Some Came Running
Some Came Running
NR | 25 December 1958 (USA)
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Hard-drinking novelist Dave Hirsh returns home after being gone for years. His brother wants Dave to settle down and introduces him to English teacher Gwen French. Moody Dave resents his brother and spends his days hanging out with Bama Dillert, a professional gambler who parties late into the night. Torn between the admiring Gwen and Ginny Moorehead, an easy woman who loves him, Dave grows increasingly angry.

Reviews
Hellen

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

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Mabel Munoz

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

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Ortiz

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

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Skyler

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

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davidcarniglia

An entertaining drama with great chemistry amongst the main characters--Sinatra, Martin, and Maclaine. Sinatra's character is by far the most interesting; stuck for the most part in a twilight zone between academic respectability and the carefree underworld. The movie shows how he deals with his dilemma, represented by two women; Hyer would be the respectable 'catch', but Maclaine's blowsy character actually wants him. He spends most of the movie fending off Maclaine while fruitlessly pursuing Martha Hyer. Nonetheless, he dips futher into Martin's gambling, boozing, devil-may-care lifestyle. Hyer, though obviously drawn to Sinatra, can't break out of her self-imposed reticence. Sinatra's persistence with his writing parallels his steady courting of Hyer. At least he's ultimately successful with his writing.His decision to marry Maclaine seems sudden. But this is his epiphany: he realizes that, poorly matched as they are outwardly, Maclaine's devotion will actually satisfy his insecurities. Hyer only seems to confuse and anger him. Admittedly, we're dealing with the misogynistic 40s (50s by the time of the movie), in which Sinatra expects Hyer to melt just because he professes love for her. On the other hand, Maclaine tries the same tactic with Sinatra, which ultimately works. The last scene, with its noir overtones of evil invading a wholesome carnival, with its tragic results, first excites, then ends poignantly with Maclaine's murder.In addition, mixing the climactic elements--the wedding with the niece's departure, adding Martin's rescue attempt from the gangster, all literally highlighted by the carnival atmosphere, casts a mythic sheen. Also interesting is Martin's character. One has the impression that he essentially played himself: a likeable hedonist. He manages friendship without emotion--unable to accept Sinatra's marriage, as it implies joining society, instead of operating on its margins as his 'code' necessitates.It's also possible to see Sinatra's giving in to Maclaine as an abnegation. After all, he remains blase towards her, easing up just a bit, as they wander innocently through the carnival. Maybe he didn't make the right choice. The movie casts just this sliver of doubt, leaving us wondering if there is a right choice.The psyschological complexity of the theme, the scaffolding of the plot, and the performances from three fine actors, gives Some Came Running a must-see (and see again) quality.

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HotToastyRag

It's difficult to sum up Some Came Running in a sentence. If only allowed one sentence, I'd merely tell my readers to watch the film, no questions asked. I watched it a few years ago, and it's stayed with me, vivid and haunting, ever since.Thankfully, I can use many more sentences to praise the 1958 Oscar nominated (but not winning) film. While Shirley MacLaine, Arthur Kennedy, and Martha Hyer were nominated for their performances, Frank Sinatra was snubbed. For Best Actor and Actress of 1958, David Niven and Susan Hayward were honored. I am huge fans of both, but I would have awarded both lead performances in Some Came Running over the Academy's choices that year.It takes place in a small Americana town, where secrets simmer under the surface, but it's not in any way a dated film. Frank Sinatra plays the Prodigal Son, a veteran and an author, who returns to his hometown and his family after a 16-year absence. Unlike many stories with that beginning, the absent son is not welcomed back with open arms. His brother has become a successful, upstanding member of society, and his family looks down on Sinatra's drinking, gambling, and lowbrow friends.Sinatra gives a wonderful, tragically torn performance. He falls in love with the elegant Martha Hyer and wants to make himself worthy of her, but feels the pull of his old lifestyle bringing him down. The audience is completely invested in him, cheering when he takes a step forward, and crying out when Dean Martin, a bad influence gambler, drags him two steps backwards. Why he wasn't nominated for an Oscar that year I'll never know.Shirley MacLaine gives the performance of her career in this film. And, since she's given incredibly powerful performances in The Children's Hour, Terms of Endearment, Bernie, Two for the Seesaw, and Postcards from the Edge, I realize what a bold statement I just made. It's true. Ever since her 1983 Oscar, she's (for the most part) been typecast as a "tough broad". Modern audiences probably can't imagine her in a part where she doesn't spew memorable zingers in every scene. However gutsy and fantastic her persona is now, she wasn't always that way. In Some Came Running, Shirley MacLaine shows talents most people wouldn't dream she had. She's feminine, vulnerable, sweet, and hopeful. She's soiled but still innocent, common but reaching for class, loving, and sensitive.With a heartbreaking love triangle, some very steamy scenes at the demise of the Hays Code, incredible acting, and Vincente Minnelli's gentle direction, Some Came Running is one of the best films of the 1950s. It's a true classic.

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tieman64

"We become Second Hand Men. That's what I like to call it. Second Hand to everything. Second Hand to our jobs, to our country's military strategy, to the money we make or hope to make and then can't spend, to taxes, to our children, Second Hand, even, to the cause of world peace. Three hundred years ago, at our age, we'd be about ready to die. If we weren't dead already. But now we can go on living for a long time yet, if we want to, in a Second Hand sort of way." - James Jones After the success of "From Here To Eternity", a James Jones adaptation which starred Frank Sinatra and which won several Academy Awards, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer set about adapting Jones' "Some Came Running". The director for the task? Vincente Minnelli, hot property in the era, but now, sadly, a director somewhat forgotten.MGM's "From Here To Eternity" missed the point of Jones' wonderful novel. Minnelli, though, identifies with his material. The film works as a prequel to his "The Sandpiper", continues the director's fondness for artists and tortured outcasts and features another Minnelli "hero" who's self destructive, a cynic, maintains a certain self-imposed isolation, and who rejects a staid, conformist, conservative and deeply hypocritical world.Our "hero's" name? US army officer Dave Hirsch, a malcontent middle ager who finds himself thrust into the heart of small town America. The place offends him, but Hirsch manages to cope by latching onto a series of outcasts, gamblers and drunks. A romantic relationship with a school teacher points toward possible rehabilitation – she promises to lift Hirsch out of his slump - but their relationship quickly goes sour; she's attracted in him only insofar as he epitomizes your typical, romanticised, suffering artist.The film becomes increasingly bitter. Hirsch, we realise, has no drive, no motivation, and prefers to dive into alcohol and the dark recesses of local bars. At rock bottom, he then makes a bizarre gesture; he marries a lost, dull witted, simple girl. Everyone's shocked, but the act makes sense to Hirsch. He can't function in the world, it has turned its back on him, and so he embraces the dregs. But is this only a gesture of defeat? Does Hirsch, perhaps, also see something genuinely wonderful about his new bride? The rest of the film watches as Hirsch attempts to integrate three perhaps incompatible worlds: the sophisticate world of big money, the sleazy dives he frequents, and the isolated, sensitive life of a writer.Aesthetically, "Some Came Running" is typical of Minnelli; big, melodramatic and lush. Perhaps because he's accustomed to filming musical numbers, the film trades mostly in middle, wide and long shots, with close ups being rare. Director Jacques Rivette would say that the film neglects its actors and that Minnelli "left his three great actors working in a void, with no one watching them or listening to them from behind the camera", but that's not quite true. You sense that Minnelli identifies with Hirsch. James Jones certainly did. The character was very loosely based on Jones' own fears and inclinations as a young writer."Some Came Running" occupies an odd space in cinema history. Like the works of Nicholas Ray, Douglas Sirk etc, it broadened the possibilities of the melodrama. It would influence "Five Easy Pieces", "Contempt" and would be praised heavily by the likes of Richard Linklater, Godard, Scorsese and the Cashier du Cinema crew. The film also reverses Minnelli's "Meet Me In St Louis", which waxed nostalgic about small town virtues, by being preoccupied with small town vices. In this way the film was also part of a wave of "lets look behind the suburban facade" 1950s melodramas, which expanded upon post-war noir cynicism and delved behind the moral and sexual hypocrisies of angelic, suburban communities. Such films almost seemed to have laid the groundwork for the tumultuous 1960s."Some Came Running" is overlong, features opulent Technicolour imagery, an Elmer Bernstein score, and co-stars Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine. Sinatra gets the bulk of the film's very good one-liners.8/10 – One of Minnelli's best. See "In A Lonely Place".

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jhkp

This is a really good story, for adults who've seen something of life and know the score. Life and relationships aren't simple, things are often sad, unfair, bitter; but we all cling to the hope offered by understanding and love from other people. Dave Hirsch (Frank Sinatra) is a good character, a writer who returns in his Army uniform to the small town where he was never especially happy. He's been hurt, but he's still willing to be vulnerable and open. He's a fair, decent guy, a good friend, a person others lean on and like for his strength.One of the more interesting things in the film is how he interacts with Gwen French (Martha Hyer), the schoolteacher who appreciates and is excited by his talent but who can't relate to his world. It's sad to see these two trying to relate to one another. Him with his straightforward approach to life, and his openness, and her with her many layers of defenses, and shut-down emotions. The overall feeling I got was frustration that she couldn't appreciate the good things in the man.Martha Hyer plays Miss French very well, though you must accept her somewhat mannered approach that is a little like Grace Kelly's. I was a bit baffled by Gwen's motivations at times and I wondered if censorship had anything to do with it. The three leads are marvelous. Shirley MacLaine is like you've never seen her before. Playing a dumb but happy chick who is pure as the driven slush, she is funny, annoying, touching, and at times, the most sensible person in the room.Dean Martin gives one of his first non-musical, dramatic, post-Jerry Lewis portrayals as card sharp Bama Dillard, who Dave takes up with in his home town of Parkman, Indiana (and on a big side trip to Terre Haute). Dean is perfect in the role, and his interactions with Sinatra are full of sparks.As Dave's brother, a small town hypocrite who owns and operates the local jewelry store, Arthur Kennedy gives an excellent performance. His lavish home, and the home of Gwen and her professor father, are in stark visual contrast to the very humble surroundings of Dave and his friends - bars, rented houses, bus stations, etc.In smaller parts, Viola Dana and Connie Gilchrist are among the standouts.Minnelli described his desire to make the holiday-carnival atmosphere in the final scenes seem like "the inside of a jukebox." And that's exactly what it's like.Some Came Running is a satisfying, beautifully directed and designed, well acted drama of Midwestern postwar 1940's angst, filmed in gorgeous 1950's CinemaScope. The score by Elmer Bernstein is wonderfully evocative.

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