Die erste Todsünde

A sombre character drama crossed with an old-fashion police detective story is broken up in two parts, as a retiring NYPD Edward X. Delaney is on his last case tracking down a psychotic serial killer while also dealing with his bed-ridden wife (a warm-hearted Faye Dunaway) that's dying in the hospital from an unclear disease. How these two threads are connected isn't really garnished, other than to give the lead character more emotional weight and progressive depth. Instead it just comes across as depressing and somewhat pointless. It manages to hold you there, but not much really happens in this slow-grinding thriller as Frank Sinatra's wearily brooding performance is determined, but filled with melancholy heartache. Ambitious, but unfulfilled and too long toothed is how you can describe it. The narrative just feels incomplete, like it was aiming for something more profound (like the symbolic use of the cross) and mysterious (the killer's motive) but it came away rather puzzling and affected in its intentions. The grungy New York setting is painted with darkness, dreary atmospherics as there's a killer randomly leaving his victims with a hole in the back of their heads. A lot of the running time (and at times it does drag) has Delaney working the case, starting with very little. Putting in the hours, strenuously gathering info, seeking help outside the police force and thoroughly digging in as his personal life begins to crumble. The focus on his sick wife does very little for the story, but it takes up a fair amount of screen time. When Sinatra isn't mugging the screen, there's some able support in the cast; Martin Gabel, James Whitmore and Joe Spinell added some much needed life. David Dukes makes for an effective loony, but his icy character was just felt too one-note. An interesting, but sleepily underdone dramatic thriller.

I have already seen "Seven", "The bone collector" and "Copycat", so naturally this doesn't seem to surprise me or anything like that, but I had a great time watching Frank Sinatra in his last major movie appearance and was equally shocked to see Faye Dunaway so woefully wasted on a hospital bed and not enough lines for an amateur let alone ... the screenplay is just fine and the supporting characters, esp. that old curator, hit the right notes. Sinatra's strong presence virtually lifts it out of the ordinary.

I saw someone else's user comments on this film and I can't believe that there were going to be series of films based on Frank Sinatra's character mainly because of the ending this film had. If you're thinking that gives the ending away, don't look for an obvious conclusion.

To his credit, I guess Frank Sinatra did not want to end his film career with Dirty Dingus Magee. He wanted to end his film with the serious part, unfortunately The First Deadly Sin messes up the telling of a potentially good tale.

Frank Sinatra is days away from his retirement as a Detective Sergeant and a strange murder has been assigned to him. A man apparently selected at random is killed with an unidentified weapon that is just driven into the top of his skull. A little good detective work and he finds their just might be a pattern of killings.

It's all in identifying the weapon and it's an unusual one at that which I won't reveal. A professor in medieval history played by Martin Gabel helps with the hunt and later on he's joined by the widow of Sinatra's victim, Brenda Vaccaro to help with the hunt.

They're helping because Sinatra's new captain is one total jerk played by Anthony Zerbe. Maybe I'm missing something in Zerbe's performance, but I would think that an ambitious guy like Zerbe plays would instead of pooh-poohing Sinatra's ideas would think that this guy if he is on to something with this serial killer business. And if he's right Zerbe will get all kinds of accolades for figuring this out in his precinct and even more if the doer is apprehended. It's an absolutely impossible role and poor Anthony Zerbe can't do much with it.

All this while Frank's wife Faye Dunaway falls ill to a misdiagnosed kidney malady. She spends all her time in the hospital and Sinatra visits her at breaks in this case.

Frank delivers a very good performance in a role similar to the one he had in The Detective. He's supported by the rest of the cast very well, except with Anthony Zerbe's impossible role. Besides who I've mentioned look for a really nice turn by Joe Spinell as the mendacious doorman where suspect David Dukes lives. His role is similarly undefined, we really never learn why he's doing these crimes.

I recently watched this movie only because it was on my high def station and it "looked" pretty good, but after waiting over an hour to become interested in it, it ended with a confusing and ho-hum climax. Sinatra sleepwalks through the entire movie and looks completely bored. Faye has one of the worst roles in movie history. Can someone explain this ending to me sometime? On second thought, don't bother. If you love Frank and NYC movies from the 80s, this might work for you, but only if you don't mind a story that never really achieves liftoff. The Dunaway role is such a waste of her talent, and him calling her "kiddo" in every scene kind of creeped me out.

The First Deadly Sin (1980)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Weeks from retirement, Detective Edward Delaney (Frank Sinatra) is trying to take care of his bed-ridden wife while at the same time trying to figure out who murdered a man with what appears to be an ice ax. Pretty soon it becomes clear that there's a serial killer at work and the detective must try and find out who it is even though he has no one behind him.

THE FIRST DEADLY SIN turned out to be Sinatra's final theatrical starring role and it came ten years after his previous turn in DIRTY DINGUS MAGEE. The film was originally released to rather mixed reviews and it ended up not doing too well at the box office and in all reality the thing has pretty much been forgotten in time. It's really too bad the film turned out so mediocre because with a few fine touches it really could have been something special.

As it is the film is only worth watching thanks to the excellent performance from Sinatra. The actor had played a detective in some of his late 60's films so it's clear that Sinatra was comfortable playing this type of role. It's also clear that the age of Sinatra here had him showing off a certain calm and patience that we didn't always see to him. You can really see the actor slowly working and carefully planning out the characters moves and I think it really makes for an excellent performance. The actor has such a presence on the screen that it's impossible to take your eyes off of him.

The supporting cast includes nice work from James Whitmore, Joe Spinell and Brenda Vaccaro. Faye Dunaway plays the role of the wife and in all honesty she has very little to do outside of acting sick and laying in a bed. This here is the biggest issue with the movie because whenever we flash to her hospital scenes it pretty much kills everything and the film comes to a crashing halt. What's so bad about these scenes is that there's nothing that really happens. Sinatra gives her a flow several times. They talk about the same thing (a house) and there's just nothing here that adds anything to the plot.

It also doesn't help that the direction by Brian G Hutton is so deadly dull. There's no visual style going on. There's never any tension. The movie has a very cheap feel as if it belongs on television. What's worse is that it's pretty out-of-date with the times as it seems like it should have been made a decade earlier. They just don't do anything with the material and even the killer is rather boring.

THE FIRST DEADLY SIN is worth watching because of the excellent performance by Sinatra but sadly there's not much else here.