During the summer of 1948, Dave Hirsch left the army all crowned with a glorious past warrior. Novelist in the making, but inveterate playboy, he tumbles one fine morning by coach to Parkman, his hometown in Indiana. It is followed by Ginnie Moorehead, a girl in frilly he remembers only relic of its well-soaked evening of yesterday. Dave finds his family, including his brother and his opposite: Frank, very conventional, tidy and prosperous. While Dave befriends a man with his environment, Bama Dillert, disillusioned professional player, his brother it presents Gwen French, a teacher as attractive as strict.
Like a flood saw Vincente Minnelli go at great genre in vogue in Hollywood in the late fifties, the great melodrama. The film therefore has all the keys that are associated with this period as part provincial bourgeois neat revealing a darker side, the sexual dimension underlying transgressive and some social reflection. Lovers of Douglas Sirk, Mark Robson and certain films Delmer Daves is therefore familiar ground although Minnelli manages to find its own path despite these conventions. It is the novel by James Jones, whose film is suited for finding a particular tone with more heroes played by Frank Sinatra who seems to be an extension of the one he played in From Here to Eternity the other transpose celebrated by James Jones A few years earlier. Sinatra is Dave Hirsch, a former soldier back in his hometown and grunting his bitterness and resentment in alcohol since he abandoned a promising career as a writer.
The drama of the film at first seems to be in the thwarted love of Dave with the teacher Gwen Eng (Martha Hyer) who admirer of his talent and not indifferent to its charm is nonetheless repelled by his dissolute lifestyle for girls, gambling and evening watering. Despite the conviction impeccable actors (Martha Hyer is excellent provincial psycho) that romance is terribly Longuet and winded, the issues raised appear to disrupt it really limited and dated as based solely on the reluctance of Gwen rather than a real drama human. The subplots are equally ill-introduced with the detestable character of brother Arthur Kennedy who played heavily brings all facets are expected to arise in this type of framework Provincial know the weight of rumor and hypocrisy that this does not make sense in the frame very breadsticks. 
Just can t we cling to the splendid success of the plastic film (but it expects no less of a Minnelli) including this dramatic love scene where Gwen yields for the only time Dave. Disturbed by the news of her she just read, it yields almost without his knowledge and while he slowly off the hair, kissing him he's completely shedding inhibitions of his severe hairstyle. The frame is tightened, the picture darkens to leave the two lovers indulge their passion in the dark for a moment of incredibly erotic. The film, however, offers few such flights of steps and finally polished with boredom. 
Any flaws are less prohibitive if we had guessed the true heroine of the movie to find out Shirley MacLaine. Girl lost behind Sinatra's followed by love it when they barely know, long sought its usefulness throughout history. The look vulgar and daubed makeup, her simple-mindedness makes it more pathetic than anything compared to the protagonists more "profound" that surround it. Yet it is the emotional heart the film, because it is the only fully afford, without calculation, with all its faults and ready to accept those of the man she loves. The last part is more focused on it is the most touching and poignant. Her awkwardness makes it terribly endearing at times when she goes to see Gwen being prepared to give way for him (although the latter has a hollow reaction of pride and contempt) as when drunk Dave's words when he reads his new although it does not understand the meaning. 
The torrent expressed in the French title is good and delivery Shirley MacLaine beautiful flower skin and she moved, transcending the shortcomings of the film one last time with a final poignant sacrifice while leading the rebound was most winded, although the sequence is brilliantly filmed. Kind of grain of sand in the mechanical and oiled expected this melodrama McLaine gives all its interest and will be rewarded with a nomination for an Oscar that will attract attention to herself for the famous The Bachelor Wilder. And behind it will also help integrate the famous Rat Pack through friendships born of shooting with Dean Martin and Sinatra. Released on DVD zone 2 french Warner
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