Martin was a complex figure, at once intimate and detached, gregarious and solitary, comical and sad, and he ended up a recluse.

Hey pallies, likes we never ever tire of sharin' other pallies' reverent reflections on our most beloved Dino and likes once 'gain today  we have more primo prose from the US blog edition of "The Guardian."  Superbly scribed more than a decade 'go (amazin' how long it can take for deep Dino-adulation to float to the top via the Google search engine) in May of 2008.  Wonderfully, wisely written by Mr. Philip French,  French, accordin' to Wiki "was an English film critic and former radio producer. French began his career in journalism in the late 1950s, before eventually becoming a BBC Radio producer, and later a film critic. He began writing for The Observer in 1963, and continued to write criticism regularly there until his retirement in 2013."

Likes today's Dino-devotion was part of an on-goin' series for "The Guardian" tagged "Philip French's screen legends" and excellent exposé on our Dino is top shelf as one oughta expect from someone of Mr. French's swank stature.  We learned (likes we can't ever remember readin' this before that "In 1957, MCA told Twentieth Century-Fox that unless Martin replaced Tony Randall as the playboy who becomes a model soldier in The Young Lions, it would withdraw Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando."  Powerful praise be to the pallie or pallies at MCA who did this wonderful Dino-deed 'cause it hugely helped our Dino easily establish himself as an actor with awesome acumen.

We also deeply digs that Philip shares his personal fav quartet of Dino-flicks reverently remarkin' that our Dino was "superb" in "Some Came Running," "Rio Bravo," "Bells Are Ringing," and "Kiss Me Stupid."  Makes our Dino-hearts jump with pure Dino-delight that French included KMS 'mong our Dino's greatest big screen epics!  Likes to round out his stunnin' salute to our King of Cool, French offers awesome adulation Dino-style from Mr. Kevin Spacey and Mr. Billy Wilder, as well as a quintessential quotation by our Dino himself!

Mr. Philip French himself  departed this life on October 15, 2015 but his lovin' legacy of powerful praisin' prose of our Dino will continue to eagerly excite Dino-holics everywhere.  To checks this out in it's original source, likes simply clicks on the tag of this Dino-message.

We Remain,

Yours in Dino,

Dino Martin Peters

Philip French's screen legends

Philip French

Sat 10 May 2008  

No 16

Dean Martin, 1917-95

Born Dino Crocetti, son of an Italian immigrant barber in small-town Ohio, he left school at 15 in the early years of the Depression and the last days of Prohibition to work first as a labourer in a steel mill, then as a bootleg liquor driver and blackjack dealer in speakeasies.

Like his future Italian-American friend, Frank Sinatra, he formed early bonds with the Mob. His warm baritone and relaxed style modelled on Bing Crosby took him into showbusiness, but it wasn't until his 30th year, when he became straight man to zany Jewish comic Jerry Lewis, that success came his way. Greater than the sum of their parts, the duo became America's biggest double act and between 1949 and 1956 had 16 box-office hits before their acrimonious break-up, a breach not repaired until 20 years later.

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Critics predicted great things for Lewis and slim pickings for Martin and his first solo movie was a dire failure. But then came an outrageous flexing of agency muscle. In 1957, MCA told Twentieth Century-Fox that unless Martin replaced Tony Randall as the playboy who becomes a model soldier in The Young Lions, it would withdraw Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando. Fox gave way, Martin gave a fine performance alongside the two greatest screen actors of his generation and thereafter was in constant demand in Hollywood, Las Vegas, television and the recording studios.

He deliberately developed a reputation as a wise-cracking, heavy-drinking, laidback lothario and this persona was used in a succession of films. He appeared with Sinatra and the Rat Pack in several slack pictures and played the secret agent Matt Helm in a series that jumped on the Bond wagon. But among the routine westerns and sex comedies, he was superb in four classics. In 1958, he starred with Sinatra in Minnelli's Some Came Running, a movie challenging the complacency of the Eisenhower years, playing an itinerant gambler, a role to which Michel Piccoli paid tribute in Godard's Le Mépris. Piccoli keeps his hat on in the bath and smokes a cigar: 'I'm being Dean Martin in Some Came Running.' He went straight into Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo, one of the greatest westerns, as John Wayne's drunken deputy on the road to redemption. He again worked with Minnelli on the undervalued musical Bells Are Ringing (1960) and four years later played a satirical version of himself as Dino, a womanising singer in Billy Wilder's outrageously funny Kiss Me Stupid

Martin was a complex figure, at once intimate and detached, gregarious and solitary, comical and sad, and he ended up a recluse. He's the subject of one of the best star biographies, Dino by Nick Tosches, which for years has been an on-off project for Scorsese to direct and Hanks to star in.

Kevin Spacey on Martin 'There was nobody cooler. The thing about Dean that's always been astounding is that it just seems like it's so effortless.'

Martin on his favourite pastimes 'If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt.'

Billy Wilder on working with Martin 'I laughed a lot. But there was much more, 90 per cent more, to him than just the jokester. I thought he was the funniest man in Hollywood.'