From Here to Eternity

Movies that earned several nominations and wins at the Academy Awards can have a degree of prestige placed upon them (unless the wins are viewed as unfounded which can be the case for some), but it’s interesting looking back to see which films were heralded as the best of their respective year and whether their wins were warranted or just a spur-of-the-moment choice. The 1953 American war drama, From Here to Eternity, was at the time of its release tied with the previous holder of this record, Gone with the Wind, for the most Oscars won by a single film, earning categories like Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and even Best Picture. It had strong critical buzz, earned so much money at the box office that it became one of the highest grossing films of the 1950s, and despite taking a softer approach than its 1951 novel written by James Jones, was still able to turn heads for being a little more scandalous and promiscuous than other films at the time.

Set in 1941 at Schofield Barracks in Honolulu, Hawaii, bugler and career soldier Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (played by Montgomery Clift) is a recent transfer who is quickly asked by Captain Dana Holmes (played by Phillip Ober) to join the regiment’s boxing team, yet Prewitt refuses due to previously injuring a fellow boxing friend to the point of blindness. Not taking rejection well, Holmes and the boxing team (made up of several non-commissioned officers) make Prewitt’s life in the ranks a living hell and mistreat him at every turn, only getting the support of his friend, Private Angelo Maggio (played by Frank Sinatra) and First Sergeant Milton Warden (played by Burt Lancaster). The only time of solace for Prewitt comes when he is allowed to get a weekend pass and wander the streets of Hawaii, where he starts a relationship with a social club worker named Alma (played by Donna Reed), which coincides with Warden’s own tumultuous relationship with Karen Holmes (played by Deborah Kerr), the unsatisfied wife of Captain Holmes who is known for sleeping around with other men in retaliation for her husband’s infidelity. With problems to deal with both in and out of the base, these men will need to sort out their personal and relationship issues before the eventual threat of Pearl Harbour lays into them.

From Here to Eternity has a bit of a slow start, a fairly anti-climactic conclusion, and doesn’t perform at its peak due to having most of its content softened to appease censors, but is still able to provide a well-acted, tightly directed, decently written cinematic drama that still feels a little risky even while diluted.

Being a debut novel by Jones who loosely based the story off of personal experiences he endured within the pre-World War II Hawaiian Division’s 27^th Infantry, it told a pretty unfiltered tale all about military corruption, the mistreatment of army soldiers by their commanding officers, and the complicated struggles people deal with in secret under the shadow of a much greater looming threat. While some of Jone’s old company members were displeased that their names were used in a somewhat defaming manner, others stated how most of the book told the story like it was, painting a pretty grim and uncertain picture surrounding an already blotchy time period and whether genuine or not, resulted in a pretty interesting story featuring memorable characters and some pretty shocking subject matters. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that Columbia Pictures picked up the film rights for the book to turn it into a feature, but it’s also not a surprise that the film was heavily censored. Even ignoring the fact that several military forces like the Army and Navy criticized the film for its negative portrayal of commanding officers, the 1950s was also when the Hays Code was rampantly restricting what could and couldn’t be shown on films, which meant the story’s mentioning of sex workers, venereal diseases, homosexuality, and any form of extreme sexual or graphic content was a no go. While you can feel the tweaking in order to appeal to both the army and the HAYS code, the screenwriter for this film, Daniel Taradash, actually does a pretty good job at keeping the story’s grizzled edge and intriguing narrative intact even while it’s getting hacked to pieces.

Any sense of blatant exploration of taboo topics is removed for the sake of suggestive hinting, and while Jones was disgraced to see this form of censoring, the film is still able to get its point across and contain an edge that not a lot of typical mainstream Hollywood features would’ve had in that time. While the opening act is not very engaging and the climax of the story is strangely unfulfilling (which is ridiculous considering it presents Pearl Harbour), the middle portion contains a lot of emotive performances, solid dialogue, and memorable scenes. There are a few dramatic discussions surrounding real-world issues, the mistreatment and violence is heavily toned down but is still mentioned, and while not overly raunchy by today’s standards, seeing Deborah Karr and Burt Lancaster making out on the beachside would’ve been seen as pretty risqué back in the day. The directing by Fred Zimmerman is also pretty good, using his preference for dramatic tragic stories and being a maverick filmmaker who prefers realism over being commercially appealing, to create a fairly gripping story that contains a few melodramatic sequences, but still feels very human and raw in spite of them. It’s paced fairly well, there are plenty of lively scenes, but the dramatic moments also stand out quite nicely, the actors feel very genuine, and the visuals have a personal touch while still looking cinematic, it’s a very well led feature.

