Watch Some Came Running

Dave Hirsh (Frank Sinatra) is a cynical Army veteran who winds up in his hometown of Parkman after being put on a bus in Chicago while intoxicated. Ginny Moorehead (Shirley MacLaine), a woman of seemingly loose morals and poor education, was invited by Dave in his drunken state, but gives her money to return to Chicago because it was a mistake. Hirsh had left Parkman 16 years before when his older brother, Frank (Arthur Kennedy), placed him in a charity boarding school, and is still embittered. Frank has since married well, inherited a jewelry business from the father of his wife Agnes (Leora Dana), and made their social status his highest priority. Dave's return threatens this, so Frank makes a fruitless stab at arranging respectability, introducing him to his friend Professor French (Larry Gates) and his daughter Gwen (Martha Hyer), a schoolteacher. Dave moves in different circles than his brother would prefer, however. He befriends Bama Dillert (Dean Martin), a gambler who has also settled in Parkman. Two factors seem to offer Dave hope and redemption: he takes a fatherly interest in his niece, Frank's daughter, Dawn (Betty Lou Keim), and falls in love with Gwen. Despite his somewhat notorious reputation, Dave is basically a good, honest man, well aware of his own shortcomings. His cynicism is often a mask to hide the pain of rejection. Though Ginny is not his social or intellectual match, he eventually sees the basic good in her and responds to her unconditional love. In the end, Ginny, stalked by her former boyfriend (a Chicago hoodlum), proves the depth of her love for Dave by taking a fatal bullet for him.