Lady in Cement Reviews

A sequel to TONY ROME (1967), LADY IN CEMENT is not nearly as good as the original, although both were written in part by the same author, Albert, who also wrote the novel that inspired them. Sinatra is again in Miami as a wise-cracking private eye. He's diving for buried treasure off the coast and comes across the corpse of a comely blonde who has been given cement shoes and dropped to the bottom of the sea. The autopsy reveals that she was murdered by stabbing, and Blocker, a behemoth ex-con, hires Sinatra to learn whether the dead woman was his former girl friend. Sinatra starts to gumshoe and asks Kazan, the missing woman's ex-roomie, if she's heard from her lately. Kazan says she saw Blocker's girl at a party given by Welch, an alcoholic heiress. Welch claims that she was too drunk to recall anything about her party. Gabel is a neighbor of Welch's and a onetime rackets boss. He tells Sinatra to lay off Welch. Later Kazan is killed, and a brace of Gabel's toughs try to knock off Blocker. Deacon, an artist, reconstructs the face of the dead woman and identifies her as Blocker's love. Now Sinatra discovers that Welch and the dead woman both had eyes for Gabel's son, Peck, and had argued over him. Sinatra is framed for the death of Kazan's boss, Raiter, a gay man. Conte, a local Miami cop who is both a pal and a nemesis of Sinatra, knows deep down that Old Blue Eyes is innocent but feels he must arrest Sinatra until the real killer is found. Sinatra gets away from Conte and moves in with Welch, whom he suspects is the killer. That suspicion begins to become a reality when Welch admits that she woke up after the boozy party with a knife in her hand and the dead girl lying next to her on the floor. It's too pat, and Sinatra thinks that she may be the victim of a frame. He gets Blocker to admit that he and Peck were siphoning some money from Gabel's coffers. Now Sinatra concludes Peeck must have murdered the lady in cement to get any money Blocker may have given her for safekeeping. He races to Welch's house because he feels hers may be the next body to be found. Once there, he saves Welch from the knife-wielding Peck. The case is closed when Sinatra hands the killer to Conte, then goes off to complete his underwater treasure hunt with Welch. Much too complex and with little of the humor of TONY ROME, this film had the same producer, director, and cameraman as the former but none of the high spirits. There was some talk of this becoming a TV series starring Fox contract player Tony Scotti, who was so laughable in VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. It didn't happen. The lack of success of LADY IN CEMENT effectively ended Tony Rome's career.