Rat Pack flashback leaves you wanting more

On June 20, 1965, members of the Rat Pack performed in St. Louis' Kiel Opera House for a one-night-only televised benefit in support of a halfway house for ex-cons. Johnny Carson emceed in place of Joey Bishop (bad back) while Quincy Jones directed the Count Basie Orchestra. Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra sang some of their standards, and closed with "Birth of the Blues."

There's no narration or context here -- just a straight performance. By the way, this special aired years ago on Nick at Nite, which may explain the puzzling dedication: "To Mort Viner, the last one standing who knows the true story." A longtime Hollywood agent, Viner died nearly a decade ago.

MY SAY: If Hollywood was once a high school, then the cool kids in the hall were the Rat Pack. Together they exuded a sly, knowing detachment -- a rebuke to the anarchic movements of rock and roll and the counterculture. They made comic virtue of their vices -- booze and cigarettes -- but eventually succumbed to them. (Martin died in 1995 of emphysema; Davis in 1990 of throat cancer; the original leader of the pack, Humphrey Bogart, was gone in 1957 from lung cancer.)

Sinatra was the chairman, or the sun around whom the lesser stars revolved. The whole thing was, in part, an act -- a style, and posture, that bound their separate nightclub, TV, stage, big-screen and recording personae. You'll need this background if you decide to watch this time capsule. The performances are excellent -- Davis, in particular -- but there's nothing dramatically different.

BOTTOM LINE: Enjoy the music, but you'll barely get a glimpse of what the Rat Pack was all about.

GRADE: B-