Welcome To Our Companion Weblog

This is your source for news, links and notes from our program celebrating the life and career of the Entertainer of the 20th Century.

Old Time Radio Resources

Since so many listeners have expressed their delight with the Sinatra old-time radio episodes, I thought I'd share some of my favorite OTR resources on the Web.

One of the most extensive private collections out there belongs to Jon, the "OTR Cat." At OTRCAT.com, he shares dozens of series from every genre, with sample episodes available for download, audio and MP3 CDs for purchase (at very reasonable rates) and tons of information around the site. Jon's was one of the first OTR sites that I found many years ago, and I still return to it often.

Wikipedia has a fairly decent primer on the subject, with links to other sites for further research.

The OTR section of the Internet Archives has an excellent collection of programs, including Rocky Fortune and The Martin and Lewis Show, all in the Public Domain and available for free.

There are many more old-time radio sites and articles on the Web, but these are a few of my favorites. I'd encourage you to explore and enjoy this treasure trove of entertainment from radio's Golden Age.

Episode 102: Rocky Fortune On The Trail Of A Killer

This week on The Frank Truth Sinatra Podcast we have another episode of Frank Sinatra's 1950s radio drama, Rocky Fortune. From January 5th, 1954 he's On The Trail of a Killer.

Click here for the MP3 file, or subscribe for free through iTunes.

This podcast was licensed by BMI and ASCAP. We encourage you to purchase and enjoy legally distributed music. The old time radio episode included is a work in the Public Domian.

New Sinatra DVDs

As we discussed on Episode 91 of The Frank Truth Sinatra Podcast, Warner Home Video released 5 new collections of 22 Sinatra films on DVD on May 13th. Thanks to generous donations from listeners Tom and Doug, I'm beginning to work my way through each of these sets for review on the program.

The first collection I ordered was Frank Sinatra: The Golden Years. It includes Sinatra’s Oscar® nominated performance in The Man with the Golden Arm, along with None but the Brave, Some Came Running, The Tender Trap and Marriage on the Rocks. I plan to devote an episode to each movie in the coming months. A couple of these Sinatra pictures are ones that I haven't seen, so I'm especially anxious to view them - in particular None but the Brave, Sinatra's only directorial outing.

If you have thoughts about any of these films, I'd love to present them on the show. Please send an email, call our listener comment line at +1-312-235-2139 or leave comments here on the Weblog.

Thanks to David Julian Gray who loaned me his copy, I'm nearly finished with When Frankie Went To Hollywood. Although I'm finding it a bit of a difficult read, it does present some interesting ideas and perspective on Sinatra's screen personae over the years, and I hope it will help to inform some of our discussion as we enjoy these films together.

If you're interested in purchasing this set or other Sinatra videos, please consider shopping through our Amazon pages to help support the show. Thanks!

Sinatra Videos

For the first couple of years it was rare to find video here on The Frank Truth Sinatra Weblog, but I've been working to include more video content as time goes by, both here on the Weblog and in the Podcast. Of course, it's crucial to comply with Copyright restrictions, so this limits the range of material available, especially for direct download from this site.

For those with portable video devices, video iPods, etc., I thought it would be nice to place all of the Frank Sinatra videos we've released to date in one post. If you right-click the following "Video" links you can save them for view on your computer or portable device. The "Post" links will take you to the original Blog entries, which include flash versions for viewing with your browser.

Video 1 - Bellagio Fountains - "Fly Me To The Moon" [Video] [Post]

Video 2 - Bellagio Fountains - "Luck Be A Lady" [Video] [Post]

Video 3 - "The House I Live In" [Video] [Post]

Video 4 - Miniseries Clip - "Meeting Ava" [Video] [Post]

Video 5 - Miniseries Clip - "Goin' Up" [Video] [Post]

You may need QuickTime or iTunes to view some of these files. For future videos, I'm standardizing to MP4 versions for wider compatibility. I hope to present more Frank Sinatra videos and clips here on the Website in the weeks to come, as well as video episodes of The Frank Truth.

Enjoy!