From Here to Eternity

One of the big blockbuster best sellers of the post World War II years is James Jones's From Here to Eternity, a tale of the peacetime army in Hawaii before Pearl Harbor. The book was definitely going to be made into a film and it was only a question of casting to make it a success.

Director Fred Zinneman had a good intuitive sense about casting here, even against type. The two principal female parts were done against type. Deborah Kerr who made a career of playing respectable women played a captain's wife who's drinking and playing around. Not that husband Philip Ober is letting grass grow under his feet either, but Kerr's latest sexual exploit involves her with the First Sergeant of her husband's company, Burt Lancaster.

Donna Reed, who up to that point was best known for being Mary Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life, plays a prostitute here. A girl from the wrong side of the tracks, jilted by a rich boyfriend stateside, she's in Hawaii to make money and then go home and buy some respectability. She's not looking for romance with any soldiers, but you can't plan these things.

Especially Montgomery Clift if he comes in your life. It's been argued that this is Clift's greatest role and a case can sure be made for it. His character of Robert E. Lee Pruitt is like so many who still join the army today, from small town America who have no future there and find a home in the Armed Services. What makes Clift unique is that strong sense of individualism he can't control in an organization that does not encourage individuality.

Clift and Lancaster are a great study in contrasts and that's what drives From Here to Eternity. Lancaster as Sergeant Milt Warden is the ultimate professional soldier, held in the highest regard by his men. Lancaster is someone who knows how to work the system, you see it in the way he manipulates his captain. Of course he's got to be a manipulator there since he's having an affair with Deborah Kerr. He tries to protect Clift from himself and ultimately fails.

Clift has transferred into an infantry company and he was at one time a boxer. But he blinded someone in a fight and quit boxing. Philip Ober who prides himself on having several champions in various weight classes worked to get Clift in his company. Clift upsets his plans by refusing to box so he has the various sergeants give him "the treatment."

Clift's best friend in the company is a tough street wise soldier from the big city named Angelo Maggio, played by Frank Sinatra. Sinatra read the book and knew this part was for him. He did everything he had to do to get that part, including working for scale. At the time Sinatra was considered a has been as singer and actor. Sinatra was right on the money in terms of picking a role. His faith in himself and Columbia Pictures and Fred Zinneman's faith in him netted him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, one of eight awards won by From Here to Eternity.

By the way Sinatra credited both Lancaster and Clift in helping him through this film as a dramatic actor. Lancaster and Sinatra didn't inhabit the same Hollywood orbit, but they remained friends for life. The same could not be said for Clift. Allegedly, some five or six years after From Here to Eternity and after Monty Clift's automobile accident while shooting Raintree County, Clift at some party at Sinatra's made a drunken pass at one of Sinatra's retainers. That got him kicked out of Sinatra's circle permanently.

In fact From Here to Eternity was also the Best Picture of 1953, with Zinneman getting his second Best Director Oscar in a row after the one he took home in 1952 for High Noon. Donna Reed won for Best Supporting Acress. Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift were both nominated for Best Actor, but split the vote allowing William Holden to win for Stalag 17. Another great acting job itself. And Kerr was up for Best Actress, but lost to Audrey Hepburn for Roman Holiday.

From Here to Eternity is a film loaded with good actors in small roles who got their first notice in this film. Ernest Borgnine, Robert J. Wilkie, Claude Akins, Jack Warden, Mickey Shaughnessy, all play various soldiers and each one is memorable. Especially Borgnine as the vicious sadistic sergeant of the stockade.

TV's Superman was in From Here to Eternity also. George Reeves who was looking to escape the typecasting from Superman has a part as another sergeant who warns Lancaster about Deborah Kerr. He gave a fine performance, but most of it wound up on the cutting room floor. That would have unforeseen tragic consequences.

This is not any kind of glamorous army. These people are all too real and not very noble. The original novel was toned down quite a bit for the screen. But when the attack on Pearl Harbor comes, the men rise to the occasion, do their jobs in a more than competent manner and led by Burt Lancaster in that company. It's these men who won that war in the Pacific and the one in Europe as well and From Here to Eternity despite the less than noble portrayals of them as individuals is a great tribute to them as a team.

