Robin and the Seven Hoods is a spin on Robin Hood but starring the Rat Pack in the prohibition era. It’s not a great movie per se, but definitely a guilty pleasure movie. Robbo (Sinatra) is a murderous gangster who sends his goons to get rid of a bribe and they unknowingly donate the $50,000 to an orphanage run by Allen A. Dale (Bing Crosby), making him a modern day Robin Hood. Yeah it’s surface level stuff but the wonderful soundtrack is what absolutely shines though.
Frank Sinatra who stars in and produced the movie sung one of his standards for the first time in this movie, My Kind Of Town, but there are so many hidden gems in this score. Nelson Riddle wrote a long Overture specifically for the album that sets the mood quite well (the movie itself just opens with a short instrumental of My Kind of Town). The songs are by Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen and are as catchy as they are witty. Also the movie was filmed with Mono sound, but the soundtrack was completely re-recorded for stereo.
My Kind Of Town opens and closes (with a different take) the album. This is the song everyone knows, and of course might not know came from this movie. Peter Falk, famous for playing Columbo stars as Guy Gisborn, the enemy gangster. His song All For One is first, and yeah, Peter Falk can’t sing. But he does his character voice throughout and mainly speak-sings it, the boys join in, its fun.
The songs are somewhat out of order than how they appear in the movie (not uncommon) so next is Bing Crosby’s song Don’t Be A Do-Badder which he sings with the orphans. It’s super cheesy, but also super catchy.
One of the best things about this album is that they left in some studio chatter from when the microphones were hot in between takes. You can hear they guys cracking jokes and giving each other grief over lyric changes or Dean being to close to the microphone.
Any Man Who Loves His Mother is sung when Dean Martin is playing pool. It’s basically an excuse for Dino to croon. And that he does. The next song, Style is a wonderful trio with Sinatra, Crosby, and Dean. Crosby is made fun of for how he dresses in the movie (“From the tip of his toes to his head, he look like an unmade bed”), but he shows them out as the song goes on.
The next song you might recognize if you are a fan of Family Guy. Robbo and his gang get tipped off that Gisborn and some crooked cops are heading towards their hideout. They transform it into a church and Crosby denounces the evils of alcohol in Mister Booze. It’s like the cousin of Sit Down, You’re Rocking The Boat from Guys and Dolls, even the circumstances are kind of the same. Family Guy more or less recreated this song in it’s entirety.
I Like To Lead When I Dance was intended to be a duet between Frank Sinatra and Barbara Rush, but the song was cut for time. It appears as background music in the movie, but Sinatra sings it here.
Bang! Bang! No, Ariana Grande didn’t base her song off of this, but it would be cool if she did. Sammy Davis Jr. is destroying Gisborn’s club and firing off guns to the beat of the music, as well as his tap dancing. This is one of the best scenes in the movie, and such a joy to watch. There is no tapping on the album of course, and only a few gun shot sounds, so it’s mainly instrumental. But Nelson Riddle’s orchestra sounds great playing it. This song was based on Let’s Say it with Firecrackers from Holiday Inn, where Fred Astaire tapped to fireworks.
Charlotte Couldn’t Charleston is a dance number in Robbo’s club, not much to it and Give Praise is background music during a funeral at the beginning, so not much to say about that either.
If you’re into classic big band/broadway tunes, give this album a spin. It’s a lot of fun, and while the movie is in no danger of winning Best Picture, it’s nice popcorn fun.
