Dean Martin: King of Cool

[Greg]

The story of a young boy from Steubenville Ohio who climbed to the pinnacle of entertainment success. I was never a big Martin fan. He always seemed miscast in the movies I saw him in. But I was curious why everyone else thought he was so popular and the movie does make a strong case for it. They do use an odd conceit of asking all their talking heads what was Martin's Rosebud, what did he look back on in his life that he regretted/loved the most? I'm going to say that doesn't quite work. But they didn't get a wide range of interviews from Bob Newhart to RZA. Yes, RZA. RZA was also from Steubenville. Lots of interviews of family, too. 

They did go in depth about Lewis and Martin's relationship and what led to the breakup.

I now know more about Martin. It's still not going to make me watch his films.

[King Bob]

I saw this too. I enjoyed it. They didn't show it in this doc, but he once said that if you think acting is hard, you should try dealing blackjack for eight hours. His movie that I really like but I've never seen on TCM is Five Card Stud.

I like his singing a lot. He's very much a follower of Crosby, with that same kind of laid back delivery. Unfortunately he recorded a lot of crummy songs, often with cheesy instrumental backup.