned his wife and children, shocking Puritan America. The singer will multiply the conquests during his life, fully aware of his magnetism and the bewitching effect of his ballads.

A very powerful environment

Despite a prestigious career (apart from a few less prosperous periods), Frank Sinatra does not adapt well to loneliness. So much so that he befriends big names in the mafia, whom he does not hesitate to invite to the clubs in which he performs without worrying about the ban in force. Yet the documentary assures us: the singer was not a mobster, even if the alcohol made him nervous, and he was sometimes easy to threaten. His participation in the Havana conference in Cuba in 1947 intrigues the FBI, but his relatives say that at best he was fascinated by these figures of organized crime. He would have devoted to them almost as much admiration as to the politicians he frequented. Fervent Democrat, he will support Ronald Reagan and participate in the campaign of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. All with a view to responding to an anti-racist and pacifist ideal, also overflown in this portrait, no doubt too smooth, but imbued with a delicious nostalgia.