Had it not been for a recent Steven Gaydos tweet, I never would’ve even considered re-watching The First Deadly Sin, which I recall being a doleful, partly unbelievable detective-hunts-serial-killer flick. An above-average Frank Sinatra performance — his last starring role and a kind of companion piece to his New York cop role in The Detective (’68).

“Sinatra who plays this role close to his chest, and who looks and acts very touchingly like a tired old cop on the threshold of retirement,” Roger Ebert wrote on 10.30.80. “We can empathize with him, and that’s partly because he resists any temptation to give us a reprise of those wisecracking wiseasses he played in the 1960s. This is a new performance, built from the ground up.”

There’s no First Deadly Sin Bluray or HD streaming option, but there’s a 480p version streaming from Amazon, and in a 1.37 aspect ratio. Boxy Sinatra is beautiful.