Overlooked Movies: Some Came Running

Even when I was a kid, I was fascinated by books and movies about writers.  Some Came Running, based on a novel by James Jones, is one of those widescreen Technicolor melodramas that were typical of the '50s.  

Dave Hirsch, the formerly promising writer, is played by Frank Sinatra, just out of the army and returning to his hometown, where his brother is a successful businessman.  On the bus, he meets Ginnie, a not-so-classy young woman who falls for him.  She sticks around the old hometown, too, though Frank supposedly falls for Martha Heyer, the local schoolmarm. 

Frank meets a heavy-drinking professional gambler, Bama, played by Dean Martin, and the two become roomies.  They do pretty well on the gambling circuit, too.  Meanwhile, a gangster from Chicago has followed Ginnie to town and isn't happy with her infatuation with Frank. 

The things I remember best from my first viewing of this movie are the performances of Shirley Maclaine and Dean Martin.  At the time I was a bit worried about Martin (I cared about such things) because recently his partnership with Jerry Lewis had ended, and I wondered if Martin was going to be able to make it on his own.  This movie convinced me that he would.  He was great.   Maclaine was nominated for an Oscar.  She claimed it was because Sinatra insisted that they change the ending of the movie.  Maybe so.  There's a great carnival scene, too.  

Some of the '50s attitudes towards women captured here might be a offensive to today's viewer, but I suspect nobody thought a thing about them when the movie played in 1958.