I have a lot of Sinatra recordings, and am most familiar in general with the Capitol period, though I know a lot of the songs from Columbia and Reprise periods as well. Which were the Axel Stordahl arrangements? I’ll have to investigate and take a close listen. Thank you very much for your advice, appreciated.

Both your Sinatra Capitol LP Album selections are very good. I would recommend a further sampling of his career which means some Tommy Dorsey years material, any of the Hollywood stuff available, some on the air radio checks, mostly from the 1940s, songs from his Columbia Records years, particularly the ballads with Axel Stordahl arrangements, then move on to the Capitol theme albums from the 1950s. After that there’s the Reprise (his own label) years, then on into his “Old Blue Eyes” phase and the later material from the final performances. A couple of CDs from each period would be a decent start. You can check the discographies and reviews available on the web for the most recommended selections.

Anyone who can carry a tune and remember their lines while performing on stage gets a well done from me. Afraid I was always restricted to the audience. Believe me, everyone was better off for that.

Also let me know which Sinatra albums you would recommend. My particular favourites are ‘Songs for Swingin’ Lovers’ and ‘Swing Easy’.

I don’t think Sinatra ever lost his inner self assurance during that “down” period (roughly the late 1940s, early 1950s). His daughter Tina thought that Ava Gardner “made some phone calls” prior to the FROM HERE TO ETERNITY casting sessions. No horse’s head in a bed, an obvious reference to the Johnny Fontaine episode in THE GODFATHER that everyone thought was somehow based on Sinatra’s “comeback” in 1953. The alleged “mob” connections were a part of the Sinatra mystique and there was probably at least some basis for this as well.

I have never really thought of Vertigo as a noir, but it is a very interesting question. Of course the film Hitchcock made just before Vertigo, The Wrong Man (1957), was very closely aligned to noir films, but I usually think of the noir cycle as playing out in the 1940s but leaving its mark on certain films of the 1950s.

Vertigo has that element of crime that noirs had, in this case a detective trailing a beautiful woman who would ultimately be his undoing. But I think the use of colour in this film is very important: the darkness of the story is offset, and perhaps even made more disturbing, by the vivid colour of the kind we are used to in musicals and glossy Cinemascope spectacles. Perhaps the underlying passions of Scottie are partly revealed in the heightened colour of the film.

I think colour probably did help its eventual status as ‘masterpiece’. Firstly it may have made the film more accessible to audiences, but also because it seems to split the film in two, providing the viewer with two films at once: a glossy Hollywood romance or a dark, disturbing drama.

It is difficult to imagine Vertigo in black and white, and you can imagine that it would have had a very different effect. And yes it sometimes seems that the Herrmann score ultimately galvanised the themes of the film together, and also gave it that sensual, tempting and mysterious quality that caused the film to get under the skin of so many viewers.

1951 was during Frank’s “wilderness period” when he was actually considered a has been by many. Then, of course came FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, a contract with CAPITOL RECORDS and the rest is history.

One question………do you consider VERTIGO a noir film? It occurred to me that if it is then Hitchcock, by substituting a kind of washed, gauzy color for b&w further cemented his reputation as a master craftsman. Would VERTIGO be as acclaimed today had it been done in b&w? It did have many noirish elements after all. I think that the stylized color was a critical element in insuring its masterpiece stature . Also, the Bernard Hermann score can never be forgotten as a key factor.