Neon Dreams: Video: Tony Rome 1967, Danger in Paradise

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on WordPress

Wow! Jill St. John, Gena Rowlands, Sue Lyon, I mean this movie is a freakin baby-face fest. Three hot sexy baby-face goddess’ in the same movie. This movie could’ve been, well garbage to keep it clean, but as long as Jill, Gena and Sue looked the way that they did and were as good as they were in the movie, I would’ve still watched and recorded and seen it over and over as much as I have already. But take the baby-face goddess’ out of this movie and you still have one hell of a detective moving involving pi’s and the police.

Tony Rome plays a former cop now turned private detective now living in Miami, who is somewhat of a underachiever and lazy as a detective. And when not working cases prefers to make his money the easy way. I mean the man lives on a boat that he won in a card game, for crying out loud. He’s a gambler and a bit of a hustler, but people around him respect him and know how good of a detective he is. And that’s how he gets his latest client, well really clients, the Klosterman’s.

This movie starts with Rome played by Frank Sinatra getting a call from Ralph Turpin his ex-partner played by Robert Wilkie, who is now the house detective at a Miami hotel. Turpin finds a young hot baby-face adorable women Diana Pines played by Sue Lyon. As drunk as Jim Morrison on a four-week binge lying dead asleep in bed. Turpin also discovers who she is by going through her identification. The daughter of the biggest real estate developer in South Florida Rudy Klosterman played by Simon Oakland. Turpin doesn’t want to drive Diana home and deal with Klosterman, because Turpin is a bit of a crook and doesn’t want any further trouble.

That is where Rome comes him because Turpin calls his ex-partner Rome down to the hotel to drive her home and not release the name of the hotel and gives him two-hundred bucks for it. Diana’s father is really upset and worried about his daughter and wants to know what is wrong with her. And hires Rome to find out. Turns out Diana is missing a diamond pin that is supposed to be worth a thousand-dollars or something, but the pin is really made of glass and worth twenty-bucks instead. Every person that Rome works for in this movie is somehow either involved in organized crime, or has friends who are.

Every time Rome gets close to something, someone dies and the evidence leads back to him. So he has both organized crime and Miami police after him. Because the mob lets say wants the pin that they believe is worth thousands of dollars, even though it is really worth a couple cheap lunches if that. But Rome keeps getting closer and keeps digging until he finally solves the case. If you like great writing, action, drama, gorgeous, baby-face adorable women and comedy, you’ll love Tony Rome because it has all of that plus a lot more.