Minnelli's "Some Came Running", by João Bénard da Costa
Two essays.
Of Vincente Minnelli's melodramas, I always hesitate between two of them when asked about my hierarchies of preference: The Clock, shot in 1945, and which in Portugal was titled A Hora da Saudade [literally, "the hour of longing"], and Some Came Running, released in 1959, and which in Portugal was titled Deus Sabe Quanto Amei ["God knows how much I loved"].
The Clock, which someone – and not me – has already compared to Murnau's Sunrise, is perhaps the most beautiful of the brief encounters of cinema, a 24-hour encounter between the most sorrowful actor of the forties – Robert Walker – and the most sorrowful actress of all time – Judy Garland. The same old story of the soldier on leave in the big city who meets a girl, she falls in love with him, him with her, they get married late-afternoon, spend a night together and then he goes back to war. Who smiles and says that has seen this a hundred times over, it's because has never seen The Clock, where all of this happens but happens as if it had never happened.
But if God knows how much I love this film, despite everything, today I choose Some Came Running, even because there's a chance of being heard by more people (the film is more well-known and was recently shown by RTP [Portuguese public television], although not in Scope, without which it only works through our memory of it).
Both films – beyond Minnelli's specific mark, the man who, like a magic wand, transformed everything he touched into gold – have in common a comparable conception of time and a comparable variation of the designs of fate within such limits. In The Clock (to which I now say goodbye), Judy and Bob ran against the title, towards the title. The slowness of the movements of the hands of minutes and seconds was only inevitable because the rhythm of their passion was also inevitable. In Some Came Running, people seemingly only run in the end, this mind-boggling end, with multiple parallel edits, with Dean Martin and the murderer (Steven Peck) trying to outrun fate in their search for Shirley MacLaine and Frank Sinatra, newlyweds swallowed by the crowd celebrating, in the carnival of carnivals, the centennial of the small town (Parkman, Indiana) where the action takes place. Only then we discover that time had passed by all this time, and everyone lost it. The feeling we get, when we recollect the film, is that there was time for everything and suddenly there's no longer time for nothing.
There was time for us to get to know Dave(Frank Sinatra)'s family, with the pusillanimous brother, the sinister sister-in-law and the pretty niece. There was time to get to know the puritan schoolteacher, this Miss French (Martha Hyer) who sometimes recalls Eva Marie Saint and who wore a bun, fearful some might let go of her hair, as Sinatra did in that unique and incredible afternoon of love among them. There was time for plenty of cheaters and tramps, accidental and essential landscape so that there could emerge from it the characters of Bama (Dean Martin), the man who never took off his hat, and Ginny (Shirley MacLaine), the woman who never let go of her rabbit-shaped plush handbag. There was time, even, for a beautiful and ephemeral secretary, Miss Barclay (Nancy Gates), who rhymes with all the rest. There just wasn't time for the time of the most beautiful love of the most beautiful woman, Ginny-Shirley, the one who came running and in the end died to save Sinatra, who laid her head on top of the striking red cushion which he gave to her after her request, and which was the thing she liked the most in the whole world.
"Young and girly they took me from my mother's house. Whatever might have been the cause of mine taking, I was little and didn't know it then." Some Came Running reminds me of the opening of Bernardim's novel1. When Shirley MacLaine wakes up in the bus where up to then we hadn't seen her (the camera shows us only Sinatra sleeping), after having read the bus company's slogan ("and leave the driving to us"), or after listening to her first dialogue with Sinatra ("You're a nice kid. I like you. Take care."), I feel this feeling of being "taken", one day, young and girly (Shirley MacLaine wasn't any of this, and she was this more than any other), "from my mother's house" (I always preferred this variation of the text than the usual one that says "from my parents’ house"), for reasons kids never know, which are a part of being a kid never knowing. There is, in Minnelli's film, the same double accentuation of youth, the same longing for a warm lost world, the same travel, the same slow underlining of time, of "then". And, even more importantly, the same equivalence, in colors, in sets, and in Shirley MacLaine's eyes, of Bernardim's bilabials [“Menina e moça"], with the final (and dental) cut of "then" [“então"], in the sublime movement, of a swiftness made both of reflex and of the absence of reflex, through which the young and girly one throws herself onto Sinatra's body, catching right in the middle of her back the bullet that was meant for him.
