Reeling Backward: "Some Came Running" (1958)

"Some Came Running" is one of those films that seemed to have the pedigree for sure success. After "From Here to Eternity" revived Frank Sinatra's Hollywood career, with an Oscar win for his supporting performance in the adaptation of James Jones' hit debut novel, they re-teamed the author and actor.

It was a pretty common thing back in that era. If a film clicked, studios were happy to order up another version utilizing the same actors, writers, directors -- even stories so similar they were a virtual remake.

In some ways "Running" is an unofficial sequel to "Eternity," about a soldier who comes home after the war and has trouble fitting in with his hometown and family. Although here Sinatra isn't playing his hotheaded character from "Eternity," but something closer to Montgomery Clift's remote loner.

It's an interesting picture in several ways, but overall it's rather draggy and narratively discombobulated. At 2½ hours it unsuccessfully tried to cram too much of the book into the movie. (Arthur Sheekman and John Patrick wrote the script.) Which isn't surprising, given that Jones' sprawling novel tipped the scales in excess of 1,200 pages.

(Jones was not known for brevity. "Eternity" was 864 pages, depending on the printing; "The Thin Red Line," which has twice been adapted to the screen, was a relatively spare 510 pages.)

Sinatra plays Dave Hirsh, who just got out of the Army and wakes up on a bus as it's arriving in his hometown of Parkman, Indiana. (The city is fictional; the film was shot almost entirely in picturesque Madison.) He had no intention of going there, but won $5,500 in a high-stakes card game in Chicago that ended in violence. To save his skin, Dave's buddies put him on the bus, the voucher for the dough safely nestled in the crotch of his pants.

It's his first time home in 16 years. A lot has happened to Dave in those years, but Parkman hasn't changed at all.

It's still a seemingly idyllic place, with the town fathers organizing a huge Centennial celebration to mark the founding, but with a seedy underbelly poorly concealed. The teens dress and talk nice but drink and fool around; the local gossips can spread information about each other (true or not) faster than buzzing bees; Dave's brother Frank appears to be an upstanding businessman but struggles with a sham marriage and an attraction to his young assistant.

Dave and Frank don't get along. When their parents died Frank, who's quite a bit older, didn't want Dave messing up his impending marriage and placed him in a boarding school for charity orphans. Dave grew up rough, traveled around doing odd jobs, and made something of a name for himself as a writer, penning two books that were critical if not commercial successes. These included characterizations some felt were thinly disguised versions of town residents -- including Frank's shrew wife (Leora Dana).

So he returns to Parkman as something of a combination of the town's black sheep and conquering hero.

Played by the great character actor Arthur Kennedy, Frank doesn't quite know what to do about Dave's return. A glad-hander and smooth talker, Frank inherited his bustling jewelry store from his father-in-law, using it as the first of many stepping stones to respectability. One could easily imagine him running for mayor in another 10 years.

He's quite put out that Dave promptly deposited his poker winnings in "the other bank," aka not the one on whose board Frank was recently appointed. This was a deliberate act to needle his big brother -- though I'm a bit unclear on how Dave knows about Frank's doings. Anyway, the siblings quickly take to bickering, then non-communication.

Dave does fall in with some new people, though. He's annoyed at being forced into a dinner with Professor French (Larry Gates) and his daughter, Gwen (Martha Hyer), who's a high school English teacher and literary critic. Both Gwen and Dave smell an obvious set-up, trying to pair up the prodigal son with the old maid.

But in that way that only happens in movies, the two meet, clash, and within a day have decided they are irrevocably in love.

Or... not so much. Fouling up the works is Ginny Moorehead, an idiotic floozy whom Dave met in Chicago on the night he left. Apparently he charmed her, convinced her to join him, then promptly forgot all about her in his boozy blackout. He gives her money to return, but Ginny decides she's smitten and decides to hang around Parkman, quickly securing a job at a factory and a reputation around town.

An old boyfriend (Steve Peck) follows her, following Dave, stirring up trouble.

Ginny was one of Shirley MacLaine's earliest roles and the one that earned her first Oscar nomination. She's a compelling but cloying figure, dumb as a brick and always struggling to catch up with the whip-smart Dave. He tries everything he can to get rid of her, but eventually succumbs to her modest charms, setting up a love triangle.

