Frank Sinatra plays a no-goodnik ex-soldier and frustrated writer, hard-living and hard-drinking, who returns to his Midwestern hometown and reunites with his estranged brother (Arthur Kennedy), now the town big-shot with a disinterested wife and headstrong daughter. Frank gets involved with gambler Dean Martin, uneducated flooze Shirley MacLaine, and has some run-ins with the law, but what he really wants to do is write and settle down with a good woman. Over-simplified drama verging on soap opera, with a role for MacLaine that is by turns overly 'colorful' and embarrassingly sentimental (her drunken belting on "After You've Gone" is however the film's highlight, and is expertly handled). Director Vincente Minnelli oversees it in straight-forward fashion, but he's in surprisingly glum spirits and most of the big scenes are flat or dense. The picture looks incredibly handsome in widescreen, with a nice eye for detail and composition, but the story and these characters are stuck in the dregs. ** from ****
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