Classic Movie Review: “Some Came Running” (1958) directed by Vincente Minnelli

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 DAN WALKER ON FILM

SOME CAME RUNNING (1958)

Director:

Vincente Minnelli (An American in Paris, The Long, Long Trailer, The Sandpiper)

Cast:

Frank Sinatra (From Here to Eternity, Guys and Dolls, The Detective)

Dean Martin (Rio Bravo, The Matt Helm series, The Sons of Katie Elder)

Shirley MacLaine (The Apartment, Being There, Terms of Endearment, Postcards from the Edge…what a career)

Arthur Kennedy (High Sierra, The Glass Menagerie, Peyton Place)

Original Music:

Elmer Bernstein (The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, Oscar for “Thoroughly Modern Millie”, Trading Places, Far From Heaven)

Cinematography:

William H. Daniels (Among other accomplishments in yet another great career, he was Garbo’s DP and won an Oscar for “The Naked City”)

Note:  When I list movies for the cast (generally three), I try to only list movies I’ve seen and, of those, the most significant to me.   I list other contributors if they’ve had exceptionally noteworthy careers and whose work I admire.  I was going to mention this movie’s costume designer, Walter Plunkett, because I thought he won for “Gone With the Wind” in 1939. The guy wasn’t even nominated.

Running Time:   137 Minutes

The real wealth of Hollywood lies in its older movies.  I’ll repeat that in various ways from time to time.  It’s worth repeating, especially since too much time has elapsed since my last review and older movies were originally to be equally my focus.   It was just my luck I started writing for this site when the barrage of 2012’s big “For Your Consideration” movies were coming out.

This movie was recommended to me by a buddy who didn’t even see it in its entirety; he just saw the last half.   What intrigued me was that it was directed by Vincente Minnelli, who I’m more familiar with from watching “Life with Judy Garland:  Me and My Shadows”* than from his actual work.   I’ve tried watching “Meet Me in St. Louis”, which I always refer to as “Clang Clang Clang Went the Trolley”, because that’s what I think of when the movie is referenced.  It epitomizes movies I lump together as “terrible bloated Technicolor movies from the 40’s and 50’s.”  I imagine the creators of the TV series “Glee” were inspired by it and movies like it.  I really dislike “Glee”; it’s like watching Baz Luhrmann’s movies.

Sinatra and MacLaine

The movie starts out looking like “From Here to Eternity II” as Dave Hirsch (Sinatra), just out of the service and a published novelist, is in military garb and asleep on a bus from Chicago. (Between his character’s name and his profession, there’s something not quite right about Sinatra’s casting here.)  He wakes up to discover his military buddies have put him on a bus to his hometown in Indiana, which he was too drunk to know or remember.  He also forgot about or didn’t know a floozy named Ginnie (MacLaine) took the bus with him because, in his drunken stupor the previous night, he invited her to come along.   Upon their arrival, he sends her on her way by saying his invitation was a misunderstanding.  He resentfully meets with his successful businessman brother Frank (Kennedy) and his wife, who likewise resents Dave for not better ‘veiling’ a character based on her in his book.   He also meets Gwen (Martha Hyer who, along with MacLaine and Kennedy, earned an Oscar nomination for this movie), a teacher who admires his work more than his advances.  Dave meets up with professional gambler Bama Gilbert (Martin, which means this movie has two of my favorite all-time singers).  Also part of the story is a Chicago mobster who followed Ginnie to Dave’s hometown to bring her back to Chicago.  The story gets predictably messy from there.  Maybe it’s just me but I kept forgetting about the supporting characters until their scenes came on.

Martha Hyer

Arthur Kennedy

All the actors’ limitations, save Kennedy’s and MacLaine’s, are made obvious in this movie but it still works and engages all the way through.   MacLaine’s charm transcends her overdone southern accent and the character’s vulgar, blunt way of speaking.  Hyer delivers her lines with too much heaviness and too little variation in emotion for me to care about her.   Not that I know a lot of novelists but nothing about Sinatra or his character gives credibility to his being a writer. His main focus throughout the movie is bedding Gwen.   The buddy that suggested the movie to me said Minnelli’s inspiration for the movie’s ending – I guess the book wasn’t enough – was a jukebox.  I thought instead of the ending of one of my favorite – if not absolute favorite – Hitchcock movies, “Strangers on a Train”.

Even if I don’t walk away from a movie blown away or feeling any extreme reaction, I generally — except for movies like 2012’s “The Watch” — feel I’ve gained something.  This movie certainly falls into that category.

Dan

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Director Minelli

Davis as Garland

*This is an entertaining TV movie that gives Lorna Luft’s account of her mother’s life.  She should know.  More significantly, it contains what Meryl Streep has called “the finest performance ever captured on film” given by Judy Davis, which elevates the entire film.  Between this movie and her performance in Woody Allen’s “Husbands and Wives”, she can stop acting. Her place of honor in the movies is secure.

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