“SMALL TOWN, BIG DRAMA”

By Raymond Benson

James Jones is mostly known for his debut novel, From Here to Eternity. His second novel, published in 1958, was Some Came Running, a 1,200-page potboiler that blows the lid off small town America. It was a more adult Peyton Place, if that was possible for the time. Colorful, sometimes sordid, characters populate the book, and it didn’t do as well as that classic first publication. Nevertheless, MGM immediately scooped it up and managed to turn it into a motion picture by the end of the same year.

Frank Sinatra found the material appealing, and he saw himself as the story’s lead, Dave Hirsh, a prodigal son of sorts from fictional Parkman, Indiana. Discharged from the army, Hirsh arrives in town with a hangover and a party girl he picked up in Chicago, Ginny Moorehead (Shirley MacLaine). His brother, Frank (Arthur Kennedy) is a big shot in Parkman. Frank owns a jewelry business and is on the board of one of the two rival banks. Dave and Frank have been estranged for years, especially since Frank put younger Dave in a boarding school when their parents died, instead of having Dave come live with him and his wife, Agnes (Leora Dana). Dave once fancied himself a writer and had published two books. While deep down he hopes to write again, his cynicism for just about everything keeps him from doing so. Dave meets Bama Dillert (Dean Martin) in the town bar, and they hit it off. Bama is an alcoholic, but he’s an amusing companion who, like Dave, likes to play poker games. Dave eventually meets and falls in love with the creative writing teacher at the school, Gwen French (Martha Hyer)—but Ginny, who has stayed in town to be near Dave, is a constant obstacle to that match. Other disreputable goings-on complicate the plot, such as Frank’s daughter (and Dave’s niece), Dawn (Betty Lou Keim), catching her father parked in the “lover’s lane” with the jewelry shop secretary, Edith (Nancy Gates). Will Dave find the love he wants and needs? Will the gangster from Chicago, who is in town to cause trouble for Ginny and Dave, resort to serious violence? Will Bama ever take off his hat, which he insists on wearing all the time, even in bed? You’ll have to see the film to find out.

That plot summary might sound like the outline of a soap opera, but never mind that—Some Came Running is a fascinating, searing, well-acted, and beautifully-directed drama. The director, Vincente Minnelli, was on a roll in 1958—he won the Academy Award for Director for Gigi (it won Best Picture, too), also directed The Reluctant Debutante, and ended the year with Some Came Running. For this reviewer’s money, Minnelli got the Oscar for the wrong film. Yes, Running is that good.

For one thing, Frank Sinatra has never been better, his Oscar-winning turn in From Here to Eternity notwithstanding. It’s shocking that, after receiving a nomination for his performance as a drug addict in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), he was not up for Best Actor for Running. He commands every frame of film he’s in. Secondly, Dean Martin is terrific in one of his early “Dean Martin Persona” roles he fashioned for himself after the cinematic partnership with Jerry Lewis splintered. Finally, Shirley MacLaine is a delight as the not-so-bright, trampy, but good-natured Ginny—and she received her first Best Actress Oscar nomination for the performance. Kennedy and Hyer also both respectively received Supporting Actor and Actress Oscar nominations.

The movie is an insightful character study of lost souls reaching for a place called “happiness” by pretending that they’re already there. In many ways, the small town is a character, too, for it has the façade of Americana at its finest, and yet there are those pockets that exist in every town of skid row neighborhoods, seedy bars, loose women, and crime. It’s in the latter locations where Dave finds himself, no matter how much he aspires to be in the “respectable” parts of town life. Nevertheless, he knows, and the audience eventually learns, that there is one class of people in town who may be prosperous but are really phonies, and a lower class that is sleazy and yet sincere. What you see is what you get.

Some may find the dialogue and attitudes toward women—especially from Martin’s character, who calls all women “pigs”—to be sexist and even misogynistic. This, however, is part of the James Jones milieu, as well as a major aspect of the locale, the class structure, and the era in which the picture takes place. What the movie really has to say about women is far more significant and auspicious.

Warner Archive’s new Blu-ray release looks gorgeous in its vivid widescreen Technicolor. There’s not a blemish in sight. Supplements include an informative 20-minute documentary on the film’s history and making, and the theatrical trailer.

Some Came Running is an underrated, overlooked gem that should be re-evaluated. For fans of Sinatra, MacLaine, Martin, Minnelli, and James Jones. Highly recommended.

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