Customer Reviews

Some Came Running [VHS]

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To the untrained eye this 1958 Vincente Minnelli MGM melodrama looks like an excerise in Rat Pack sleaze, as it stars Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Shirley MacLaine at the summit of their ring-a-ding-ding hijinks. Don't be fooled -- this movie is absolutley dead serious, even as it flies as luridly over the top as the last act of a bel canto opera. Based on James (From Here to Eternity) Jones' unreadable novel, story tells of Dave Hersch (Sinatra), a just de-mobilized World War Two vet and novelist who returns to his small mid-Western hometown of Parkman, Ill. Hersch apparently was a troubled delinquent after being orphaned as a teen, and eventually his older brother (Arthur Kennedy) stuck him in an orphanage. Dave ran away, and this is his first time back in years. He had published some fiction with mixed success before the war, and now he's blocked and trying to figure out his next move. His brother, who is now owner of the local bank and a pillar of the community, is terrified Dave is a)out for some kind of revenge and b)will do something to bring scandal down on his good name. Parkman, incidentally, is the kind of white-picket fence churchgoing place where every pillar of the community family man harbors a drinking problem, a mistress, and teenage kids who are veering towards delinquency.

As the older brother correctly feared, Dave has grown up to be a tough, cynical, hard-drinking womanizer who trouble usually follows, and as soon as he arrives in pastoral Parkman, he gravitates to the Wrong Side of the Tracks, sleazy downtown taverns where professional gambler 'Bama Dillard (Dino) hold court, surrounded by the local working-girls (MacLaine being the most outrageously trashy and dumb -- but with a heart of gold and an indescribable wardrobe). Dave spends his nights drowning in dissolute behavior with the Pack, and his days trying to hammer out a novel, under the watchful eye of the frigid yet beautiful local patroness of the arts (Martha Hyer), who sees in Dave a new Thomas Wolfe. The suspicion soon arises that Dave has only started writing again to see if he can meet the challenge of getting the 40-year old virgin into bed.

It is not long before the three worlds Dave attempts to integrate -- the country club world of his brother, Dino's sleazy dives, and Hyer's isolated writer's workshop/mansion/sexless life of the mind -- create only conflicts that messes up everyone in the town of Parkman.
Dave's conflict between the life of the artist and his attraction to the working class lower depths pre-figures Jack Nicholson's similar conflict in Five Easy Pieces over a decade later.

Except this isn't the ersatz Antonioni-world of Pieces; this is a full-blown technicolor melodrama with a fabulous Elmer Bernstein score, that puts the "opera" back in soap opera. Best described as somewhere between Peyton Place and Blue Velvet, Some Came Running belongs to the melodrama subgenre of "Let's look beneath the placid suburban surface and see what maggots crawl out." A very prevalent theme in '50's cinema (see the works of Douglas Sirk), I believe this genre was the descendant of '40's noir, as it allowed subversive film-makers to illustrate the moral and sexual hypocracies of our "straightest" communities and citizens, thus prefiguring 1960's concerns in the supposedly placid Eisenhower era. "Some Came Running" is of particular interest in that it deploys the sleazy mores and manners of the town's underclass to critique the respectable citizens of Parkman.

Director Minelli, known for his studio-bound, arty musicals, made the decision to shoot on location in a small Indiana town; yet the movie's deranged lighting, elaborate set-dressing and color palette(the bars are eyeball searing infernal visions in red and green neon reminiscent of the joint in Fire Walk With Me),over-the-top performances and wall-to-wall music defeat naturalism. While dramatically a tad aimless (the book its based on is as long as War & Peace, no joke)"Some Came Running" is perhaps the most visually sumptuous of '50's melodramas -- Visconti comes to the Midwest. And the climax -- a nearly wordless dance of death at a garish night-time carnival -- is a classic Minelli set-piece, an inversion of his trademark musical numbers, representing a nightmare rather than a dream. Where Minnelli's first great musical, "Meet Me in St. Louis," lyrically waxed nostaligic about midwestern small town virtues, "Some Came Running" luridly lingers over midwestern smalltown vices without a hint of nostalgia or sentiment.

