[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/oceans_11_1960.jpeg]]

->''"Why waste those cute little tricks that the Army taught us just because it's sort of peaceful now?"''
-->-- '''Danny Ocean'''

''Ocean's 11'' is a 1960 [[TheCaper heist]] film directed by Lewis Milestone, which brings together five members of the Creator/RatPack (Creator/FrankSinatra, Creator/DeanMartin, Creator/SammyDavisJr, Creator/PeterLawford, Joey Bishop) as well as a [[AllStarCast whole mess of other popular actors]] for a romp around UsefulNotes/LasVegas.

Danny Ocean (Sinatra) and Jimmy Foster (Lawford) bring together a group of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII 82nd Airborne veterans for the purpose of [[FromCamouflageToCriminal robbing five Las Vegas casinos simultaneously]] at midnight on New Year's Eve. Their plan is to to knock out the city's electricity towers, then rewire the casinos' automatic backup generators so that they will open instead of close the safes. Team members disguised as bellhops and waiters will then sneak out the money under cover of darkness before anyone knows what's happening. The highly trained team has nothing to fear... Until Foster's father-in-law to be, former gangster Duke Santos (Creator/CesarRomero), shows up in Sin City on the eve of the heist.

Most of you are probably [[AdaptationDisplacement more familiar]] with the [[Film/OceansEleven 2001 remake]] and its sequels.

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!!This film contains examples of:
* ActorAllusion:
** Music/FrankSinatra identifies himself on the phone as "[[Film/GuysAndDolls Detective Lieutenant Brannigan"]].
** After Creator/ShirleyMacLaine calls Creator/DeanMartin "Music/RickyNelson", he replies "I used to be Ricky Nelson but now I'm Perry Como." In RealLife, early in his singing career, music critics used to derisively refer to Martin as a knockoff of Perry Como. In addition, Martin had just done ''Film/RioBravo'' with Nelson.
** Peter Lawford's line about buying votes and going into politics is a reference to his involvement in the 1960 Presidential campaign of his brother-in-law, UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy.
** When Sinatra, Lawford and Buddy Lester are in the Burlesque nightclub where Buddy works and Buddy's wife starts her strip act, the music she dances to is "The Tender Trap" - the theme song from Sinatra's 1955 movie of the same name.
* AllForNothing: [[spoiler:Ocean's Eleven successfully pull off the heist and hand $10,000 (a not inconsiderate amount of money by Sixties standards) to Bergdorf's widow, but their own cut of the loot is cremated alongside Bergdorf's body]]. The film's closing credits play over them walking down a Las Vegas street, despondent.
* ArtisticTitle: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnG3OjIcN8M&ab_channel=MovieTitles opening credits]] were created by Saul Bass.
* BadassCrew: Danny Ocean's crew. Being World War II veterans, they know their stuff. Being from the same airborne division, they know each other.
* BigBlackout: Part of the group's plan is to deliberately cause one of these in order to disable the casinos' security.
* TheCaper
* CaperRationalization: Most members of the team have a reason for wanting all this money that at least they and their friends consider adequate. The fact that they aren't a typical criminal gang is also stressed near the end once the heist goes off, since their tight organization means that there's no underground information to be had about them.
* CelebrityParadox: At the end of the film, the cast walks past the Sands hotel, which has an advertisement for their entertainment: the cast. Dean Martin plays a singer, Sam Harmon, and nobody mentions how they look similar.
* CoffinContraband: Danny Ocean and his crew plan on smuggling back the money stolen from the Vegas casinos in a coffin. [[spoiler:Their plan is thwarted when the widow opts for cremation]].
* DeadpanSnarker: Jimmy
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The crew loses all their money when the container it was smuggled in, a coffin, is cremated. The movie ends with them walking down the street, despondent. On the upside, they're not going to jail -- for now]].
* NewYearHasCome
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Hiding the money [[spoiler:in Bergdorf's coffin probably wasn't the smartest idea as his widow decides to cremate him, though noteably, her share of the money isn't in the coffin]].
* TheNotableNumeral
* OhCrap: All of the CaperCrew take a long time exchanging surprised/horrified looks when they finally notice that [[spoiler:Bergdorf's vigil is for his cremation and they can't do anything to prevent their loot [[BurnBabyBurn from becoming ashes]].]]
* ShaggyDogStory: PlayedForLaughs. [[spoiler:They succeed, but the money is burnt. Bergdorf is dead. They'll probably get arrested, but it was hilarious]].
* SpannerInTheWorks: The plan would have gone off perfectly with a getaway if only [[spoiler: Bergdorf hadn't suffered a fatal heart attack.]]
* SuspiciouslySpecificSermon: Right as [[spoiler:the money being burned]], the priest presiding over funeral service the crew is attending quotes Job 1:21: "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away."
* ATasteOfDefeat: Discussed; Danny's wife left him because she couldn't stand to go on living on a "floating crap game", and when Sam awkwardly allows that they had "a little bad luck", she says that far from it, she wishes he ''had,'' because "a little bad luck might've made him realize what things can mean when you earn them."
* TrueCompanions: The team decide to take out a share for [[spoiler: Bergdorf's widow, instead of hiding it in the coffin with the rest. As a result, she is the only one to benefit from the heist after Bergdorf is cremated]].

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