Robin And The 7 Hoods Views

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Robin and the 7 Hoods, opening Friday at the Old Globe, is a celebration of Cahn and Van Heusen at their catchiest, the score a late '50s-early '60s swing-a-thon. Come Fly With Me, (Love Is) The Tender Trap, Come Blow Your Horn, My Kind of Town (Chicago Is), All the Way, High Hopes, Ain't That a Kick in the Head and more — a veritable soundtrack for the Rat Pack of the early 1960s: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford.

ThatH's the first impression you 'll take away from Robin and the 7 Hoods, the spirited and grandly entertaining new musical making its world premiere at San Diego#'s Old Globe. Thanks to a clutch of Cahn/Van Heusen classics, and a canny if corny book by Rupert Holmes, this Mad Men -era updating of the 1964 Rat Pack film musical is a pleasure to hum along to, though itu's about as substantial as the smoke all the perpetually puffing characters keep blowing at each other.

Based on the classic Rat Pack film, Robin and the 7 Hoods takes the Robin Hood legend and gives it an early-sixties spin. Set in Chicago, when Mad Men reigned supreme and martinis flowed freely, the musical features such classic Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen tunes as My Kind of Town (Chicago Is), Call Me Irresponsible and All the Way. When Robbo, a suave, fast-rising entrepreneur in Chicago's sophisticated nightclub scene, tries to re-organize organized crime, he finds himself wanted by both sides of the law. He and his merry band quickly learn that a few wrongs - and a few songs - could make things right.

Robin and the 7 Hoods is a 1964 American musical film that transplants the Robin Hood legend to a 1930s Chicago gangster setting. Directed by Gordon Douglas and produced by Frank Sinatra, with a screenplay by David R. Schwartz, the movie stars members of the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr.) as well as Bing Crosby, Peter Falk, Edward G. Robinson, and Barbara Rush.