The center of this prodigious film, the most beautiful character ever invented by cinema, Ginny is young and girly lost in life and lost in death, in the same way we say "lost woman" or "woman of the life"2, so beautiful expressions. And in the end, in her funeral, we realize that, if Dean Martin never took off his hat, it was so that he could take it off at this moment, to the only woman who demanded such gesture.
She got herself into a bus one night and crossed hundreds of kilometers because Sinatra, way too sentimental after drinking way too much, invited her to follow him. After the drinking, in the morning arrival at Parkman, he no longer even remembers her. But she remembered, and she stayed, in a voyage of no return, despite the 50 dollar bill Sinatra put in her hand.
And she stayed, clumsy, clumsier, getting in the way of others, without realizing to what land did she belong, always with way too many things in her hands (that wallet, that cushion, those fake flowers), always with all those dangling accessories, always with those colors in her eyes, mascara in her eyelashes, "leaving the drive to others".
And then there are the two most unforgettable scenes.
The first one is when she decides to go to the school, to meet the teacher with whom Sinatra fell in love, to "set the record straight" on that whole story. The teacher teaches literature and she explains to the students that Poe's drinking, Quincey's use of drugs, Baudelaire's "neurotic promiscuity" did not make them less great. "They were big men, big in weakness, bigger in strength". The bell rings at the end of this foolish speech. And, as the students leave, there appears, in front of that woman who knows everything and understands nothing, the woman who knows nothing and understands everything. She comes in so nervous, so shy, so frightened. If the teacher likes Sinatra as much as Sinatra likes the teacher, all her dreams will die right there. As she herself says, within the depth of field of the empty classroom, against a blackboard over which a text by Zola is written: "You don't know how scared I was." "I want him to have what he wants. Even if it means you instead of me." During the whole scene, she didn't say nor do a single ugly thing. The only reason she won the shot/reverse-shot was because the teacher was incapable of looking beyond her "shot" and seeing the "rival" beyond her appearances, the "rival" who had nothing, "not even a reputation".
The second scene is soon afterwards, when Sinatra arrives at the house, enraged by his cuckold's pain, because, in the hangover of the aftermath of her face-to-face with the tramp, Miss French kicked him in the butt ("I don't like your life. I don't like your thinking. I don't like the people you like.").
Sinatra insults Ginny for no reason. There is a pan on her and she says: "I'm a human being, and I got as many rights and feelings as anybody else." Then, Sinatra feels sorry. But all he has to offer to that woman, who'd said earlier that she was capable of doing anything, anything he asked of her (and who ended up doing even more), is to ask: "Would you clean up the place for me?" And all that this phrase could have of awful or frustrating is saved by Shirley's smile and that "Oh! Could I?", as if she had just received the most beautiful of gifts.
Cut, and Sinatra reads to her the novel which just got him a prize. Sitting on the floor, arms around her knees, pink pants, Shirley is all over him and nothing over what he says. And, when he accuses her of not understanding a word of what she heard, she answers with this prodigious insight: "No, I don't! But that don’t mean I don’t like it. I don’t understand you neither, but that don’t mean I don’t like you. I love you! But I don’t understand you. So what’s the matter with that?” She turns her face to the side, sulked. There is a "concave pause of astonishment", filled only by Elmer Bernstein's amazing score. The camera stays fixed on Sinatra's face, and all of the film and all of life that had so far accumulated in him (time, scenery, cities, neons, family, the blonde and frigid teacher) bursts out in the unexpected marriage proposal. Shirley's incredulity ensues ("You really shouldn't kid around about a thing like that."), then the hug, incredible hug of surrender and charity. There is the step, and the coda takes us back to the beginning: "You gotta remember, I'm human."
In these two scenes – as in the final scene of the crime, as in the whole film – Minnelli achieves the zenith of his art. There are filmmakers, as there are people, who proceed through syllogisms and so destroy everything and destroy themselves. There are filmmakers, as there are people, who are beyond any logic and transfigure everything they touch into prayer and oblation. In this delirious irrationality of love, the rarest of gifts. As Shirley MacLaine would say: "Thank you. Thanks awfully much."
– JOÃO BÉNARD DA COSTA
"Young and girly they took me from my mother's house. Whatever might have been the cause of mine taking, I was little and didn't know it then." Some Came Running always reminds me of the opening of Bernardim Ribeiro's novel3. When Shirley MacLaine wakes up in the bus where up to then we hadn't seen her (the camera shows us only Sinatra sleeping), and after we read the bus company's slogan ("and leave the driving to us"), or after her first dialogue with Sinatra ("You're a nice kid. I like you. Take care."), I feel this feeling of being "taken", one day, "from my mother's house" (I always preferred this variation of the text instead of the usual one that says "from my parents' house"), for reasons unknown. There is, in Minnelli's film, the same double accentuation of youth ("Young and girly"), the same longing for a warm lost world, the same unknown for reasons of eternal childhood, the same travel, the same slow underlining of time, of "then". And, even more importantly, the equivalence, in colors, in sets, and in Shirley's face, of Bernardim's bilabials [“menina e moça"], with the final (and dental) cut of "then" [“então”], of time.
"The one whose love causes us such pain" (to quote, with small changes, another Portuguese poet4) is the center of this prodigious film, and the most beautiful character cinema has ever invented. Young and girly, lost in life (in the same way we say "lost woman" or "woman of the life"5, such beautiful expressions), always with way too many things in her hands, on her lap, in her hair, in her dresses (the little rabbit-handbag, the cushion, the fake flowers, all her dangling accessories), always clumsy, clumsier, getting in the way of others, always not knowing where she is, she passes by the film and by life "leaving the drive to others", until the astonishing scene when Sinatra reads her the novel and gets annoyed by what he considers her stupidity or her lying. There is that travelling, and then MacLaine saying "You've no right to talk to me like that. You gotta remember. I'm human. I've feelings." And, afterwards, that shocking line that shakes all knowledge and all understanding to the very core:
"I didn't understand the book at all, but I loved it. I don't understand you neither, but I love you." There is a "concave pause of astonishment", the camera lingers on Sinatra's face and everything the film and life had so far accumulated in him (and, once again, time, scenery, the city, the neons, the family, the blonde teacher) is bursting out in the unexpected marriage proposal. Shirley MacLaine's incredulity ensues ("You really shouldn't kid around about a thing like that.") and then the hug, incredible in its surrender and in its charity. All kinds of register seemed to have gone as far as it was possible in their color and intensity; the change in tone could be a cut. But it is all in the same prise de vue [take] that Sinatra asks her "Would you clean up the place for me?", and all this line may have of awful or frustrating is saved by Shirley's smile, her expression and that "Oh! Could I?" as if he had just given her the most beautiful of gifts. There is the step and the coda takes us back to the beginning: "You gotta remember. I'm human."
This is one of the most brilliant moments of Minnelli's great art, by the way the camera movements (or their absence) conjugate themselves with the dialogue and the silences and by the way Sinatra, in an instant, understands – him too – that he hadn't understood nothing. All his wandering through his home town (this small town where everything is known), through the brother's well-set family, through the niece's love story, through the niece's disappointment when seeing her father with the secretary in the car, through the teacher and the teacher's family, all this wandering of travellings that simultaneously stick a character to a scenery and tear them away from it, it all stops there, in the lightning-realization that one only knows what one loves, or in its opposition between Shirley MacLaine's faith (the love that moves mountains) and the teacher's cold rupture: "I don't like your life. I don't like your thinking. I don't like the people you like. Stay away from me." The only thing she was unable to say she didn't like was him (and even if she'd said it we wouldn't believe her, after the ultra-Minnellian scene in which we saw, in-between the evening light and the darkness of night, her hair being untied by Sinatra, with the hairpins falling to the ground). But there are those who proceed through syllogisms (Martha Hyer) and so destroy everything and themselves, and there are those who are beyond any logic. Adults. Children. The teacher. The tramp. The lady. The young and girly.
