-- I've been wanting to see this for ages, ever since I read about it in Nick Tosches's bio of Dean Martin, DINO.

-- It's pretty good! Big garish Fifties melodrama, the kind of movie they just don't make anymore. I was about to say "they should", but probably not. They couldn't. These kind of movies feel like they're trapped in amber; they're very much of their time.

-- One of those "the sordid reality behind the materialistic facade of the Fifties" movies. Also a "writer" movie, which I have a particular weakness for. As with most of these sorts of movies, the booze flows like water and nobody ever seems to write anything. A bit more realistic than most of them, though -- there's the usual "tough writer guy" silliness, but Sinatra gets to undercut it. His niece wonders aloud if bumming around has made him a better writer.

"Bumming around just makes you a bum," Sinatra says.

Plus I like the manuscript, a humongous, waterlogged affair.

-- The movie is known, apparently, for it's color work, especially near the end. It's okay, but that sort of avante garde stuff dates badly, I think, as avante garde stuff tends to do. I did like the widescreen/cinemascope photography much more, Minelli knows how to use space.

-- The movie is also known, apparently, for Shirley MacLaine's performance. She's okay, but again, it's very methody and actorly, very much of t's day but doesn't date all that well. I was much more impressed with Sinatra's beat down naturalism and especially Martin's performance. He inhabits that character like he owns it, it's really a remarkable thing to watch.

-- The story isn't all that much, but it's entertaining watching these characters run through their paces. Although the downbeat ending has a flavor of deus ex machina I liked how downbeat it really was, how cold and ultimately hopeless. That took daring, I thought.

-- So anyway, check it out if you get a chance. I'd love to check out the book sometime -- it's sort of James Jones's forgotten novel, and he was an interesting guy -- but it's oddly hard to find.

doug

If you liked SOME CAME RUNNING (and I do; Scorsese's American Films doc, PERSONAL JOURNEY, made me appreciate it all the more) you should check out Minnelli's HOME FROM THE HILL (1960), which has a similar vibe, excellent 'Scope compositions, and a gallery of fine performances led by Robert Mitchum. TCM shows it fairly often.