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39 out of 51 people found the following review useful: Florid Dreams, 22 August 2002 Author: telegonus from brighton, ma
A product of the Eisenhower fifties, Some Came Running, adapted from a James Jones novel, stars Frank Sinatra as a footloose writer returning to his Midwestern home town right after World War II. Directed by Vincente Minnelli, in a grand, florid manner, it is essentially a smart soap opera, with some very deep emotions, shot in garish color, that can at its best bear comparison with the films of Douglas Sirk, and is in some ways better, more imaginative. The story matters less than the characters, which aside from Sinatra's artist-in-uniform, include an alcoholic Southern gambler, played by Dean Martin, who's also his best friend; a pathetic floozie from Chicago who followed Sinatra home (Shirley MacLaine); Sinatra's brother, a frustrated if successful businessman (Arthur Kennedy); and a prim, somewhat stuffy school-teacher (Martha Hyer), who admires Sinatra as a writer but cares little for him as a man. Sinatra is torn between bad girl MacLaine and good girl Hyer; and though the former is easy to be with, if not much of a conversationalist, the latter is an ice princess, and proud of it. Understandably, Sinatra reverts to gambling, drinking and carousing with friend Dean Martin, but is clearly not happy with it. He would like to find a place in society, but how? Where?This one could have been a classic, and the cast is for the most part excellent. MacLaine's Method-ish performance is the only jarring note, but it's a loud one. A number of things keep the film "down", or at any rate in second gear. First of all Minnelli was as man and director such an aesthete that he spends much of his time painting with his camera. Aided in no small measure by the excellent photography of William Daniels, his compositions and color create an often surreal effect, almost hallucinogenic, ultimately anti-realistic, though fascinating to watch, and this in the end detracts from the story. On the other hand Minnelli was good with people, and his more intimate scenes between people who really know each other,--Sinatra and Martin, Sinatra and MacLaine--show a genuine understanding of human behavior. Back and forth the movie goes. That its setting is Indiana make both the movie and the characters seem out of place in this most conservative of midwestern states. There is none of the wholeness here that one gets from, for instance, Kazan's On the Waterfront, where everything comes together beautifully and nothing is out of place. Here everyone seems to belong either elsewhere or nowhere, to be thinking or dreaming of other things, to not really care much for their surroundings. There is also a strong undercurrent of Tennessee Williams and William Inge-inspired textbook Freud, with the characters either sexually obsessed, sexually frustrated or sexually avoidant. I doubt the word sex is ever actually used in the movie, but it's everywhere. The Elmer Bernstein score, jazzy and doubtless influenced by Alex North's music for Streetcar Named Desire, tends to telegraph, often hilariously, how one ought to feel about what's going on, especially the raunchy, down-dirty greasy horns he deploys whenever the story moves to the wrong side of the tracks or to a card game, as if to say, "Okay Middle America, this is NOT the way to be".For all its flaws, the movie has many grace notes, some of them even musical, as Bernstein occasionally redeems himself, especially in his lovely main theme. The compartmentalized, evasive lives most of the characters in the film live are, shorn of the melodrama, not unlike real life. Even when the plot becomes predictable the underlying emotions of the main characters remain authentic, and the result is in many ways a compartmentalized movie that at times seems to take its style from the dreams and fantasies of its various characters, becoming in effect their view of life rather than their actual lives. This feeling of fantasy versus reality becomes the movie's major issue when an old boyfriend of MacLaine's shows up, starts drinking, and begins to stalk her. The danger in the air is palpable, and as many of these later scenes take place literally in a carnival atmosphere, the film becomes simultaneously urgent and otherworldly, like someone coming off a mescaline trip who suddenly realizes that he's standing on the ledge of a twenty storey building. This was very daring of Minnelli, and I'm sure intentional, and the ending is truly heartbreaking, and yet aesthetic also, with the director refusing to give up his florid manner even in the last scene. I sense that the tragedy in the film had a very private meaning for Minnelli, and that he intended for it to have the same effect on the audience; to trigger personal issues in each viewer that he could take away from the movie which were independent of the movie. In this he succeeded magnificently.
23 out of 30 people found the following review useful: Godard always had the best taste., 27 October 1999 Author: Darragh O' Donoghue (hitch1899_@hotmail.com) from Dublin, Ireland
Typical Minnelli masterpiece, as melodramatic, emotional and stylised as his more famous musicals. Lumpen James Jones novel stripped to the bone, its macho posturings shifted to anatomy of a society. Slow, repetitive narrative mirrors stagnation of such a society. Impotence, disease and writer's block all part of a wider malaise. The psychological visuals are unsurpassed, gaudy, intense floods of light, colour and composition disrupt superficial politeness. Climax one of the greatest in American cinema; the three male leads do the most difficult work of their careers. Shirley MacLaine gets hard deal, though.
