 "Involving Military Soap Opera Elevated by Sturdy Performances from an Offbeat Cast" | 2009-08-17 |
| - Reviewed By ed_uyeshima |
In hindsight, this 1953 classic doesn't seem as much a military drama as it does a highly charged soap opera, which shouldn't come as a surprise given that master filmmaker Fred Zinnemann (The Nun's Story) was at the helm. The veteran director upended the western genre just a year earlier with the Gary Cooper classic High Noon, and he places the same incendiary focus of character over action here, that is, until the inevitable climax which uses the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as a catharsis for the characters' dilemmas now dwarfed by the coming world war.
Based on James Jones' epic novel, screenwriter Daniel Taradash manages to reduce the complexity of the book's themes without trivializing them, and then-offbeat casting enhances the movie immeasurably. Set on a U.S. Army base in Hawaii in the months leading up to the attack, the focus is on two men, both dedicated to the military with no aspirations to become the officers they have grown to detest. One is Private Robert E. Prewitt, a talented boxer (and bugler) who refuses to fight on his regiment's team since blinding a sparring partner. The other is First Sergeant Milton Warden, a take-charge, professional soldier who earns the trust of his men even as he kowtows to his weak-willed commanding officer.
Life in the barracks is fraught with adversarial personalities, chief among them Private Angelo Maggio, Prewitt's loudmouthed best friend, and Staff Sergeant "Fatso" Judson, the sadistic stockade warden. Both Prewitt and Warden meet women who seek to change their lives. Prewitt finds cynical nightclub "hostess" Lorene at a brothel masquerading as a social club, while Warden embarks on a passionate affair with his commanding officer's wayward wife Karen. Burt Lancaster is well cast as Warden, and he brings surprising nuance to his character's clandestine encounters with Karen. However, it's Montgomery Clift - despite looking too slight to be genuinely believable as a boxer - who transcends his loner role by playing off his innately sensitive nature to portray a man who will never sacrifice his honor despite how dire the consequences. Well within his comfort zone, Frank Sinatra's turn as Maggio is small but impactful.
Still two years away from Marty, Ernest Borgnine makes Judson's malevolence palpable in just a few scenes. Deborah Kerr submerges her Scottish accent and previous lady-like demeanor to reveal the embittered, sexually assertive side of Karen without sacrificing any of the character's vulnerability. The legendary, much-parodied beach scene with Lancaster still sizzles after all these years. Similarly, Donna Reed foregoes her good-girl image (epitomized by her memorable turn as Mary Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life) to play the sultry, delusional Lorene. The 2003 DVD comes with a small set of extras - a three-minute making-of retrospective short, a nine-minute collection of on-set footage and interviews from a documentary entitled "Fred Zinnemann: As I See It", and the original theatrical trailer. The best extra is the commentary track from Tim Zinnemann (the director's son) and screenwriter Alvin Sargent (Spider-Man 2), who had a small role in the movie. |
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 "Gazing at stars" | 2009-07-04 |
| - Reviewed By duibuqi |
I am spending some time on July 4th with American movie classics. Fred Zinnemann's film version of James Jones' novel about the last days before Pearl Harbour in an army outfit in a Hawaii barracks is great Hollywood.
But really, Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr are not doing their stuff in the surf while the bombs are falling, as the DVD cover seems to suggest by mounting the surf tumble together with the bomber squad. That's annoying.
Apart from the stupid DVD cover I have not much to complain about.
Well, maybe one might observe that Frank Sinatra's part and his acting are not really all that great. As everyone knows from the Godfather, Sinatra got his part through connections... of course Puzo didn't really prove his claim, but it does sound plausible.
The rest is bright shining honest star-based professional cinema. Clift, Lancaster, and the 2 girls Kerr and Reed are just too true to be good. Marvellous show. And Borgnine as the evil one.
Hollywood rarely got much better.