Normally in this kind of movie the wayward hero eventually lays aside the bad habits -- drinking, gambling, self-doubt -- that are personified by Ginny and turns to a figure like Gwen who inspires his nobler instincts. Gwen even dusts off one of Dave's old stories and has it published in The Atlantic, reviving his prospects as a writer.

But that doesn't happen here. Gwen is mortified by Dave's exploits turning up in the local paper and chatter. When Ginny shows up in her classroom offering to step aside for the sake of Dave's happiness, Gwen is shocked to discover the man she loves associating with a dimwitted trollop. She promptly gives Dave the boot, and in one of his drunken binges offers to marry Ginny, which she joyfully accepts.

Dean Martin also turns up as Bama Dillert, a professional card player who befriends Dave and invites him to join in his traveling game of poker, making the tour to Indianapolis, Terre Haute and the like. It's a quintessential Dean role, a hard-drinking con man who never removes his garish hat and lives by his own internal moral code.

Bama is a charmer because he never tries to charm anyone, offering take-it-or-leave-it friendship to Dave and dismissing as "pigs" any woman who would tie him down -- which as far as he is concerned is just about all of them.

It was the first onscreen pairing of Sinatra and Martin, and more or less marked the start of the Rat Pack pictures. As much as I enjoyed Martin as Bama, his character is a prime candidate for culling in the adaption process. The same goes for Dave's niece, Dawn (Betty Lou Keim), who has many of the same problems with her father as Dave does, and starts to act out. Similar sentiments for Nancy Gates as Edith Barclay, Frank's employee and seductee, who should also have been written out.

Sinatra earned some of the best notices of his career for this performance, but I'm not a fan. He was not a particularly contemplative actor who could show you what's going on inside the character's head, and Dave's journey happens mostly on the interior. I can't help but think what a Brando or Montgomery Clift could have done with this part.

Director Vincente Minnelli doesn't help him out with paucity of close-up shots to help us see the turmoil. Perhaps his mind was more on "Gigi," which came out the same year and earned him the Academy Award for direction.

Minnelli seemed mostly interested in making the most of the film's CinemaScope visuals, with lush colors and complex camera techniques. The final sequence of the Centennial celebration, as Dave and Ginny are tracked as they walk through the crowd while being stalked by her Chicago beau, is reminiscent of the opening scene of "Touch of Evil," also from 1958. It's often cited by filmmakers and historians, including Martin Scorsese and Peter Bodanovich, as a watershed bit of cinematography. (William H. Daniels deserves some of the credit.)

Perhaps the decision to keep the camera farther away from the lead actor was intentional given the picture's romantic ambitions. I've written about this before, but physically Sinatra was the human equivalent of a "20-foot car." That's a vehicle that looks great far away or medium distance, but its dings and nicks show up more glaringly the closer you step to.

With his multiple scars, deformed ear and acne-pitted cheeks, Sinatra was no longer the baby-faced crooner who made the girls swoon. His hairline was rapidly fleeing, and despite the use of concealing makeup his balding crown shines prominently in many of the shots. By the following year he'd successfully transitioned into toupee acting.

Since I was often bored during the movie, I wondered exactly how old the character of Dave was supposed to be. Both Sinatra and Kennedy were in their early 40s when the movie was made, so the idea of one brother being significantly older doesn't hold much air. My guess is Dave is around 30, but with Sinatra's creaky looks and stiff acting he seems closer to 50.

"Some Came Running" the book was savaged by critics, though the movie fared better -- more than it deserved, I deem.

Reeling Backward: "An American In Paris" (1951)

"An American in Paris" is wonderful as a musical -- truly 'S Wonderful, indeed -- though it isn't particularly ambitious as a film.

It's essentially pageantry for its own sake, long musical sequences in which the characters sing and prance because they love to do it, rather than advancing the story in any obvious way. It's about bright colors, vivacious George Gershwin melodies and the inestimable choreography and dancing of Gene Kelly, not to mention co-star Leslie Caron.

