Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958) (Patreon)

I am beginning to think that Minnelli just isn't my guy. He's certainly a competent technician, and knows how to structurally organize a film with a lot of moving parts. His adaptation of James Jones' novel is rather admirable in the way it keeps a number of arguably peripheral characters, ones that a lesser director would probably jettison. At the same time, this may indicate a literalist streak in Minnelli, a desire to adapt the novel whole-cloth without making too many critical decisions about it, although editorial choices were obviously made. (Jones' novel was pushing 1700 pages.)

Some Came Running is a suitably complex, adult film, but it's hard not to suspect that Minnelli merely transplants this complexity from Jones' formidable source novel. Beginning with former writer turned soldier / drinker Dave Hirsh (Frank Sinatra), Some Came Running has a centripetal motion, bringing more and more individuals into his orbit. This starts, of course, with the person who appears to be of least consequence, Ginny (Shirley MacLaine), the young barfly who follows Dave from Chicago to Parkman, Indiana -- the hometown to which Dave had no intention of ever returning.

Dave is an interesting protagonist. We learn about his early trauma, having been abandoned by his older brother Frank (Arthur Kennedy) because his wealthy new wife Agnes (Leora Dana) didn't want him. (Dave, it seems, got back at Agnes in his first novel by creating an unflattering portrait of her.) Still, he externalizes his internal conflicts with cruel regularity. Ginny is usually his preferred punching bag, but he is only slightly more respectful to local teacher / literary critic Gwen French (Martha Hyer). She is an intellectual and an admirer of Dave's fiction, but he can only engage her as a prospective conquest. However she demonstrates that she can be of use to him, helping him with an edit of a short story on which he's hit a dead end. By proving that her intellect can be of direct value, Gwen causes Dave to fall in love with her, on day two of their acquaintance.

The most compelling aspect of Some Came Running is decidedly literary in nature, which again seems to have been the work of Jones rather than Minnelli. An admirer of Faulkner, Hemingway, and Steinbeck, Dave is an artist whose creative spark comes from existing between two worlds, the lowlife of drink and gambling and the realm of ideas and observations. He's a Romantic figure, a would-be noble savage who is actually more of a man of letters than he's willing to let on. In having do choose between Gwen and Ginny, Dave is placed in a dilemma of authenticity. Gwen understands his work, but Ginny is a true specimen of the demimonde he chronicles. (As Charlies Foster Kane would say, Ginny is "a cross-section of the American public.")

It is no coincidence that Dave holds Ginny in contempt, while affording the booze-hound gambler Bama (Dean Martin) a high degree of respect. Bama is clearly brighter than Ginny, and like Dave he seems to have made a strategic decision to punch well below his weight class, working the circuit of hapless Corn Belt poker players. Still, Dave reflects the dominant sexism of the times. A man like Bama is a shrewd operator, while Ginny is a "pig" and a "tramp." It's certainly to the film's credit that it works to subvert those ideas, but it cannot reveal Ginny's fundamental decency until it has finished utterly debasing her. 

This is particularly awful in Ginny's meeting with Gwen. Going to see her in her classroom, Ginny intends to meet her rival as an equal, and to humbly concede that Dave is in love with Gwen. By contrast, Gwen is horrified by the very sight of Ginny, much less the notion that she might lose Dave to the likes of her. The only person who values Ginny, sadly enough, is her stalker (Steven Peck) who has been hunting her down since Chicago, if not before. In the end, Dave proposes marriage to Ginny, when he is certain Gwen will no longer have him. But Ginny, despite her limited intellect, knows in her heart what's up. "Remember," she pleads with Dave, "I am a human being."

The tragedy of Ginny is somewhat artificially placed on a back-burner, all the better to display her nobility and sacrifice as a convenient narrative twist. The final scenes of Some Came Running are notable for their overwrought, tonally inconsistent direction, with Minnelli goosing the drama with jittery cross-cutting, flashing carnival lights, and a soundtrack replete with action stings. So much of the film is formally undistinguished, but Minnelli seems intent on going out with a bang. And the final scene, an attempt at overpowering poignancy, is just the payoff that we saw planted earlier with Bama's lone distinguishing quirk.

There's no denying that Some Came Running skillfully balances multiple spheres of influence on Dave -- family, romance, literary achievement, and of course the gutter. And all of these realms are populated by complex characters with their own competing anxieties and agendas. But again, this strikes me as a literary characteristic, one that Minnelli maintains but does not elaborate on in cinematic terms. I just don't see what this director is bringing to the table. But hey, if someone cares to make the case, I'm all ears.