James Jone's novel was deemed impossible to put onto the screen {how many times have we heard that one before?}, but nobody told director Fred Zinnerman and the cast of dreams. Troubles with the making of the film were many, the film was thwarted by a censorship requirement that the army not be portrayed as careless and over brutal, and some of the sexual themes from the novel had to be toned down. Zinneman also had to fight a continuous battle with Columbia's head ego tripper Harry Cohn. He interfered with every script that was shown to him, and casting was also a tough thing to achieve with Cohn trying to call the shots. As it turned out we got one of the best composition of actors in one film to have ever graced the screen.

From Here To Eternity is a film about the lives and loves of a number of characters at Schofield Barracks-Pearl Harbor, just prior to the infamous attack by the Japanese that changed WW2. Illicit affairs, friendship, nobility, bravery and cruelty come crashing together in one gigantic lavish production that defines the word classic. Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Warden, Deborah Kerr, and Donna Reed all give performances that any other actor would be proud to have given. On another day they all could have won awards such was the strength of performance they all gave. Reed & Sinatra won best supporting Oscars, while Fred Zinneman rightly won for best director to cement the film winning outright for best picture. Yet the film's crowning glory didn't win an award, for to me, Montogomery Clift gives one of the best performances in motion picture history, it's layered to perfection and it's one of those character portrayals that has me involved to the point of exhaustion. One scene in which he plays a bugle lament as tears roll down his face is just stunning, and I know how he feels because I cry along with him to, such is my involvement with his turn as Robert E. Lee Prewitt.

Laced with memorable scenes {the kiss, the bugle lament, Lancaster blasting away at the Japanese planes with machine gun in hand}, and performances to match, From Here To Eternity is essential cinema to be viewed every year and homaged and praised whenever possible. 10/10 in every single respect.

... from what we feed on these days and perhaps only of relevance as an artefact of the time it was released and the period it reflects, the way we behave and interact in the real world has changed unrecognisably since. It does, however, deliver us some top drawer performances from some genuinely talented performers, most of them to go on to much bigger and better things. All in all, a solid 1950s era film set in the prior decade before the outbreak of war, it uses multiple and interlinked sub plots to show us the sorrow and sadness experienced by numerous characters as a result of the choices they've made, the people they met and how they interacted.

1941. Private `Prew' Prewitt has been transferred to Hawaii. His new captain is keen to get promoted and sees Prew's former boxing prowess as his way to get noticed. However Prew has given up boxing and refuses to join the team – leading the Captain to punish him in many different ways. Meanwhile Sergeant Warden is beginning an affair with the Captains maltreated wife. Prew himself finds a girl but his friend Maggio has conflict with Sergeant Judson. Meanwhile the threat of attack looms.

This is most famous for Warden and Holmes' adulterous passion as the waves lash over them. Probably people who haven't seen the film will still know that scene. However this film is much more than that. The plot has several main strands – mostly involving romance – running through it. It works well but it is really a soapy melodrama at the end of it all. This doesn't mean it's not enjoyable and intense but it is really that basic. The Pearl Harbour attack is tacked onto the end and didn't really grab me.

The central relationships are OK but the film is strongest in some very good male performances. Clift is great as the put upon private, while Lancaster deserves recognition for more than just snogging Kerr on a beach. Kerr and Reed are OK – Kerr is better but none of the female roles are as good as the male leads. Warden, Sinatra and Borgnine are all great support and steal the show when they are on screen (Sinatra especially).

Overall I was surprised to see this film being hailed so high in many polls. I found it to be involving, interesting and well acted but at it's core it is a melodrama that has a few bangs at the end. Worth a watch.

I really enjoyed this film. Frank Sinatra walked away with the Oscar, but I thought Montgomery Clift's performance was the standout. I know they weren't competing against one another, but if any actor were to win an Oscar I would have preferred Clift. Lancaster and Kerr gave the other great performances. I liked the interaction between Clift's and Lancaster's characters, particularly in the scene when Lancaster is telling Clift he could avoid fatigue duties 'if he were smart'. Clift replies 'Yeah, but I ain't smart', and Lancaster says 'I know, I know but if you were...'

I thought the best parts of this film came from the great acting of Kerr, Lancaster and Clift. It may suffer from being called a classic, making people's expectations high, but I thought it was very enjoyable.