(The star deduction is for the DVD cover photo and for Sinatra's make believe performance.) |
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| "Pearl Harbor Background for Human Destinies" | 2009-05-04 |
| - Reviewed By antobert |
| Sweeping Oscars in 1953, this war drama becomes truly war at the very end, when the two main characters - brave soldiers played by Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift - are along with their female darlings caught in the fire of 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the first US movies to deal with this blow dealt by Japan, "From Here to Eternity" nevertheless pushed forward the boundaries for various topics in film, having come not ahead of its time, but right at the nick of it. Frankness in intimate relationships, violence and army abuse are tackled with realism unheard-of before. The film has somehow got dated with time, but it still is carried on broad shoulders of Burt Lancaster, whose steaming beach encounter with Deborah Kerr (wife of his superior) remains among the most memorable love scenes ever put on the screen. Another main character, Robert E.Lee Prewitt (then bright young star Clift), is the centerpiece of the story. The talented boxer and bugle-man, who nevertheless has his own code of conduct, becomes an outcast of the army machinery despite his very desirable soldier qualities. The role of his friend Maggio brought a Best Supporting Oscar to Frank Sinatra, who allegedly got the role thanks to his underworld connections. Donna Reed (It's A Wonderful Life) won one for actresses as Prewitt's flame Alma, a luxurious prostitute whose only dream is to return home with the money and live a "decent" life. The film also got six more Academy Awards (total eight of 13 noms), including Best Picture and Best Director for Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, A Man for All Seasons). |
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| "From Here to a Classic" | 2008-08-22 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3H272CYY2ESHN |
| From Here to Eternity is more than the classic scene of Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster rolling around on a beach, covered in ocean waves. It's a story about America during World War II. It's about human beings trying to live normal lives during an abnormal time. Taking place just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this is more than a war movie. It's a human story of love, honor, humor, and hope. Anyone who enjoys real-life drama will appreciate this well-written and well-acted story.From Here to Eternity (Superbit Collection) |
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 "Doesn't hold up well with time" | 2008-08-13 |
| - Reviewed By longrush |
Seeing this movie again after 50 years I felt a certain disappointment. There were just too many difficulties to overcome when this was made, all owing to the strict censorship of the time.
(1) The realistic, if very profane, language spoken by soldiers could not be used in the 1950s. The language of the novel was a big departure in popular American fiction, and the movies had not caught up with readers.
(2) The extra-marital affairs were treated somewhat mysteriously. Sex scenes are either eliminated or indicated by crashing waves. If the movie goer didn't know the "code," some scenes were lost.
(3) The Donna Reed character was a prostitute in the book, but in the movie she was like a USO hostess who never ever went upstairs with the boys. This takes away from the angst Prewitt feels about her.
(4) The violence was substantially downplayed, especially in the alley knife fight and in the long fistfight, where the men land haymakers and no one has so much as a bloody nose or a fat lip. Hollywood has never staged a realistic fight.
(5) The captain is forced to resign for his evil doing, but in the book he is praised by his superiors. The Army wouldn't allow the use of their facilities without this "correction."
This is a brief overview of the problems. If this were to be remade today, it would be much grittier and much more realistic. There are some good moments, such as the Pearl Harbor attack, but they are not enough to erase the flaws. |
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| "An All-Time Great but Too Bad About the DVD!" | 2008-05-08 |
| - Reviewed By fredster5 |
This is an all-time great film for many reasons and should be in any film buff's dvd library. The screenplay is excellent and in a rarity for the time, there is really no happy ending at all and what I really liked about the film is that it came across as sincere and true to life; it hit home that in life, we don't always get the happy ending that we want at least not in the short term. The acting is also very, very good even for the often underrated Montgomery Clift who never got his due as a great actor not only for this brilliant role but also for his work in "The Misfits" and "A Place In the Sun". I thought Donna Reed was even better here than in "It's a Wonderful Life". Frank Sinatra thoroughly deserved his Oscar too.
One thing that is regrettable though is that this film wasn't made in colour which is a real waste of a wonderful setting. Having lived in Honolulu for a few years I can tell you that black and white doesn't do justice to what must be among the most beautiful settings that you can find in the world for any film let alone this masterpiece. In fact, among the special features is a clip of director Fred Zinnemann's home movies from the set and even that was in colour! The featurette "The Making of From Here To Eternity" was very good as well as the excerpt from "Fred Zinnemann: As I See It" which is where we get to see his home movies.
Too bad the dvd hasn't been restored well and so the picture and sound quality is poor. The good news is that with the advent of Blu-ray, the powers that be have the opportunity to do a much better restoration job on this great classic. Let's hope they clean up the picture frame-by-frame and provide at least Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound options of a superiorly remastered sound.
Great movie but you may want to wait for a better dvd version. |
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