This is a fascinating period piece, doubly interesting to see the aesthete Minelli wallow in sleaze. And Frank and Dino turn in solid in-character performances, and don't sing a note. MacLaine's trashy B-Girl, who loves Dave unconditionally even as he treats her like a doormat, is both bravely over-the-top and very poignant, the most memorable of the gallery of prostitutes she typically played in her early career.

Finally, if you're a fan of 50's -early '60's long-take,Cinemascope/Technicolor mise-en-scene, all eye-popping color, oddball camera angles, and cluttered compositions, this is really one of the finest examples, the kind of thing that routinely sent Jean-Luc Godard into raptures when he was a critic at Cahiers du Cinema. It looks like a Renaissance fresco, a style that has been lost in our post-TV/CGI stylistic era.

This is one of Minnelli's rad, at times garish, and Sirkian, later period melodramas (also see Minnelli's Home from the Hill (1960); and The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963) -- remember the scene where Ronny Howard is screaming because his fish died and Glenn Ford doesn't understand what's going on).

Anyway, Sinatra's good, and MacLaine is very good, but Dean Martin is beautiful. Very understated, he also had a great skill for using props on film (watch him dealing cards and holding his hat). Arthur Kennedy got an Oscar nom for his portrayal of Frank's rather weasel-ish brother.

Elmer Bernstein's score is jarring and perfect. Dope cinematography by William H. Daniels in shocking Metrocolor. Produced by Sol C. Siegel for MGM. This is Sinatra's second appearance in a filmed version of a James Jones novel, the previous being From Here to Eternity.

With Martha Hyer, Nancy Gates, Larry Gates, Leora Dana, Connie Gilchrist, Len Lesser, Denny Miller, William Schallert.

SOME CAME RUNNING is a fairly entertaining movie about a returning soldier and his attempt to adjust to life in his hometown after World War II. Sinatra is an inactive writer who falls in love with a local professor of creative writing (Martha Hyer). He meets her through the introduction of his phony older brother (Arthur Kennedy). Sinatra's friend ( Dean Martin) is a gambler and a tragic figure who manages to keep up a cheerful front. Shirley MacLain is a floozie who loves Sinatra without any reservations.

The acting in this film was superb. It received Oscar nominations in 1958 for Best Actress (Shirley MacLaine), Actor (Arthur Kennedy) and Supporting Actress (Martha Hyer). Vincente Minnelli received an Academy Award in that same year for his direction of GIGI.

This is one of the most heart-rending films I have ever seen. There are many levels in this story of the returning soldier, Dave Hirsh: his conflict with his brother, with his community, with his beloved and with himself. But for me, the most poignant is the story of Dave Hirsh (Frank Sinatra) and Ginny Moorhead (Shirley Maclaine). Dave is searching for redemption; he is emotionally needy and spiritually enervated. He thinks he can find love in someone who can fill his creative needs and the void in his heart created by the war.

Here is the tragedy: Dave does not realize that real love can only come from a sense of self worth, from finding someone whom he not only needs but, just as important, who needs him. Ginny is an angel, an angel in the form of a wrong-side-of-the-tracks bimbo; but of all those in Dave's world, Ginny is the purest of heart and the purest in love, and her love is for Dave. When Dave finally realizes that his bliss lies with Ginny, it is too late, for both him and Ginny. And this ending comes in a moment that left me shattered, my mouth agape.

While the ending was not expected, neither was it contrived, and with hindsight, one could see its coming.

"Some Came Running" captures a time and culture only now beginning to fade from the collective memory, as its cohort ages and dies off, America immediately following World War II. And as a period piece, "Some Came Running" is quite successful. But I believe the story depicted here is a universal one, and I think the characters of Dave and Ginny and their sidekick Bama, played wonderfully by Dean Martin, are to be found anywhere. In fact, "Some Came Running," along with "From Here to Eternity," is the closest American cinema has come to being Shakespearian, without consciously trying to be.

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.

