New TCM Documentary: "Dean Martin: King of Cool" -- Alec Baldwin is in it; Airport is Not

November 2021: TCM has debuted a new documentary, "Dean Martin: King of Cool."

Funny...back in the day, I thought that Steve McQueen was the King of Cool. I suppose Dino was cooler..he could sing, and he put up with Jerry Lewis for a long time.

It's pretty good -- but let me get these two points out of the way, if I may:

ONE: One of the various "talking heads" brought in throughout to talk about Dino is...Alec Baldwin. Why? I dunno know -- Baldwin's whispery voice and hip comic manner made him KIND OF cool...but he's always been exactly the kind of over-emotional hothead and bully that Dean Martin evidently never was. And now TCM is stuck with him in this documentary, making comments throughout about " Dino." Will Alec be edited out of the film going forward? I expect not. The years will pass and his name will fade into history ...unlike Dino's. Well, he'll be known for one other thing...

TWO: The documentary does a good job of pretty much following the structure of the very great biography by Nick Tosches ("Dino") which was written while Dean was still alive. Jerry Lewis called Tosches to berate him ("That man was my PARTNER!"); Dean's kids wanted to attack Tosches in public but Dean said: "Just don't read that stuff, ignore it." Again: Dean was no Alec Baldwin.

Anyway, following the contours of the Tosches bio (with a lot of quotes from Dino from that book), the documentary takes Dean from his days as Dino Crocetti (with a nose that needed narrowing), to "Martin and Lewis," to the break-up, to Dean's reinvention as a professional drunk(but not necessasrily a real one; it was PILLS that got him), to his early good movies(The Young Lions and especially Rio Bravo) to the GREAT NBC TV show (where he fully developed his total middle-aged coolness) and on to footage of Jerry Lewis being surprised by Dean -- courtesy of Frank Sinatra, also on stage -- during the 1976 Jerry Lewis MS telethon.

The film then goes on to Dino's darker later years -- decrepitude from drug use hastened by the death of his handsome heroic son in a military jet crash(Dean never recovered)...and Frank's ill-fated attempt to put the Rat Pack on the road in 1988 to "snap Dean out of it." It made Dean worse and he quit the tour.

But this: for some reason, the documentary makers miss one near-final triumph in Dean Martin's career. As his TV series was peaking but about to decline -- in 1970 -- Dino pretty much stumbled into one of the two leads in the movie of the bestseller Airport. Though the 1970 movie was deemed to be "The Best Movie of 1948" in some hip quarters, it was a GIANT blockbuster hit, and Dean Martin owned part of it (along with fellow past-his-prime co-star Burt Lancaster.)

I always felt that "Airport" was a Big Surprise (like a Big Pizza Pie) late in Dean Martin's career, and I could feel the documentary approaching that period and that movie but...nothing. Universal wouldn't give them a clip? They couldn't even MENTION it?

Well, maybe I fell asleep during that part.

Whatever. Whoever Dean Martin REALLY was (and this documentary joins many books in saying he was essentially unknowable, wanted to be left alone, and didn't give a f...)

...the clips show that he WAS cool, was very funny(funnier in his own way than Jerry) was handsome(most of his life) and gave us the kind of mid-century star we will never see the likes of again.

Even if he made some bad movies.

PS. One of the other talking heads -- apart from Dino's daughter and Jerry Lewis's son and other ringers who knew Dean-- is Jon Hamm...quite relevant given that his Mad Men show took place in "the age of Dino."

PPS. The documentary skips something very important from the Tosches book: thanks to his successful TV series, Dino was actually richer than Sinatra in later years, and bought up half of Southern California in real estate deals. I expect Dino's surviving adult kids are very rich indeed.