Ocean's 11 (1960): Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

Ocean's Eleven (1960) is about Danny Ocean and Jimmy Foster, two Second World War veterans from the same airborne unit, who bring nine former comrades together in Las Vegas to rob five casinos at the same moment. The targets are the Sahara, Riviera, Desert Inn, Sands and Flamingo, all on the Strip, and the chosen night is New Year's Eve.

The men prepare like a military operation, which suits a crew that trained together in wartime. Several of them take jobs at the casinos, one drives a garbage truck, and another performs in a hotel lounge, so every man has a reason to be inside the buildings when the night arrives. Frank Sinatra plays Danny and Peter Lawford plays Jimmy, with Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop among the rest of the crew.

If you are new to the series, this is where the release order begins. The later film most people mean when they say Ocean's 11 is covered on the Ocean's Eleven (2001) page, and the full sequence is laid out in the Ocean's Eleven movies in order.

In Ocean's Eleven (1960), eleven former paratroopers rob five Las Vegas casinos at midnight on New Year's Eve, but the stolen money is destroyed when it is cremated inside a coffin. Danny Ocean and Jimmy Foster recruit nine old army buddies, and the crew spreads out across the Strip in ordinary jobs, with the garbage truck driver and the lounge performer giving the group eyes and access in two very different places.

The technical heart of the heist is a pair of tricks. The crew sets up explosives at a power transmission tower, and they also secretly rewire each casino's backup electrical system. The rewiring means the cashier cages open when the emergency generator starts, so the blackout does the lock picking for them.

At midnight the tower is blown up and the Strip goes dark. The men step into the cages, hold up the cashiers and dump the money into the hotels' garbage bins. Then they blend into the New Year's Eve crowds until the lights return. The garbage truck collects the bags and drives through the police blockade, and for a few minutes the robbery looks like a complete success.

The plan breaks on a human problem. Their electrician, Anthony Bergdorf, dies of a heart attack in the middle of the Strip, and the police start to wonder whether his death is linked to the thefts. Duke Santos, a retired gangster, offers to recover the casino bosses' money for a share, and he works out who is behind the crime by studying the men's army records.

Duke demands half the take. The crew answers by hiding the cash in Bergdorf's coffin, setting aside $10,000 for his widow Gracie (credited as Mrs. Bergdorf, played by Jean Willes), and planning to retrieve the rest once the coffin is shipped out of Las Vegas, which would cut Duke out entirely. The funeral director then persuades Gracie to hold the funeral in Las Vegas instead, and she has the body cremated with all the hidden money inside. The loot is destroyed.

Ocean's Eleven (1960) premiered in Las Vegas on August 3, 1960, a week before its US theatrical release on August 10, 1960. No venue is recorded for the premiere.

The United Kingdom release is reported as August 11, 1960, with that date coming from TMDB rather than a studio statement. Ocean's Eleven (1960) has no confirmed Australian release date. The film runs 127 minutes, which is two hours and seven minutes, and carries a PG certification in the UK and a rating of NR (not rated) in the US.

A Las Vegas premiere fits a film that was shot in the city's own hotels. For how the film sits among the later entries, the Ocean's Eleven timeline covers the series as a whole.

In Ocean's Eleven (1960), the stolen money burns because Anthony Bergdorf's widow has his body cremated in Las Vegas with the loot hidden in his coffin. The crew walks away with nothing.

The mechanics of the ending are the most carefully built part of the film. The heist itself runs cleanly: the transmission tower comes down at midnight, the rewired backup systems open the cashier cages when the emergency generator starts, the garbage bins swallow the cash, and the truck rolls through the police blockade. What fails is the exit plan. Hiding the money in a coffin only works if the coffin leaves town, and that depends on a grieving widow and a funeral director, neither of whom is part of the crew.

That is where the irony lands. Duke Santos, the retired gangster who traced the men through their army records, wanted half, so the crew chose to hide everything rather than share, and the hiding place is what destroys the haul. In my opinion, the film punishes the crew for the one improvised decision in an otherwise military plan. The $10,000 set aside for Gracie burns with the rest.

The final shot has the men walking away from the funeral home while the Sands marquee displays the stars' names. The Sands is one of the five hotels where the production shot on location, and much of that footage was filmed between 3 a.m. and dawn, according to Frank Sinatra Jr., because the Rat Pack performed stage shows at 8 p.m. and midnight. That image ties the story to the real Strip and to the cast at once. Lewis Milestone, who also produced, reportedly called the film his least favorite, according to TCM, yet the closing joke is one of its tidiest pieces of construction.

Compared with the films that followed, the ending is unusually final. Ocean's Eleven (2001) is second in release order and opens the main saga, which continued with Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen. Ocean's Eight, like the 1960 film, is classed as a spin-off. The 1960 story sets up no sequel and closes as a self-contained caper that finishes on irony rather than a payoff. For what came afterward, see the later Ocean's films.

Ocean's Eleven (1960) was filmed on location in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Flamingo, Sands, Desert Inn, Riviera and Sahara hotels, which are the same five casinos the crew targets in the story. The former Union Pacific station in Las Vegas was also used.

Shooting in real casinos came with a scheduling problem. Much of the Las Vegas location footage was shot between 3 a.m. and dawn, because the Rat Pack performed stage shows at 8 p.m. and midnight, according to Frank Sinatra Jr. The night hours explain why the Strip scenes feel so empty and dark when the blackout arrives.

For a heist built around one coordinated midnight, using the actual hotels gives the robbery a map the viewer can follow, from casino to casino and cage to cage.

Ocean's Eleven (1960) was a Peter Lawford project, opens with a Saul Bass title sequence, and was shot at night around the Rat Pack's stage shows. These facts come from Wikipedia and TCM.

• Peter Lawford bought the rights to the story in 1958 and first pictured William Holden as the lead.
• Saul Bass designed the animated title sequence.
• Much of the Las Vegas location footage was shot between 3 a.m. and dawn, according to Frank Sinatra Jr.
• Lewis Milestone, who also produced, reportedly found Sinatra difficult to work with and called it his least favorite film.
• Nelson Riddle composed the score, and Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen wrote the songs.
• George Raft, Red Skelton and Shirley MacLaine appear in cameo roles.

The film is the first in the series in release order, though it is classed as a spin-off. The full list of films is on the how many Ocean's movies there are page.