Despite its undeniable status as a lightweight movie, "American" won the Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as earning statuettes for screenplay, costumes, musical score, cinematography and production design (or simply "Best Art," as it was called then).

Vincente Minnelli lost the director award, though he was up against William Wyler for "Detective Story," John Huston for "The African Queen," Elia Kazan for "A Streetcar Named Desire" and the winner, George Stevens, for "A Place in the Sun." That must rank as one of the toughest directors' races in Oscar history.

Kelly did not get an acting nomination, though he was bestowed with a special award for his contributions to the cinematic musical art form. No one else from the cast got a nod, making "American" one of just 11 Best Picture winners lacking an acting nomination. ("Slumdog Millionaire" was the most recent.) Though that apparently was trend in the 1950s, with four winners from that decade lacking any recognition for its performances.

Of course, 1951 was also the year "Streetcar" nearly swept the acting awards, losing only Best Actor, where Marlon Brando probably should've beaten Humphrey Bogart anyway.

I think back then people had a taste for big-budget extravaganzas, and didn't make so much of a distinction between serious films and pure entertainment as we do today.

I enjoyed "An American in Paris," though I admit to growing a bit glazed during some of the dance scenes, some of which go on waaaaay too long. The final 16-minute ballet set to Gershwin's "symphonic poem" of the same title reportedly cost half a million bucks all by itself to stage, a colossal sum back then. If I'm totally honest, I fast-forwarded a bit through parts of it.

Dancing, particularly of the athletic variety practiced by Kelly, is dazzling in short bursts but after a while it becomes repetitive and less impressive. It's like watching a man dead-lift 1,000 pounds -- your breath is taken away the first time, but after 25 reps you're ready to see something else.

One thing I did notice about this film is that Kelly's dancing is often staged in confined spaces, such as inside the cramped apartment of his character, Jerry Mulligan, an ex-GI who stayed on in France after the war in hopes of making it as a painter. He's penniless and proud, and his only real friend is Adam Cook (Oscar Levant), a composer living next door who's similarly situated, though not nearly as cute.

(In his opening narration, Levant cracks jokes about his homeliness and "flabby exterior," even though he's hardly overweight. I always wonder, when a character in a movie talks about their physical deficiencies, what does the performer think about being cast in that role? "They needed an ugly pianist" is not exactly a confidence-booster.)

Kelly shimmies and shakes in the small gaps in between Adam's piano and bed, occasionally using the hallway as an overflow space. In other numbers he kicks and spins dangerously close to old women and children, and I kept wondering how many times Minnelli had to call cut after Kelly accidentally clocked someone with his tap shoes.

I can't help but contrast "American" with "Singin' in the Rain" from the following year, which I consider to be a vastly superior film in every way imaginable. Interestingly, both movies are largely built around songs written two or three decades earlier, Gershwin's and Arthur Freed's, respectively. But there's more singing and less dancing in "Rain," and there the characters are largely warbling about themselves or those they adore.

It's notable that "Rain" contained many memorable songs, while "American" can only claim "I Got Rhythm" as a truly enduring popular hit. Other tunes include "Our Love is Here to Stay" and the aforementioned "'S Wonderful." Most of these were written by Gershwin for Broadway shows or other films, essentially rendering "American" as a greatest hits compilation. Though the humorous "By Strauss" was a goofy ditty Gershwin performed only in private for his friends, until it was included in a 1936 revue and this movie.

The story (screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner) is pretty basic. Jerry is a starving artist who falls in love with a French girl, Lise Bouvier, played by Caron with her iconicly unconventional beauty. Little does he know she's betrothed to Henri Baurel (Georges Guétary), a famous song-and-dance man and friend of Adam's. The fact that she secretly carries on with Jerry and Henri at the same time says something about her worthiness as a romantic ideal, but this is love in the French style.

Meanwhile, Jerry is being helped-slash-seduced by Milo Roberts, a wealthy American woman who has a habit of picking up boy toys and then discarding, or being discarded by them. She introduces him to important art people, arranges a big gallery show of is work, etc. Ostensibly it's all out of art appreciation, but her fierce jealousy when Jerry pays attention to Lise unveils her true nature.