And from this fact, this film articulates itself, and we notice that all the others are part of a scenery (Kennedy, the wife and the daughter, the French, the secretary, each with their own moments of possible disordering that could save them, but of which they don't take notice), and only the "discordant notes" emerge: beyond MacLaine, there is Dean Martin with his cowboy hat and the dead-silent look with which he passes through the film and loves Sinatra, and the murderer, whose love for Shirley is of the same irrational order as MacLaine's for Sinatra. A trip together, a few instants were enough (as for Sinatra and MacLaine) for him to consider her his wife (but here, MacLaine, loveless, can't understand it) and kill for her.
There have been, and there are, those who consider absurd this final outbreak of the murderous character in the anthological scene at the carnival, the carrousel and all the lights. It is not, for it is all about the same order of love, and so everything spins around him, such as the hundreds of little lights of the "giant wheel" and the most delirious tonal variation that surround the character.
There remains the final shot, with the river and Sinatra knowing that he "must go back in order to start everything over". At the other cinemascope corner, Dean Martin. "Doing like Dean Martin does in Some came running", Minnelli once said. Not the exterior gaze, but the gaze which allows, through beauty, for "the union of opposites": of the "desperate conflicts", of the "ephemeral flairs" (Truchaud). From the fleeting (the couple of shots of the rabbit) to the perennial (the river).
And so we arrive at the temporal dimension of this oneiric film. There is no lack of precise indications of years and days: the 16 years during which Frank Sinatra was away from the land, the Korean post-war, the town's centennial, the initial two days and nights, the hour of the running at the end. But everything passes by and is resolved in instants: the evening-night at Miss French's house, the fabulous MacLaine-Hyer confrontation at the school (the theories the teacher explained to the students incarnated in what Shirley MacLaine knows without needing any explanation, her "thanks so awfully much"), the aforementioned scene of the marriage proposal, the extremely brief shot of the marriage "being done with" ("I'm gonna make you a good wife, Dave. You're not gonna be sorry” – “I believe you”, and everything already becomes tainted by the red of the final blood) and the incredible acceleration of the sequence at the carnival (with Dean Martin in the parallel edit, when there is no longer time for nothing).
And the feeling we get when we remember the film is that there was time for everything (or, time that Frank Sinatra lost) and, as it would be said in Kiss Me Deadly, "suddenly it's too late". Just as one starts asking time to suspend itself, everything falls over vertiginously, as if there had been years and now there were only seconds. It is one of the most astonishing effects of rassourci ever achieved, which grants the whole film a greater oneiric dimension, this oneirism that is the link between Minnelli's films, from the musical to the comedy or the drama.
But there is another temporal dimension which is of interest to discuss today. The meteoric crossing of Shirley MacLaine, or of Ginny to be more exact, through that city and through Sinatra's life is also the crossing of a character typical of the next decade through the characters and sets typical of a fifties' film. The beaten hero from Korea, the cowboy gambler, the well-off banker, the jeune institutrice rangée [young orderly schoolteacher] are all opposed by fleeting visions of another set of values that subverts everything: Ginny, Dawn, the murderer. Through the power of imagination (or through the power given to the imagination), through the upheaval in cause and consequence, through sudden violence, these are the characters who announce the decade of the 60s, putting Some came running straddling between two epochs, two morals, two orders of the real and of the imaginary.
In this sense, Some came running is the last film of the fifties and the first film of the sixties. And it is one of the greatest modern films of Hollywood.
– JOÃO BÉNARD DA COSTA
Menina e Moça, also known as Saudades. The excerpt's translation is ours. The novel was translated into English by Gregory Rabassa as Maiden and Modest: A Renaissance Pastoral Romance. The text in Portuguese, as quoted by Bérnard [not a standard version of the text], is as follows: “Menina e moça me levaram de casa da minha mãe. Qual fosse a causa daquela minha levada, era pequena não na soube então.” The whole excerpt, and especially the opening words, "menina e moça", are rather untranslatable, not only due to their meaning but also to their sound, both of which Bérnard references.
"Mulher perdida", "mulher da vida": in Portuguese, euphemisms for prostitute.
See note nº 1.
Cesário Verde, Manhãs Brumosas.
See note nº2.