It was at around this stage in his singing career that Frank Sinatra seemed to be trying to connect with the youth and get all hip and happening. Not only had he lately married the much younger Mia Farrow, but he would also soon take to recording pop songs by the charting groups of the day, like "Something" and "Mrs Robinson" usually adding his own rather silly ad-libs which sounded odd and uncool to most other ears. I mention this only because I'm trying to understand why he would allow himself to star in such a derivative, mildly offensive, run-of-the-mill movie like this and all I can think of is that he was looking across at the likes of Paul Newman or Sean Connery cutting a swathe through Tinseltown, with laconic, tough-guy parts in their Harper and Bond films and thought he could teach these younger upstarts a thing or two. Unfortunately the accidental outcome is more Matt Helm than anything else.
Personally I'd blame this embarrassing fiasco on director Gordon Douglas, who'd previously directed James Coburn in the spy-spoof Flint movies and while this follow-up to the previous year's "Tony Rome", reunites Sinatra with both the same character and Douglas as Director, this one really is beyond redemption.
Sinatra again plays private investigator Tony Rome who literally dives into another case in seedy downtown Miami where he coincidentally encounters under his boat the girl in the title, blond, naked and with her feet encased in cement, obviously very dead. Soon afterwards he encounters Dan Blocker, playing a big time crook, looking for his missing gal and before you can say "Bonanza!" Rome is rubbing up against a supposedly reformed big time crook, another girl dancer is dead and Raquel Welch has been paraded before us in a bikini. I think you get the drift.
It gets worse however as in later scenes we see Frank interviewing a plainclothes cop getting himself up in drag to pick up elderly men, then he crashes a life portrait class where the only line the naked blonde female model gets is "Can I go to the John?", throw in just about the least exciting car chase in movies and the obligatory leering close-ups of women bending over, to which even Welch isn't immune and a messy conclusion and you have yourself a seriously bad movie. Oh and now I've remembered Hugo Montenegro contributes an inescapably lousy, sub-Pearl and Dean soundtrack just for bad measure.
Frank of course was famous for preferring one-takes on set, but here you frequently get the impression he's only just read his dialogue before stepping in front of the camera. He naturally gets to smooch Welch too, otherwise what would be the point of her casting?
I've been trying to make allowances for the mistakes in this movie, after all it was the swinging sixties and camp was in for a time, but just like he won't be remembered musically for his interpretations of the Beatles or Simon and Garfunkel, he'll certainly not be remembered on screen for this mess.
