Some Came Running: Vincente Minnelli

I saw Vincente Minnelli's Some Came Running for one reason: Martin Scorsese mentioned it in A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. Scorsese explained that "the film's final carnival scene remains...one of the best and most expressive uses of CinemaScope." So I decided that if one of the Grand Masters of the Cinema believed that it was worth watching, who am I to argue? And, I have to admit that the final carnival scene was absolutely fantastic. However, I feel that the rest of the film was pitifully lacking in quality. The film is an overwrought drama concerning a callous veteran named Dave Hirsch who gets on a bus one day to his hometown Parkman, Indiana while in a drunken stupor. He immediately gets into a conflict with his older brother Frank Hirsh who owns a jewelry store and sees Dave as a danger to his social status. Now, I'll be perfectly frank, I am compiling this review while constantly referring back to wikipedia and IMDB because for the life of me I cannot remember what happened in this film. It's been four days since I saw this film and it had such a minimal impact on me that it's like I never saw it in the first place. But I'll try to provide a few more details. Uh...let's see...Dave falls in love with a school teacher named Gwen French who loves his writing (did I mention he was a writer?). But that doesn't end up well because he was already in love with Ginnie Moorehead, an easy woman who followed Dave on his bus ride to Parkman. But THAT is complicated by the fact that there are gangsters involved and...I don't know...this film is a blur. I paid attention to it, I really did. But it just failed to leave any imprint on my subconscious.

5/10