Movie Reviews for Some Came Running

Some Came Running

	List Price: ~~$12.98~~ Our Price: $6.00 You Save: $6.98 (54%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $5.36 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases

Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada

Movie Reviews of Some Came Running

Movie Review: Minnelli's excellent melodrama
Summary: 4 Stars

Director Vincente Minnelli is best rememberd as the great master of Hollywood-musicals, but he was also excellent director of comedies and melodramas. Some Came Running is probably the best of his late melodramas. It paints a rather pessimistic and very critical view of repressive sexual morals in a small town America. Either you live in a sexless marriage as an "honorable" citizen, or then you'll be shut outside society as a prostitute, a gambler and/or an alcoholic. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin are very good in this glowing Technicolor-melodrama, but Shirley MacLaine outshines them both!

Movie Review: Dramatic with a touch of suspense
Summary: 4 Stars

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin have a unique acting chemistry with each other. Shirley Maclaine added terrific comedic drama to the film.

Movie Review: What may possibly be MacLaine's greatest performance...
Summary: 3 Stars

I am a huge fan of Shirley MacLaine. I consider her one of our finest actresses of all time and simply adore everything she touches (almost). After seeing `The Manchurian Candidate' I wasn't too keen on watching another Frank Sinatra movie, but my friends were telling me just how wonderful MacLaine is here, and so I just needed to see this. I did, and while I can't say that the movie itself is one I'd rush out to watch again, I must admit that MacLaine's performance ranks at the top of my list as one of the greatest supporting performances of all time (in fact, recently some friends and I ranked our top 5 in each of Oscar's categories and MacLaine made it on all our ballots for this performance, ranking in at number 3 for me personally).

The film follows G.I. Dave Hirsh as he comes home after a long absence and a string of unsuccessful novels. Hoping to start over and write something great, Hirsh winds up involved with a professional gambler, a floozy, a mannered schoolteacher and his brother, Frank, who is far from perfect himself (although a lot self-righteous).

I know that a lot of people just ate this movie up, but personally I couldn't really fall in love with it. I felt that the storyline was intriguing enough (failed writer searching for himself amidst people he rarely connects to) and I felt that as a whole the acting was rather good (MacLaine was impeccable, Martin was remarkable, Kennedy and Hyer were respectable and Sinatra was, well, decent) but there is just something missing here that made it hard for me to truly connect with. I found myself simply satisfied, nothing more, nothing less.

It's not a bad film; it's just not a great one. It's rather `middle of the road'.

As Hirsh, Sinatra is serviceable, but to be honest I find him rather bland at times. He wasn't a very accomplished actor despite his accolades and large following. I appreciate the talent he has (as a singer) but in the end his acting career leaves some to be desired. This is probably the better of the performances I've seen, but it's not a knock out. I think that he may be the biggest reason I couldn't `connect' with the film. I found him to be off putting at times, and not in the `this is my character so admire my dedication to my role' kind of way; he was just `off putting'. In order to really invest yourself in this film you have to be able to get inside Hirsh's head and relate to him, but Sinatra made that hard for me. I felt a much deeper draw to the cast of character's that walked in and out of his life.

Martin fares better here, MUCH better. He has the suave coolness about him that resonates very well with his character. I would have much rather seen him collect a Supporting Actor nomination over Kennedy. Kennedy has the right amount of nervous jitters to make his character likable despite his hypocrisy, and Hyer is enticing in her reserved affections. The supporting cast is all really good, from Leora Dana's bossy demeanor to Nancy Gates' seductive presence and Betty Lou Keirn's adoring curiosity.

But no one, and I mean NO ONE, comes close to Shirley MacLaine. Let me just say this; what MacLaine does here is beyond brilliant. She is equal parts lovely and shrill, intriguing and repelling, adoring and annoying. She manages to be the `complete person', giving us reason upon reason to keep watching the film with hopes of seeing more and more of her. Her emotional connection to Sinatra's character (or shall I say her `need' to feel connected to something) is felt with every breath she takes, and the climax is so deeply moving (heartbreaking) that one cannot deny the connection they have made with this simple minded yet big hearted woman.

This is a performance for the ages and should have netted her the Oscar (albeit, she was nominated in the WRONG category).

In the end, I recommend this film for the performances, which for the most part are enough to carry the entire film. It is lacking as a whole for me, but in the end it is far from bad and a film that will satisfy to say the least. See it for MacLaine, seriously, because there are few performances this rich and this close to perfection.

Movie Review: Some Came Running
Summary: 3 Stars

Some Came Running
In 1958 I was 16 years old and on a Tom Sawyer-Huck Finn trip down the Ohio River with a buddy in a little 16' boat, and we just happened to stop in Madison, Indiana where MGM was filming Some Came Running with Sinatra, Martin and MacLaine. It's typical 1950's melodrama--nothing spectacular, except for one thing--Shirley MacLaine's performance as a good-hearted, wrong-side-of-the-tracks bimbo. Spectacular! It makes the whole movie worth watching--especially the ending, which was a departure from the original script, but insisted upon by Frank, who wanted to help launch Shirley's career. It worked too! She was nominated for an Academy Award (tm).