19 out of 23 people found the following review useful: Excllent Drama With Memorable Characters, 1 December 2002 Author: perfectbond
I haven't read the James Jones novel on which this film is based so I can't comment on the movie as an adaption. But as a film standing alone Some Came Running was a very enjoyable experience. All the players are very convincing in their roles. Sinatra as usual mixes world weariness and hope better than just about anyone. His wonderful voice here is as good as its reputation. Shirley MacClaine who was Oscar nominated for this role is also memorable as the simple party girl with an unrequited love for Dave Hirsh. Mention must also be made of the actress who played the school teacher. She perfectly nailed some very difficult scenes that required her to subtly change beats. Dean Martin's sidekick character was also very entertaining. Highly recommended! 9/10.
18 out of 22 people found the following review useful: Powerful, stylish Minnelli gem!, 10 August 2004 Author: david-greene5 from North Huntingdon, PA, U.S.A.
Vincente Minelli was a master at creating powerful cinematic imagery that made unforgettable many a film which, in other hands, might have been quite ordinary. So many aspects of the story he deals with in "Some Came Running" had to be compromised because of the censorship issues that governed movies of that era. This led to some very awkward scripting, suggesting but never explicitly spelling out much that was central to the story. As a result, the drama veers into a rather dated soap-opera feel from time to time.The wonder of this picture lies in how the director draws consistently strong performances from his cast and then, using striking visual compositions, magical lighting, stunning use of color, delivers a startlingly powerful result. Like so many of his films, this is the sort of richly satisfying visual experience that you want to re-visit again and again.Serious home theater buffs should loudly protest that such Minnelli masterpieces as "Some Came Running", Home from the Hill" and "Lust for Life" are still unreleased as widescreen DVD's. This seems so shamefully, incomprehensibly neglectful!
20 out of 27 people found the following review useful: stylish 50s melodrama with an A cast, 8 November 2002 Author: funkyfry from Oakland CA
Remarkable, engrossing 50s melodrama. The story is a simple one; Sinatra plays a G.I. returning home after many years' absence, during which time he's written a few unsuccessful novels and acquired a talent for gambling and drinking. Although he's brought a girl with him (MacLaine, overacting as usual) who adores him, he takes up with the local professor's daughter (Hyer), who believes in his talent and ability but doubts he can stop drinking and sleeping around. Martin is an affable presence as his friend who involves him in his gambling business. Extraordinary direction of actors, a somewhat tired script being pushed past the point of believability often enough but carefully emotionally anchored by Minnelli's hand. Nice color photography.
15 out of 20 people found the following review useful: Entertaining But Ill Conceived, 25 April 2006 Author: aimless-46 from Kentucky
At 1200+ pages the James Jones novel "Some Came Running" deals with family divisions, drinking, gambling, sexual repression, adultery and other small town USA vices. All this is embedded in a general theme about the hypocrisy so pervasive in 1948 Middle America. Jones was most famous for his explorations of WWII and its aftermath. "Some Came Running" is somewhat autobiographical as Jones was one of those returning soldiers from WWII whose long absence gave them a new perspective on details in the social fabric that they had not really noticed before. He was from a small town in Illinois and served in the 25th Infantry Division. He was present during the attack on Pearl Harbor and the battle of Guadalcanal. Basing "From Here to Eternity" and "The Thin Red Line on his experiences. The film adaptation of "Some Came Running" is long but entertaining, especially if you like seeing a lot of big-name stars. Despite its setting in a small town (it was filmed in Madison, Indiana) this was a big budget epic picture. The Jones character is named Dave Hirsch and played by Frank Sinatra. He is a successful writer but has not written anything for several years. The film begins inside a bus on its way to Dave's hometown of Parkman, Indiana. He has just been discharged from the army and is wearing his uniform (no rank insignia is visible). His brother Frank (Arthur Kennedy) has become a big shot in the town and introduces him to Gwen French (Martha Hyer), a college literature teacher who is impressed with his writing but put off by his wild life style. Dave has been followed to Parkton by Ginny (Shirley MacLaine), an airhead he met in a Chicago bar. This sets up the film's love triangle. Dave becomes friends with a local gambler named Bama Dillert (Dean Martin), moves into his house, and pairs up with him on the regional poker circuit where they are very successful. While Dave tries to come to terms with his roots and with his future, his brother Frank begins an affair with his secretary. Generally speaking, adopting a 1200 page book to the screen is ill advised and "Some Came Running" is no exception, if only because the screenwriter incorporated too much of the story for a feature length film to handle effectively. But the producers compounded this problem with the hiring Vincente Minnelli as director and by casting for box office draw instead of acting talent. This resulted in a film with slick production values, an extremely thin plot, lots of characters (but none with any depth), and a too long running time. Can you say flat, lifeless, prosaic, and unconvincing? Minnelli was a freak about visual details. He was more interested in whether an actress' dress coordinated well with the wallpaper in the set than how the actress handled her character. The inexperienced MacLaine has commented on how the only guidance she received during filming was from her male co-stars. In fact it was Sinatra who insisted the film end differently than the book as a way to make MacLaine's character more memorable. Minnelli's lack of interest in acting for the camera made him an especially poor choice for an overloaded film that needed subtle and nuanced elements in each scene to flesh out the characterization. For the same reason, a non-actor like "one-take" Sinatra was completely over-matched by the demands of playing his character. Sinatra was comfortable playing himself in front of the camera and in most of his roles this was more than satisfactory, as it is during the early stages of "Some Came Running". But things start to crash and burn with the start of his scenes with Hyer, and the film essentially collapses the first time he reveals that he loves her. Because of time constraints this romance had to be compressed, requiring a really skilled performance to set up things for the declaration of love, if it is to be at all convincing. Even if Sinatra took direction well (he didn't) and even if Minnelli was a master of acting for the camera (few were worse), the sudden transformation from Sinatra to lovesick puppy would have been a difficult sell. A very interesting element of this film is Minnelli's obsession with the sets and the moving camera. There are no close-ups and relatively few medium shots. Almost everything is a wide shot or the master shot itself. This could reflect Minnelli's overriding interest in showcasing his sets, or indicate that Sinatra's work habits made changing camera setups difficult, or that the editor found that many of the performances could not withstand close scrutiny. Whatever the cause, it makes it much more difficult to identify and connect with characters who are always so distant from the camera. This is a detail you may want to watch for the next time you see the film. This was Dean Martin's signature performance and he is truly excellent. Arthur Kennedy won an Oscar for his portrayal of Frank Hirsh but I think the best performance of all was by Leora Dane as his wife Agnes. Their scenes together have real energy, and almost creepy believability. Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
12 out of 16 people found the following review useful: Shirley MacLaine steals the show., 12 August 2001 Author: dbdumonteil
The fifties were melodrama heyday:Douglas Sirk and Vincente Minelli were masters of the genre at the time.Frank Sinatra plays the main character,but,little by little,it's Shirley Mac Laine who steals the show.She's the hackneyed big-hearted whore -a character she was to play again,on a more comic mode,in "Irma la douce"-,and what's extraordinary is that such a clichéd woman can touch us so closely.Her scene with Martha Hyer who plays a chic lit university professor is absolutely mind-boggling when she humbles before her.Her love for Dave is not shared,because,although the former writer stands aloof from his brother's respectable family,Gwen (Hyer) represents something he can't renounce.He does not marry Ginny (MCLaine) out of love but in a fit of pique.Ginny knows she's been cheated,but her love is so strong that she accepts everything.When Dave understands,it will be too late.The final scene is not far from that of "Imitation of life" and Ginny and the black servant Annie in Sirk's movie are some kind of cousins.
9 out of 12 people found the following review useful: Best seen for performances and Fifties attitude (spoilers), 30 October 2004 Author: (dj_bassett) from Philadelphia
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Sinatra is a drunken failed writer who comes back to his hometown for no especial reason; Dean Martin is a professional gambler based in town who becomes his best friend; Shirley Maclaine is the floozie who follows Sinatra out of pure love, although soon after he gets settled, Sinatra falls into a rather improbably fast love affair with the local creative writing teacher, so we have a love triangle, too.I liked this movie, although the plot is very after-the-fact. (Try summing it up much past what I've just said above.) It is a prototypical example of the Fifties melodrama, sort of a high-gloss soap opera, here with some gestures at themes of "romantic artists fighting against sterile American conformity" and "the darkside of American material success". It is suffused with Fifties atmosphere, which is especially effective on the big screen: it's drenched in color, has wonderful widescreen/Cinemascope compositions, and plays nicely with a kind of "Fifties avant-gardeism" near the conclusion. (I think the conclusion is dated because of it -- I think most avante-gardism dates badly -- but it's a kind of charming datedness. All in all.)It's best seen for the performances. Sinatra could be a wonderful actor when he wanted to be, and he's very fine in his typical beat-down naturalistic way here. Even better is Martin, who inhabits this role like it was written for him. (Maclaine is good, but is very "actorly" in a showy, James Dean kind of way. I think that kind of avante-gardeism dates as badly as Minnelli's. Martin, however, could be in a movie today -- it's that fresh.)This sort of movie is a timecapsule, never really to be made again. This is a good example of the breed.