One of the greatest films of the 1950s, a slice of life about a band of outsiders who connect in midwest town. Minnelli is so sure of himself as he builds a slow, deliberate character study with Sinatra as a soldier returning home, becoming caught between a prim, self conscious schoolteacher, big city call girl, dim but sweet and true( a favorite motif of Minnelli's), and his womanizing, jealous poker buddy.All are fine, especially Shirley MacLaine,Dean Martin and Arthur Kennedy, and Minnelli's lifelike pacing leads to an unforgettable, transcendent conclusion. A STUNNER.

This film contains great performances. The story and script are very good. The direction is so natural. I love Elmer Bernstein's score. Where is the DVD?

Like L. Schafer and Dennis Welsh, I am from Madison, IN, where this movie was filmed, so that's one big reason I'm very fond of it. I was 13 at the time of filming, and well remember the excitement of having "big stars" in our town and of kids my age being selected as extras. I also remember stories of how Sinatra and Martin often disappeared from town in a chauffeured limousine to go up the Ohio River to Newport, Ky., gamble and seek female companionship; and how Sinatra made himself thoroughly disliked by frequent drunkenness and generally acting like a jerk while he was here.
The powers that be in Madison didn't do too well by their town, either, however, as they cautioned MGM to keep the wages paid to local extras low; can't get our hoi polloi to thinking they deserve decent pay, now can we?
But having said that, I'll add that the film is a great experience for those who want to see how people dressed, talked and lived in the late 1950s. In my case (I'm a retired newspaper reporter), it's one of the few convincing explorations I've seen of how writers tend to act and think, and some of the problems we face with putting our thoughts to paper, getting them published, and all the while feeling that our stuff is really, truly no good.
Sinatra as Dave Hirsh may seem at first to be walking through his role as the frustrated, alcoholic author, but repeated viewings of the picture will reveal that his performance is far more subtle and complicated than it first appears. Watch his facial expressions and body language, and they'll often tell you volumes.
Martin as Bama Dillert is brilliant. His repeated derogatory comments about women have earned him condemnation as a misogynist in reviews of recent years, but they fit perfectly with his character and the mores of the times.
Of course Shirley MacLaine as Ginny Moorhead is charming, delightful and tragic, all at once. Sinatra suggested a change in the climactic scene of the film to give a boost to the then-young MacLaine's career -- a generous act on his part.
Arthur Kennedy is sometimes just a hair over the top as Dave Hirsh's successful but frustrated older brother, Frank. But he also furnishes some of the film's best moments of subtle, unintended humor.
It's a good flick, folks, well worth seeing. And if you're from Madison and too young to remember the filming, some exterior scenes will show you what our town looked like, circa 1958.

This was the first movie to co-star Frank & Dean, and also the first movie with Shirley MacLaine, the only honorary female rat pack member. All performances are great and this is a must for your movie collection of classic films. You will want to see it more than once and find something new about it each time. Highly recommended!

Frank Sinatra was known to be a difficult, one-take actor and studio singer; this is, perhaps, the first of a number of films which showcase him playing himself throughout the film. The Voice sang and shuffled his way through several well-done musicals in his career, yet transcended them in the bold and successful step into drama. From Here To Eternity played on pathos, and this second film offering from the same writer does likewise. An abandoned boy grows up to become a respected writer, then enters the war as a soldier. Upon discharge, he finds himself poured into a Greyhound bus, pulling into the hometown he hates, with an enamoured floozy. Minelli directs with a real-time matter-of-fact effect, with excellent support from all. Small town America equals small mind America as personified by the soldier's social climbing brother and bitchy sister-in-law, who are more worried about their now-sullied reputation in town than about the ex-writer's alcoholism, cynicism, and lack of self-confidence. But Frank's character is not two-dimensional; it shows courage, insight, pity, love, and self-loathing. Any more would give the plot away. Frank's an heroic heel, Dean's a smooth-talking lush (no stretches there) and Shirl's a loopy barfly. This film was reviewed based the wide-screen version, which is especially effective in the final, chaotic scene, reminiscent of Hitchcock's in Strangers On A Train.