SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

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.

gavin6942 In the post-war, the alcoholic and bitter veteran military and former writer Dave Hirsch (Frank Sinatra) returns from Chicago to his hometown Parkman, Indiana. He is followed by Ginnie Moorehead (Shirley MacLaine), a vulgar and easy woman with whom he spent his last night in Chicago that has fallen in love with him.Much of the film was shot in and around the town of Madison, Indiana. Shirley MacLaine reported that Sinatra was "besieged" by the local Indiana women, and that at one point a woman broke through a rope barrier around a house and flung herself at Sinatra as her husband ran to stop her, pleading "Helen, you don't even know the man!" I would not say this is a must-see film, but MacLaine in her early days was always a great actress to see, and this is the first pairing of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. This was 1958, still a few years before the glory days of the Rat Pack.

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".

kenjha Soldier comes back to his small home town in Indiana after the war and disrupts some lives. Sinatra is solid as the disgruntled soldier and former writer. MacLaine is wonderful as a dim-witted floozy that swoons after Sinatra, who inexplicably wants to marry Hyer after spending a few hours with her. Sinatra's interest in Hyer, an attractive but cold-hearted and stuck-up schoolteacher, is never believable. Kennedy is fine as Sinatra's brother while Martin barely registers in an unsubstantial role. The finale feels contrived and out of place, an indication that Minnelli was out of his comfort zone with this material. Good score by Bernstein.