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful: "It Might Have Lacked Something In Craftsmanship", 3 December 2000 Author: Michael Coy (michael.coy@virgin.net) from London, England
Dave Hirsh is through with the army. A drinking binge with his buddies results in Dave being loaded onto a Greyhound bus bound for Parkman, Indiana (his seldom-visited hometown) clutching the few things he has managed to collect - Ginnie the floozie ("that dumb poushover") and a bag containing two bottles of scotch, the tattered manuscript of a love story and Hirsh's beloved copies of Faulkner, Wolfe and Steinbeck. Dave was once a writer of considerable promise. It had not been Dave's intention to revisit Parkman, but now that he's here he decides to hang around for a while. He wants to settle a score with his brother Frank. The proprietor of a thriving jewellery store and a rising star in the Rotarians, Frank Hirsh is the worst kind of small-town phoney. He is a master of glib sales patter and the vacuous small talk of country club social evenings. Though he would rather die than say so, he doesn't want his kid brother within a hundred miles of Parkman. Dave is bohemian, hedonistic, creative - in other words, thing which threaten scandal. Having to socialise with Dave (folks would gossip if he shunned his own brother), Frank spends the time alternately bragging about his vulgar prosperity and timidly hinting that maybe Dave should move on. "I'm an expert on tramps," wisecracks Dave (played by Frank Sinatra). Typically of Ol' Blue Eyes' projects of the period ("Ocean's Eleven", "Come Blow Your Horn") women are depicted as chattles to be despised and traded. Equally typically, it is from Dean Martin's character that the most virulent misogyny comes. Bama Dillert warns Dave that you either give women orders, or allow them to dominate you. There is no other way. Bama hangs around with Rosalie, the lowlife zombie, and tells Ginnie to "just be a good girl and shut up". It is poor, good-natured Ginnie who gets most of the abuse. "You'll go anywhere with anybody," says her husband-to-be. She is grateful when he allows her to clean the house for him. Edith the nice girl and Dawn the perfect daughter are shown to be whores at heart. Even superior, educated Gwen has her sluttish moments. Dave's rediscovery of his writing talent is somewhat improbable, as is the volume of whiskey supposedly consumed by these 'real men'. Even more unlikely is Dave's romantic rush of blood to the head near the end of the picture, and the melodramatic consequences which flow from it. There is a Cahn and Van Heusen theme song, of course ("To Love And Be Loved"). Shirley Maclaine is good as Ginnie the 'escort' with the heart of gold. She tended hereafter to be typecast as a trollop ("Irma La Douce", "Woman Times Seven", "My Geisha", "Sweet Charity", "Two Mules"). The set of the French house is marvellous, with its easy-on-the -eye three-dimensional layout. Martha Hyer as Gwen seems miscast as Frankie's love interest, not least because her head is twice the size of his.
10 out of 15 people found the following review useful: what a bust, 21 January 2003 Author: Robert D. Ruplenas
[***POSSIBLE SPOILERS***] This movie's reputation precedes it, so it was with anticipation that I sat down to watch it in letterbox on TCM. What a major disappointment.The cast is superb and the production values are first-rate, but the characters are without depth, the plot is thin, and the whole thing goes on too long. For a movie that deals with alcoholism, family divisions, unfaithfulness, gambling, and sexual repression, the movie is curiously flat, prosaic, lifeless, and cliche-ridden. One example is the portrayal of Frank Hirsch's unfaithfuness: his rather heavy-handed request to his wife to "go upstairs and relax a bit" followed by her predictable pleading of a headache, leads - even more predictably - to his evening liaison with his secretary ("hey Nancy, I've got the blues tonight. Let's go for a drive"), all according to well-worn formula. We don't feel these are real people, but cardboard cutouts acting in a marionette play. Also, the source of the obvious friction between Frank and Dave Hirsch is never really explored or explained. Dave's infatuation with the on-again/off-again Gwen is inexplicable in light of her fatuous inability to defecate or get off the pot. His subsequent marriage of desperation to the Shirley Maclaine/Ginny character is, from the moment of its being presented to this viewer, anyway, obviously doomed to fail, and it was clear - by the conventions of this type of soap opera - that it could only be resolved by someone being killed. The moment the jealous lover started running around with the gun I started a bet with myself as to who - Dave or Ginny - would get killed. The whole thing was phony with a capital 'P'. Having said that, Maclaine's performance and that of Dean Martin are the standouts here. But on the whole I find the movie's interest to be purely that of a period piece of Hollywood history.
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