HBO documentary unearths 'Sinatra' material

Corrections and clarifications: This story has been updated to reflect that the home of Frank Sinatra's daughter, Nancy, was where producer Frank Marshall discovered material from the late singer.

HBO's Sinatra: All or Nothing at All came to life as an archaeological find of sorts.

Frank Marshall, producer of the Indiana Jones, Back to the Future and Bourne Identity film franchises, discovered a trove of Frank Sinatra recordings and material, some of it not previously shown in public, at his daughter Nancy's house. The find fortifies the two-night, four-hour documentary on the legendary performer (Sunday and Monday, 8 ET/PT).

"There were all these film boxes stacked in a bedroom. It was sort of like finding the Ark of the Covenant. We opened the door and this glow came out of the room," says Marshall, exaggerating in the way a Raiders of the Lost Ark producer might. "I slowly opened one of the boxes, hoping that it wasn't dust. And when I looked inside, there it was, pristine, well-preserved, 16-millimeter film."

The big discovery was film from a 1971 Los Angeles performance billed as Sinatra's "retirement" concert — ultimately it wasn't — that becomes the backbone of the film, timed to the 100th anniversary of the singer's birth in 1915. He died in 1998.

"It was this magnificent footage, not shot in a traditional, glitzy way that you would normally do for a TV special," says director and Oscar winner Alex Gib

ney, who also directed last week's HBO documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. "Frankly, that's its charm and power. There's an intimacy and authenticity in it and also a bit of amateurishness."

The 11 songs picked by the singer, then 55, "serve an important narrative function," says Gibney.

"Sinatra never wrote an autobiography, so it was my interpretation that this retirement concert was, up to that moment in time, his way of telling his own story in song."

The film traces many highs — along with some definite lows — of Sinatra's life, from his boyhood in Hoboken, N.J., to meteoric pop star fame; a health-related rejection from service in World War II; home life with a growing family; a singing-career slump; a movie career that includes an Oscar (From Here to Eternity); and a prolific and tumultuous love life that included marriages to Ava Gardner and Mia Farrow.

Having the cooperation of Sinatra's family, including first wife Nancy — "still a pistol" at 97, Gibney says — and the couple's children, Nancy, Frank Jr. and Tina, was "super-important. They provided materials we wouldn't have been able to get otherwise," including early photographs and recordings of the singer talking about his life.

Gibney, who had final cut of the film, says the family's involvement never constrained him in any important way from telling Sinatra's story. "There were times we had disagreements as they saw cuts, (but) I think we've come out of it in a pretty good place," he says. "It's a birthday celebration. It's not an investigative film. I feel it's a good portrait of the man in terms of his life and times."

The film goes over his relationships with dangerous mobsters and relates how he sent a lawyer to end his relationship with Farrow. "He could be rough and tumble. He was passionate and he could be cruel," Gibney says.

The film also features Sinatra talking about the technical elements of singing, including mouth movements and word phrasing, and how he took lessons and worked hard to become a better performer.

"You see some great athletes, like LeBron James or Roger Federer or Magic Johnson. They come up and they're great, but they're really disciplined and focused. They make themselves better and better," Gibney says. "That was Sinatra. He was determined."

Sinatra's music will remain popular for years to come, Gibney says.

"We now live in a sampling culture. One of the great things about a sampling culture is the past has a way of being very present," he says. "I think people will understand there's a kind of romance and lushness and emotional authenticity in his best songs, particularly in the ballads. He's a poet of pain, in some ways."

Marshall, whose father Jack, a jazz guitarist, worked with Sinatra on two albums and two movies, says he hopes the film will appeal to everyone from longtime fans to people who are just discovering the "one-of-a-kind" performer.

"The music is timeless. There's nobody else out there who tells stories in the way he phrases and sings them," he says. "He also was a guy who had his ups and downs and always came back. He epitomized what it was like to be an American."