When Frank Sinatra's real film career (the one that starts with MEET DANNY Wilson and FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and SUDDENLY) got started, his comedies generally improved. Instead of playing the eternally naive heartthrob that the bobby-soxers supposedly enjoyed (but is actually quite annoying in films like ANCHORS AWEIGH), he found that his sophistication could carry a better style of comedy. Ahead of him was HIGH SOCIETY, OCEAN'S ELEVEN, COME BLOW YOUR HORN, ROBIN AND THE SEVEN HOODS, where he was usually in control of the situations rather than pulled about by mechanical plot twists based on his stupidity. And THE TENDER TRAP is an early example of this switch.
Sinatra's Charlie Reader is a successful talent agent, and his success is mirrored in his apartment facing the 59th Street Bridge in Manhattan, and his colorful lifestyle of a different date with a different woman (Celeste Holms, Lola Albright, Caroline Jones, and Jarma Lewis) every night. His trade comment of "A ring-a-ding-ding" is not voiced here, but it could easily be said.
Like his character of the older brother in COME BLOW YOUR HORN, he is inviting an old childhood pal (like his younger brother in the later film) named Joe McCall (David Wayne). But the younger brother in the later film is intoxicated by the glamor of Sinatra's lifestyle. Eventually the younger brother actually makes Sinatra ashamed of his own lifestyle as the younger brother takes it to extremes. Here, Wayne is in the middle of a mid-life crisis, and he's actually hoping to enjoy Sinatra's lifestyle, but as the film progresses gradually realizes that Sinatra's habits mistreat many women. Sinatra may be a great swinger, but he is something of a sexual pig.
But Frank's lifestyle is beginning to show cracks. In COME BLOW YOUR HOME it was a matter of his aging (Lee J. Cobb fuming that he's a bum because he's unmarried and approaching 40). Here it is his meeting a young actress named Julie Gillis (Debbie Reynolds) that he starts dating. Sinatra looks at Julie (at least at first) as just another lady on his weekly list. But he slowly finds he does not want her to consider his other girlfriends, and he also wants her to be available to him. But his interest is tempered when he discovers she is only interested in him dating her and only her...with the intention of only marrying her.
Sinatra goes crazy here - not babbling but losing his cool thoroughly. He tries to forget her quickly, by picking up one of the other regular girls, only to find that Jones has met a fellow who is going to marry her, and Albright has another regular date. Holms (as Sylvia Crewes) shows up. Oddly enough she is willing to accept the one sided dating system that Sinatra has chosen, because she is aware that she is now 33 and the chances of getting a fellow to marry her are quite rare. She lists the types to Wayne, and none are very appetizing.
Sinatra proposes marriage to a shocked Holms, who (somewhat shakily) agrees. Sinatra decides to throw a huge party, even inviting his other occasional date Lewis to it. But in the middle of getting the party under way he runs downstairs and smack into Reynolds. She decides she loves him despite his selfishness, but he announces that he loves her as well...and proposes to her. She heads home, promising to see her fiancé in the morning, and he proceeds to wonder what to do now that he's affianced to two women.
It turns out to be a disaster, but it is deserved.
I won't go into the rest of the plot, but things do work out. It is nice to see Tom Hellmore, soon to be the notorious Elstin Draper in VERTIGO, in a far nicer role her. Also the conclusion of the film, with the now standard Jimmy Van Husen theme song being sung by Sinatra, Reynolds, Holms, and Wayne (with a sorrowful chorus of Albright, Lewis, and Jones) bears comparison to the singing by Cameron Diaz and her three bridesmaids at the start of MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING for being so fresh and unexpected. It was a top notch comedy, and another step upward for Sinatra in the rebuilding and expansion of his film career.
Sinatra's Charlie Reader is a successful talent agent, and his success is mirrored in his apartment facing the 59th Street Bridge in Manhattan, and his colorful lifestyle of a different date with a different woman (Celeste Holms, Lola Albright, Caroline Jones, and Jarma Lewis) every night. His trade comment of "A ring-a-ding-ding" is not voiced here, but it could easily be said.
Like his character of the older brother in COME BLOW YOUR HORN, he is inviting an old childhood pal (like his younger brother in the later film) named Joe McCall (David Wayne). But the younger brother in the later film is intoxicated by the glamor of Sinatra's lifestyle. Eventually the younger brother actually makes Sinatra ashamed of his own lifestyle as the younger brother takes it to extremes. Here, Wayne is in the middle of a mid-life crisis, and he's actually hoping to enjoy Sinatra's lifestyle, but as the film progresses gradually realizes that Sinatra's habits mistreat many women. Sinatra may be a great swinger, but he is something of a sexual pig.
But Frank's lifestyle is beginning to show cracks. In COME BLOW YOUR HOME it was a matter of his aging (Lee J. Cobb fuming that he's a bum because he's unmarried and approaching 40). Here it is his meeting a young actress named Julie Gillis (Debbie Reynolds) that he starts dating. Sinatra looks at Julie (at least at first) as just another lady on his weekly list. But he slowly finds he does not want her to consider his other girlfriends, and he also wants her to be available to him. But his interest is tempered when he discovers she is only interested in him dating her and only her...with the intention of only marrying her.
Sinatra goes crazy here - not babbling but losing his cool thoroughly. He tries to forget her quickly, by picking up one of the other regular girls, only to find that Jones has met a fellow who is going to marry her, and Albright has another regular date. Holms (as Sylvia Crewes) shows up. Oddly enough she is willing to accept the one sided dating system that Sinatra has chosen, because she is aware that she is now 33 and the chances of getting a fellow to marry her are quite rare. She lists the types to Wayne, and none are very appetizing.
Sinatra proposes marriage to a shocked Holms, who (somewhat shakily) agrees. Sinatra decides to throw a huge party, even inviting his other occasional date Lewis to it. But in the middle of getting the party under way he runs downstairs and smack into Reynolds. She decides she loves him despite his selfishness, but he announces that he loves her as well...and proposes to her. She heads home, promising to see her fiancé in the morning, and he proceeds to wonder what to do now that he's affianced to two women.
It turns out to be a disaster, but it is deserved.
I won't go into the rest of the plot, but things do work out. It is nice to see Tom Hellmore, soon to be the notorious Elstin Draper in VERTIGO, in a far nicer role her. Also the conclusion of the film, with the now standard Jimmy Van Husen theme song being sung by Sinatra, Reynolds, Holms, and Wayne (with a sorrowful chorus of Albright, Lewis, and Jones) bears comparison to the singing by Cameron Diaz and her three bridesmaids at the start of MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING for being so fresh and unexpected. It was a top notch comedy, and another step upward for Sinatra in the rebuilding and expansion of his film career.