Interestingly, though Milo is supposed to be much older than Jerry, probably middle-aged, actress Nina Foch was actually 12 years younger than Kelly. At 27 she was barely past the ingenue stage, while he was bumping up against 40.

People complain about Hollywood's ageism today, but it was much more rampant back then, with aging actors romancing young girls without anyone giving it a blink. Foch even played Charlton Heston's mother in "The Ten Commandments," even though he was a year older than her.

"An American in Paris" is a delightful frivolity, fun and energetic, happy-happy moviemaking designed to make people forget their troubles. I'm not surprised it's currently enjoying a huge revival on Broadway. But Best Picture?

Reeling Backward: "Lust for Life"

One of the greatest piece of hooey ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public was the insistence that great artists are only made through great suffering.

Of course, when you consider that this claim is most vehemently championed by artists themselves, one realizes several things. First, that this precept has been employed over the years to justify any number of instances of damaging behavior in the name of art. Second, that it was often those around the artist who suffered even more than he did.

Lastly, it creates a bias to see the only legitimate art as that which casts a mournful attitude toward the human condition. After all, if all those great artists suffered horribly, they wouldn't be creating paintings and art works of joy and sunshine, would they?

"Lust for Life," the 1956 biopic on Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, is an enthusiastic adherent to this philosophy. Based on a historical novel by Irving Stone and directed by Vincente Minnelli -- who was best known for film musicals like "The Band Wagon" and "An American in Paris" -- the drama is a full-bore leap into the troubled life of the great artist.

Kirk Douglas, who was a prototypical Hollywood lantern-jawed hero type, gives a vibrant and unexpected performance as Van Gogh, portraying him as a mass of fears and obsessions. The painter seems not to possess an ounce of regard for anyone but himself, even pursuing marriage with an older cousin who labels his persistence "disgusting."

I liked the movie well enough, and the cinematography (by Freddie Young and Russell Harlan) of the landscapes and people who inspired Van Gogh is wonderful. I must confess that the continued wallowing in his misery got to be a bit tedious at times.

The central relationships in the film are between Vincent and his brother Theo (James Donald), an art dealer who supported him, and with Paul Gauguin, a French painter played by Anthony Quinn. Quinn won the Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance, despite a rather limited screen time.

The two are an interesting contrast. Gauguin declares that he wants no one to love him, because attachments distract from his painting. Van Gogh is the epitome of neediness, on the other hand. The sequence where they briefly share a house in the south of France is essentially one argument after another, until the showdown where Van Gogh cuts off his own ear.

Minnelli is sly to the point of squeamishness about portraying this infamous bit of Van Gogh lore. Douglas is shot almost entirely from his right side for the remainder of the film, although it appears they used some sort of make-up to portray the damaged ear. He also does not include anything about Van Gogh giving the severed ear to a prostitute, which is the gruesome detail that made the injury memorable in the first place.

Interestingly, some recent examinations of the circumstances of Van Gogh's injury have concluded that it was not self-inflicted. Gauguin was an expert swordsman, and -- consistent with Quinn's portrayal -- was quite a hothead. It seems likely, or at least possible, that Gauguin cut off the ear during a quarrel, and they concocted the story about Van Gogh slicing it off with a razor to save him from prosecution.

Since the screenplay (by Norman Corwin, also nominated for an Oscar) was based on a work of fiction about Van Gogh, it's hard to say how much the film reflects the real artist. Douglas, in a reddish-tinged crewcut and beard, certainly bears an astonishing resemblance to the painter's many self-portraits. But the film often seems more interested in his misery than his ingenuity.

Finally, I'd like to comment on the film's title. "Lust for Life" seems an almost comically incongruous name to describe the life of a man that was essentially a litany of failure, poverty, loneliness and poor health.

It's interesting that most people who encountered Vincent Van Gogh during his lifetime regarded him as strange or even dangerous -- they called him the "red madman" in the neighborhood around the Yellow House where he and Gauguin lived. I think if he lived today, he probably would have spent much of his life institutionalized, or munching on a regimen of mind-altering prescription drugs.

Which isn't to say that Van Gogh wasn't a great artist. It's just that people, and movies, that try to conflate artistry with suffering are generally misguided. It's a paint-by-numbers mentality.

3 stars