Rent Some Came Running (1958)

Shirley MacLaine steals the show - Some Came Running review by CW

Dated and flat until Shirley MacLaine is in a scene. She definitely makes it worth watching. She is absolutely lovely and nails her role as a somewhat simple sexy woman who is crazy mad in love with the character played by Frank Sinatra. She won the Academy Award for her part.

Colourful Melodrama. - Some Came Running review by Steve

Although Some Came Running is set in the midwest, it retains all of the archetypes of the southern melodramas which were popular in the late fifties. It has the outsider that drifts into town; the beautiful but frozen intellectual woman; the floozy; the weak and shifty brother who stayed behind and pocketed all the filthy lucre; the last remains of old money. There are the isolated small town values and the big social event. The awe of cinemascope and the beautiful colour processes of the period.

 Frank Sinatra is the alcoholic soldier returning to his former home town after the war, with Shirley MacLaine's none-too-bright nightclub 'hostess' in tow, who uncovers near limitless hypocrisy, mostly hidden from view. Everything depends upon appearances. Sinatra develops a close relationship with outwardly charismatic, but inwardly repulsive poker shark (Dean Martin) and aspires after Martha Hyer's inhibited, censorious schoolteacher.

 Ultimately, Sinatra settles for the frightening, relentless, unconditional love of MacLaine, which leads to tragedy. This is Sinatra's best performance, and he is persuasive as a morally ambiguous anti-hero who is at least disgusted by the insincere sanctimony the war took him away from. But its Shirley MacLaine's film, and she breaks your heart as an abused, exploitable girl who seems to have no personality other than the prodigious intensity of her feelings.

 The film is intelligently directed by Minnelli with long camera edits allowing the actors to develop the scene. It gets progressively darker in mood until it becomes like quite like film noir by the close, but in colour. The film ends with a stunning impressionist kaleidoscope of lights for the murder at the carnival with Elmer Bernstein's piano led jazz score powerfully amplifying this great action climax.