My old pal Pat O'Neill took exception to my belief that in the movie of Guys and Dolls, Frank Sinatra should have played Sky Masterson. Here's what he sent me…
Why do so many people think this? Sky Masterson has to be big and imposing, so that his threats have weight behind them. At this stage of his life, Sinatra was still a skinny little runt. Sure, he had the voice for the role (maybe — it's written for a belting baritone and Sinatra was a tenor), but not the look.
Who should have played Sky? Well, why not the guy who originated the role on Broadway — Robert Alda?
Why not Ethel Merman in the movie of Gypsy, Carol Channing in the movie of Hello Dolly, Stephen Douglass in the movie of Damn Yankees…or a dozen others that readers of this blog could name? (I started to type in "Zero Mostel in the movie of Fiddler on the Roof" but I think that was just a matter of Zero wanting too much money, not someone's idea of a more marketable lead. How about Julie Andrews in the movie of My Fair Lady?)
Hollywood has rarely operated that way and Samuel Goldwyn wanted movie stars in his movie. And here's an interesting consideration: Do we think that if Sinatra or Brando had wanted to play Sky Masterson on Broadway in the original production and had been willing to work for the same money Robert Alda got, that Alan Alda's daddy would have gotten the part?
If you want to argue that the person who originated the role on Broadway should always get the movie…or that the best person actor-wise should always get the movie regardless of star power…okay. We can have that discussion. I'd be on your side in many cases. But like I said, Hollywood has rarely operated that way.
I think Sinatra should have played Sky Masterson. No, he was not as physically intimidating as Brando but I think he was a good enough actor to pull it off. More importantly, he was a singer — one of the most popular singers ever. And they put him in a role that was tailored for the non-singing Sam Levene and instead put the non-singing Marlon Brando in the singing part.
Which of course led to someone there saying, "Sinatra fans will be really disappointed if they buy tickets to this movie and he doesn't sing" so they added in the wholly-expendable, not-up-to-Frank-Loesser-standards song "Adelaide" and stuck Nathan in the title number where he really didn't belong. (You know who I think should have played Nathan Detroit in the movie? Phil Silvers. A fast-talking gambler who tries to weasel out on deals and not even commit to his longtime fiancée? Tell me that isn't a Phil Silvers role.)
A lot of folks don't know this but years later when Sinatra had his own record label — Reprise — and could do anything he wanted, he recorded a studio cast album of Guys and Dolls, recruiting Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore and others. Debbie Reynolds did the Adelaide songs and Allan Sherman sang (opposite her) the one song Nathan Detroit had in the stage version, "Sue Me." Frank, of course, sang all the Sky Masterson songs and he was great. (Oh — and Sammy Davis Jr. sang "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat.")
There's a long story that I'm not sure I know well enough to relate here about the original soundtrack recording of the movie. It was a small record with just a few songs and it wasn't until years later that there was an LP with all the songs from the movie on it. If someone who knows more about this can explain it, I'll run the explanation here. I just kinda think the movie was disappointing in a musical sense — it also dropped some great songs from Broadway — and it wouldn't have been if Frank had been Sky. And Phil had been Nathan.