With Six You Get Eggroll (1968)

"Keeping this family together isn't child's play!"

Directed by: Howard Morris
Written by: R.S. Allen, Gwen Bagni, Harvey Bullock, and Paul Dubov
Starring: Doris Day as Abby McClure, Brian Keith as Jake Iverson, Pat Carroll as Maxine Scott, Barbara Hershey as Stacy Iverson, Alice Ghostley as Molly the Maid, and George Carlin as Herbie Fleck.
Music by: Robert Mersey

At first glance, this might seem like a less comedic version of "Yours, Mine, and Ours" or even "The Brady Bunch." Each of the adults has less than four kids and so much of the hilarity gained with gobs of children isn't present.

Granted, the two romantic leads find plenty of humorous situations to get themselves into without their offspring's help. Their bending over backwards to try to keep their children happy forces them into compromising positions where their own needs come last. This doesn't seem funny after the third time they sneak off to the drive through for coffee and give each other a knowing look. And the story does seem to drag a little without small persons spiking drinks or getting hit in the face with a football, therefore damaging their social lives. The two youngest McClure kids provide most of the child comedy, but only in a rather loudmouth annoying way - *gasp* a realistic way.

And that's where this movie picks up where the aforementioned films leave off. While the movies this is often compared to focus on the comedic aspect of adjusting to the merging of families, their humor could just as easily happen within a family that isn't blended - such as with "Cheaper by the Dozen." With Eggroll, we focus more on the awkwardness of dating again when you've already got a family, the pressure when a new spouse enters the scene, and the rough waters you have to navigate when it comes to your children adjusting. Day and Keith are just realistic enough to make this movie shine, but not realistic enough to be shocking to viewers in the late 60's.

Once again, the ending of this film is a little of a let down. It felt as if the movie makers saw their movie wasn't hitting enough funny bones and took a mixed up situation and blew it up into something ridiculous. Thus the entrance of the chicken truck, the hippies, and the too small Good Humor Costume.

This movie gets a three eggrolls out of a possible five eggrolls (3/5).

Oceans 11 (1960)

"That Big One!"

Directed by: Lewis Milestone
Written by: George Clayton Johnson, Jack Golden Russell, Harry Brown, Charles Lederer, and Billy Wilder
Starring: Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean, Dean Martin as Sam Harmon, Sammy Davis Jr. as Josh Howard, Peter Lawford as Jimmy Foster, Richard Conte as Tony Bergdorf, and Cesar Romero as Duke Santos
Music by: Nelson Riddle

This movie was recently remade by Steven Soderbergh and the newer version has now become a hit spawning two sequels, Oceans 12 and Oceans 13 (due out this year). All I can say is this: Thank God for remakes.

The original version begins with a similar premise as the remake (this is kind of odd using the remake as the standard, but you'll understand why) - a group of old friends decide to get together and rob some casinos. The ringleader, Danny Ocean, is trying to win his wife back in the process, and one of the team's members has just been released from jail. However, this is where the similarities end.

Danny is just a layabout playboy who loves the thrill of breaking the law, and he and his friends from the 82nd Airborne in WWII meet up again 15 years later. Danny has been given plans to rob not one casino, but five - on New Year's. The plan is flawless and all of the 11 men are eager to take their cut. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned. One of the team members dies during the heist, and another member's new stepfather - who happens to be a mob boss - finds out who stole the money and tries to blackmail them. This forces the 10 to scramble and find another way to get the money out of Las Vegas and into their own pockets.

All of this might have made for a spectacular movie - except the end just falls flat on its face. The plot builds and builds and then suddenly ends without resolution. Which always makes me upset.

One thing I did enjoy about this movie was the music and visual editing. Of course, with the Rat Pack starring in it, there's bound to be some great music; and several of them find a way to showcase their pipes. The scenes with repetitive actions, such as the tagging of the security or breaker boxes, and the countdowns till midnight, or the heist itself, are done very creatively. And the cameos by Shirley MacLaine and Red Skelton are very funny.

Overall - I'd give this movie one robbed casino out of five possible robbed casinos (1/5)- because it just was a sorry excuse for the Rat Pack to get some more screen time.