People like this one much more than I did… I’m losing my touch, I’m enjoying the wrong movies. I figured Minnelli plus Shirley MacLaine as an automatic good time, and throw in Frank and Dean for some buddy comedy, but everyone’s in morose drama mode, enacting a novel by James Jones and trying to replicate From Here to Eternity‘s oscar success.

The first problem is casting Frank and letting his brother be named Frank. They changed the ending of the novel, killing off Shirley instead of Sinatra, they couldn’t change a character name? Sinatra wishes the annoyingly intellectual Martha Hyer would fall for him, he shacks up with traveling gambler Dean, and finally settles for Shirley since she won’t leave.

L-R: Frank’s Brother Frank, the real Frank, Agnes and Dawn: