Stars: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Martha Hyer, Arthur Kennedy, Nancy Gates
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Oscar History: 5 nominations (Best Actress-Shirley MacLaine, Supporting Actor-Arthur Kennedy, Supporting Actress-Martha Hyer, Costume, Original Song-"To Love and Be Loved")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars
(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about a former writer Dave (Sinatra), acclaimed but under-appreciated, returning to his home after a long adulthood of booze, war, and disappointment. In town he visits his estranged brother Frank (Kennedy) who is constantly trying to make him a better man to help his own reputation, and a gambler named Bama Dillert (Martin), who is suffering from diabetes (though we don't find that out until later) and lives life sort of on the sly, never really committing to anyone except himself and occasionally a girl. Frank is followed into town by Ginny (MacLaine) a lovable but nitwitted young woman that is on the rougher side of life and seems to be perceived as a "floozy." Ginny loves Dave, but Dave is heartless and dismissive of her. Frank introduces Dave to a more refined single friend of his named Gwen (Hyer) who seems to have feelings for him, but on a different level than Ginny and wants to get him writing again. The story is set in place as a result of this.
The movie has a few highs and a lot of lows, in my opinion. The original novel by James Jones was lampooned, particularly for its consistent spelling errors (done on purpose to show the provincial nature of Dave's hometown), and while this clearly isn't an issue in the story, we're left with a pretty dry series of acts. The movie moves too quickly, despite its long-length, and may have bitten off more than it could handle in terms of plot, as we have too many moments that we're just assuming things. This gets particularly cumbersome and occasionally laughable during the moments between Dave and Gwen, as Dave tells her he's in love with her so soon it feels like we're pulled out of the movie. I know that 1950's movies did things like this (I watch a lot of them), but it's jarring for this film because we've really had no soft moments beforehand that insinuated that Dave should love Gwen. It also makes Dave seem insanely shallow, because the only reasons to like Gwen at this point are that she's beautiful and that she loves Dave's writing. His attraction to her is entirely shallow and narcissistic, resulting in Dave being less a misunderstood writer and more of just a jerk. As I pointed out above, this is still some of the better acting I have seen from Sinatra, but his character itself is almost unbearable in the way that he treats women, his family, and his life.
The rest of the acting still falls behind him. Martin is fine, and may even have gotten plaudits but that's only because he doesn't sink when he tackles drama after so many years as Jerry Lewis' other half. The supporting roles were both nominated for Oscars, but I didn't really feel either of them. Arthur Kennedy, he of the perpetual Oscar nominations (he was the Amy Adams of his day, gaining four supporting nods and one lead citation without a win), definitely has a plum role (a social-climbing, adultering "man of morality"), but he doesn't really elevate the role. This is the second of his nominations that I've seen and so far I haven't been wildly impressed; it seems more like he had a really good agent who landed him "nominatable" roles more than anything else. Hyer isn't much better-she gets one really great scene with MacLaine late in the movie where they have a bit of an odd showdown over Dave, but she has zilch chemistry with Sinatra and as he's in all but one of her scenes, she gets a plum role (aging spinster, more enchanted by books than men (clutch the pearls!)), but does almost nothing with it. She's an ice queen that thaws but no one seems to notice.
As a result the film is almost unsalvageable (its other two nominations, for Original Song and Costume, are both a snore-the former you honestly don't even realize is happening in the movie as it's relegated to background music and the latter is quite fine, but only because they're constantly putting MacLaine in flouncy flapper-style dresses and is more of a filler nomination for costuming icon Walter Plunkett), save for one saving grace: Shirley MacLaine. MacLaine, a personal favorite of mine, is an actress that constantly is under-appreciated despite near universal critical acclaim-for some reason she gets forgotten when you list some of the great actors of her generation until someone reminds you and says, "oh, right, of course Shirley MacLaine." Her Ginny is incredible. Absent from good chunks of the movie (in today's category-fraud style days, she surely would have been marketed in supporting), she breathes new life into every scene and totally steals the movie. I love the way that she is so honest and authentic onscreen-frequently sharing too many of her dreams with Dave in the perfect ying to Gwen's yang of sharing nothing. Ginny is aware she's Dave's second choice, but loves him so much that it doesn't matter. MacLaine shows a fully-fledged woman, one who clearly existed before the movie (these sorts of roles rarely are grounded in reality), but who has been lost for most of her time on the planet after a string of bad boyfriends. MacLaine credited Sinatra with her Oscar nod, principally because he pushed for her, and not he, to die at the end of the film, but I think that's hogwash. We were ready to nominate MacLaine long before she took that bullet. That being said, the final scene is easily the coolest of the movie, with an extended long-shot and a great use of Cinemascope (Martin Scorsese later claimed to be very influenced by this sequence). It's a weird juxtaposition to the traditional filmmaking used by Minnelli in the rest of the film, and feels like if the opening of Touch of Evil had been followed by a random 50's issues drama.
So in that regard, the film is a smashing triumph, though in most other ways it's kind of a snooze. MacLaine had a weird list of fellow nominees in 1958, with Deborah Kerr, Rosalind Russell, and Susan Hayward getting late-in-their-career nominations (the latter two their final nods) while Elizabeth Taylor, at the peak of her fame, played one of her most iconic roles that still takes second place to Paul Newman. Someday we'll get to this lineup (when?-it could be a while), but I'm curious what you guys are thinking, as of the three I've seen I have liked all of them (I'm still missing Kerr and the victorious Hayward). If you've seen any, share your thoughts in the comments. And by all means, weigh in on Some Came Running and its cavalcade of stars/nominations.
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