Some Came Running [DVD]

A post-war bumming around trying-to-be-modern novel, with a little of sex and naughty in it is one the best 'small town hypocrisy' commentaries that seemed to be in vogue after WWII. Based on the hot James Jones bestseller, it kinda feels like almost a sequel to his other titles FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and THE THIN RED LINE. SOME which were also made in to films.This Jones story is about a blocked writer ex GI who returns to his small town home town of Parkman, Indiana, in 1948, after 12 year absence. Frank Sinatra plays Dave Hirsch, who was actually "sent home" on a bus by his service buddies after he'd gotten 'blotto'. The surprise is that sweet but du,b pushover Ginnie Moorehead, played to heart aching perfection by Shirley MacLaine, tagged along with him on the trip from Chicago. Arthur Kennedy plays Dave's older brother Frank, a seemingly upstanding, well connected businessman in the small town Parkman community. Add to the mix Edith, Frank's attractive young secretary (beautiful Nancy Gates) in his jewelry store and let the hypocrisy begin.I've read people who call "Some Came Running" a 'glossy soap opera' thin broth with little story or interesting characters. Only in our shallow social media big explosion day would such a superior character study, loaded with story; gritty circumstance and conflicted human characters could this film be seen as anything resembling pulp/tabloid rubbish.This is a story about a time when American GIs were expected to be pious, family value Christians. After all, they just lead a great crusade to save the world from the purest evils yet imagined. Depending on which small towns they returned to more or less came home to morals from the 1800s waiting for them. GIs now fought to get out from under their family's roofs ASAP. The truth is this time after the World War II is when those 'great guys' who had just looked that evil in the face and saw the death and destruction that followed, really just wanted to get home, get drunk and get laid....and get drunk and get laid is what they did (the result was your parents) and that is exactly what they do in Jones' novel and is more than alluded to in this film version. The American small town moral hypocrisy that was being tossed aside for a new hunger to live. Jones' characters and their real life counterparts they represent were the guys who did it. Those are the people you're seeing...yep your grandparents.Ol' Blue Eyes, is as good and broody as ever as Jones' wayward, heavy soul writer. His Rat Pack, on and off-screen drinking buddy Dean-O Martin is nothing short of brilliant, playing to his breezy, kind'a real-life self. The film is given heart and lifted from it's brooding melodramatic characters by the heartbreaking, sad, traumatic, harrowing; pitiful, plaintive, moving, tearjerker, tearjerking, gut-wrenching tragic, painful, disturbing, poignant and all too human performance by Shirley MacLaine, whose self-sacrificing, tragic, heart sick Ginny really gets right under your skin and ties you emotionally to the very last frame.I read this in someone's review and I liked it so I lifted it:If “Running” has a moral, it's this: Messy lives can be as noble as carefully ordered ones.

"Some Came Running", based on author James Jones' follow-up to his masterpiece, "From Here to Eternity", was a conscious effort by MGM to recapture the lightning of the earlier film, particularly in casting Frank Sinatra (who'd won an Oscar for "Eternity"), in the lead, and assigning their best director, Vincente Minnelli, to helm the project. Unfortunately, "Running" was not in the same league as "Eternity", dramatically, but it is certainly a good film, made even better by two unusual casting choices, Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine, in pivotal roles.Part of the film's failure is the structure of the story, dark and anticlimactic, and another is Sinatra, who seems a bit miscast as the 'Great American Author' (I see him more likely a Mickey Spillane than a William Faulkner). Yet he very nearly pulls it off, thanks to MacLaine, as an uneducated waif who adores him, and Martin, a drawling, Stetson-wearing gambling buddy who hides his own demons behind an easy-going charm. In their devotion to the homecoming author, they make him stronger and far more interesting than he'd have been, without them.Two other cast members are standouts; Arthur Kennedy not only looks like he could be Sinatra's brother, he succeeds in creating a persona perfectly suited to Parkman, Indiana, where a successful appearance hides a multitude of sins. Even better is Martha Hyer, as a very prim, uptight schoolteacher whose pent-up sexuality is unleashed when Sinatra pulls out the bobby pins holding her tightly-coiffed hair. Kennedy and Hyer personify the community, a virtual 'Peyton Place' of subliminal lusts, waiting for the right catalyst to explode, with cynical Sinatra's arrival providing the spark.I can't praise Minnelli enough, for giving the film much of it's strength. While he fought Sinatra, whose different work ethics would cause a LOT of friction on the set, he created a series of powerful visual statements, most especially during the tense carnival finale. While the film isn't 'top drawer' Minnelli, it is indelibly his work, during one of the most productive periods of his career.The Special Features of this DVD are very entertaining, if bordering on unabashed hero worship of Sinatra. I wish a LONG interview with Shirley MacLaine had been included, as I suspect she has a LOT of stories about Sinatra, Martin, and the production!"Some Came Running" was a box office and critical success, when released, in 1958, and the film has held up very well, over the years...while not everyone's 'cup of tea', it is certainly worth adding to your collection.

Il film inizia come garbata commedia; poi lentamente vira verso il melodramma ed infine il dramma. Il ritratto della provincia americana è perfetto. Le interpretazioni sono tutte di altissimo livello, ma quella della MacLaine strepitosa, addirittura commovente. Tantissimi i dettagli che fanno del film un grandissimo film: ne cito solo 2 - Fischio/Dean Martin che si toglie il cappello al funerale della Ginny/MacLaine (non lo aveva mai fatto, neppure in un letto di ospedale), e - sempre al funerale - la presenza assolutamente discreta di Gwen/Hyer e di suo padre, senza alcun strascico sdolcinato. Il film finisce lì. Eccellente.

opera in cinemascope del 1958 tratta dall'omonimo romanzo di james jones (di cui consiglio la lettura)E'la storia di uno scrittore disilluso reduce dal secondo conflitto mondiale : è infatti una sorta di autobiografia di jones (anche lui nel dopoguerra ebbe qualche problema con l'alchool)il film vede come protagonista frank sinatra ; nel cast anche Dean Martin che dopo lo scioglimento del suo sodalizio artistico con il grande jerry lewis si dette a girare pellicole drammatiche come questa non essendone secondo me all'altezza ; era in compenso dotato di una voce melodiosa.(personalmente al suo posto avrei visto per es.Robert Mitchum)qua ritengo la più brava la rossa e bellissima shirley Mac laine che,non a caso,ottenne la prima nomination all'oscar per la sua interpretazione della prostituta innamorata.Nonostante la regia di vincente Minnelli trovo che,rispetto al libro,manchi qualcosa...Grandiosa come sempre la colonna sonora del maestro Elmer Bernstein !i sottotitoli sono purtroppo assenti (al contrario di quanto scritto da amazon) ma il doppiaggio è fortunatamente quello originario.cover d'epoca.

Livraison à la date prévue et en très bon état. Je cherchais ce film depuis longtemps en français. C'est un film magnifique. Je recommande vivement.