SOME CAME RUNNING (1958) Unhappy homecoming

Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin co-star in SOME CAME RUNNING, and the easy, hip bantering between them is definitely rat-packish. But this film is no silly Rat Pack romp. Based on a novel by the James Jones (who also wrote FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, for which Sinatra won an Oscar), it's about an ex-GI who returns to his small Indiana hometown with money to burn and bad memories to face down. He hooks up with card shark Dino and sweet-trampy Shirley MacLaine, bickers with his brother and sister-in-law, gets into lots of fights, and mentors his rebellious niece. Oh, and since he's a novelist, he finds time between card games to write his epic and seduce his school-marmish editor. Vincente Minneli directed, and it really shows in all the performances, as well as in the intensely striking photographic look of this powerful, if melodramatic, film.