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| Some Came Running | 
 enlarge | Actors: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley Maclaine, Leora Dana, Roy Engel
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $12.98
Buy New: $5.24
You Save: $7.74 (60%)
New (43) Used (10) from $4.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 16170
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 136
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: WARD015049D
UPC: 012569647466
EAN: 0012569647466
ASIN: B00143XE1O
Theatrical Release Date: 1958
Release Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: new new new
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Product Description
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 05/13/2008 Run time: 137 minutes Rating: Nr
Amazon.com essential video
The first time Frank Sinatra acted in an adaptation of a James Jones novel, he won an Oscar--it was in From Here to Eternity. The resurgent Sinatra found one of his best subsequent roles as a bitter, boozy failed writer, the hero of Jones's Some Came Running. Returning to his hometown in the Midwest, he runs into the rampant hypocrisy of the "good" life, as embodied by his insincere brother (Arthur Kennedy). Sinatra the cynic plumps for the company of a floozy (Shirley MacLaine) and a misogynist gambler (Dean Martin), while making a desperate bid for the affection of a strait-laced teacher (Martha Hyer). Director Vincente Minnelli (Meet Me in St. Louis) infuses the material with a slow-burning tension, and the climax at a carnival is an eye-filling piece of orchestrated chaos. Elmer Bernstein's moody score is another plus. Footnote to film history: the hero of Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt says he wears his hat in the bathtub as an hommage to Dean Martin in Some Came Running. --Robert Horton
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| Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
 Not a Complete Work of Art October 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Wide Screen Color Bonanaza, Vincente Minnelli, Judy's hubby, known for lavish Hollywood Musicals, does a very theatrical late 1950's melodrama, almost Douglas Sirk like. Oh, the repressed sexuality and hypocracy. It's not a 50's Hitchcock masterpiece like Vertigo or To Catch a Thief, but the film's from a pot-boiler James Jones novel, takes itself pretty seriously, slicing away that exotic Indiana underbelly with Shirley MacLaine doin the cupie doll stereotype. Arthur Kennedy does not look like Frank Sinatra's brother, but he is slimey. Frank and Dean play, ah, Frank and Dean. Look, there's good scenes, despite some hokey steamy stuff.
The real meat of this film, the Sinatra-MacLaine insult and love me scenes, nice work and Dean comes in for a mean-turn that's kind of believable. But the best, the Director's carnival-at-night killer shots with the pulsating brass score, that's film making. Still, all parts together, it's not complete as a work of art.
 Some Came Running August 30, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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).
No "From Here to Eternity", but Well-Crafted Drama... July 4, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
"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.
Minnelli 'rex' May 25, 2008
Glad to find commentary here addressing director Vincente Minelli's contributions. He was not only acclaimed fo his successful musicals in the 1940s and early 1950s ('Meet Me in St. Louis,' 1944; 'An American in Paris,' 1951; 'The Band Wagon,' 1953; 'Brigadoon,' 1954) but also for dramas in the 1950s ('The Bad and the Beautiful' 1952; 'Lust for Life,' 1956; 'Tea and Sympathy,' 1956).
After the musicals that were his forte fell out of favor with audiences around the time of his Oscar winning 'Gigi' (1958) came out, Minelli still made very creditable work for MGM in comedy ('Designing Woman,' 1957, 'The Reluctant Debutante,' 1958, 'Bells Are Ringing,' 1960, 'The Courtship of Eddie's Father' 1963) others less so ('Goodbye Charlie,' 1964). But there was little to choose from in drama, so that he was assigned his share of potboilers ('The Cobweb,' 1955, 'Home from the Hill,' 1960; 'Two Weeks in Another Town,' 1962; 'The Sandpiper,' 1965); and yet, professional that he was, he rescued those otherwise forgettable movies from the tawdry with panache, and it is that touch of Minnelli's that make them watchable, if admittedly dated for contemporary audiences. Such is the case with 'Some Came Running,' 1958.
At the very beginning of the movie, a bus approaches Dave Hirsch's home town in Indiana. Elmer Bernstein's movie score envelops us as we become aware of Dave (Sinatra), fast asleep in one of the seats. Through the melodramatic conclusion, as we follow a not-at-all unconventional narrative we are made to care about the characters, lead and secondary, flawed or virtuous, which always was Minelli's concern: that no one character is ever neglected. We see how understanding he is of Martha Hyer's straightlaced values or of the wonderful Ginny Moorehead (Shirley MacLaine). Sinatra's performance might not be too far from own experience but very creditable indeed, as are those of most others, particularly Dean Martin as 'Bama ("You know, ever since you've been seein' that schoolteacher, you've become im-possible?" or some such.) Given that the scriptwriters are working from a James Jones novel ('From Here To Eternity'; 'The Thin Red Line'), you know that Minnelli is the artist to make it work. Truly underrated now, but not so to those of us who were fortunate enough to follow this director's career. A true favorite, despite the years gone past.
 Good movie to watch May 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Who would think that small town life is boring? Not if you watched this film. Frank Sinatra plays this soldier who comes home from WW2. Somewhere along the way, he hooks up with Shirley McClaine, who follows him, but she has some unwelcome company of her own following her. He meets up with his brother, who is a successful owner of a jewelry store and into his assistant because his social climbing wife is too busy being preoccupied with being a pillar of the community, and the daughter getting caught up in stuff she don't need to be. Sinatra hooks up with Dean Martin, who is a gambler, and the two get together and do some high rolling of their own. Of course, Shirley is there, looking like a lovesick puppy,knowing all along that Sinatra has his eye on Martha Hyer, who appreciates his talent, as well as him but is too proud and high class to admit that to herself. For the life of me, I cannot understand the Hirsch, Ginny hookup. clearly he tolerates her, clearly despite her own flaws, she loves him although she can't leave him, yet all along, she has a man in the background who she can't seem to shake. An very interesting movie.
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