This film is littered with a lot of recognisable talent, and each major player had something to either gain or risk from being a part of it. Some are a little less risky, like Frank Sinatra and Deborah Kerr wanting to break away from their old acting personas to be in something more dramatic and risqué, but Burt Lancaster hadn’t become a full-fledged star when he came into this picture and was notably intimidated by working against a veteran like Clift (which is ironic given how the roles feel reversed in the movie proper), who himself got so involved in the acting process (literally learning how to play the bugle and how to box), that it mentally affected him in not the best way, resulting in a few drunken incidents that aren’t pretty to recollect (he even appeared drunk in a few scenes where he was just supposed to be acting). Even with this knowledge, Clift is exceptionally good in this, being able to really convey an earnest vulnerability that is wonderfully engaging, and that mixed with some real-world correlation being present with the role feeling like a stagnant person uncomfortable in his own skin, makes for a captivating role that you want to dissect in order to notice every passing glance or vocal wince.

Burt Lancaster is also very strong as Warden and even if he is attached to a pretty uninteresting romance subplot, his scenes with Clift and within the army base show how he would grow to become a Hollywood star. Frank Sinatra does a pretty good job as the character of Angelo, even if it doesn’t really feel like it was warranting of his Oscar win for Best Supporting Actor (some outside influence definitely helped push that needle across the threshold) and Donna Reed (who also won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress) is also good as the character of Alma, but she’s quickly dropped from the story around the hallway point, so she doesn’t really have a lot to do. Some of the background roles from people like Ernest Borgnine, Phillip Ober, and Jack Warden are pretty archetypal, and Deborah Kerr doesn’t really make for a convincing bitter seductress, but no performance is bad in this and therefore, nothing about the story gets dragged down.

Cooperation with the army was essential when filming this picture because they filmed on location at Schofield Barracks, used training aircrafts when filming the final attack on Pearl Harbour, and even featured stock footage of the attack from the military, so that alongside budgetary reasoning was one of the many reasons they were willing to dampen their story. It was a worthwhile trade-off as the film does feel pretty genuine thanks to filming on location, as the barracks and how the soldiers interact feels very authentic (helped out by Jones’ own experiences). Whether it’s the office spaces, the sleeping areas or even just the exterior where they march and commit to their training, it has an enclosed and before-time energy that helps the audience buy that it’s in the time period (helped out by as of the film’s release, the events only occurred a decade prior). The close quarters camera work by Burnett Guffey brings a believable atmosphere to the picture which is helped out by how well they seem to capture Hawaii, from the beachy clothing choices, the tropical environment, the ambient ukelele music accompaniment, the generally friendly and approachable clientele, it’s a pleasant place to spent such a hectic feature in and makes the inevitable chaos all the more cutting.

From Here to Eternity may not be as titillating or as honest as more modern films about the military are, and there are times when you can feel the hand of the HAYS Code and the military directing the film in a way that doesn’t feel as authentic (there’s a trial scene involving the corrupt captain that feels so forced that it’s clearly only there to present the military as wholly just and honest in the fakest way possible), but even then, it still maintains itself and comes out pretty strong. The opening and ending aren’t anything special and if remade in the modern era, sticking closer to the book would’ve helped give it a more defined personality distant from a regular 1950s Hollywood feature, but it doesn’t feel as ruined as other heavily censored adaptations (even ones that would come much later), and with the help of capable direction, solid scripting, a believable environment and atmosphere, and some really great performances (especially from Clift and Lancaster), it’s still a movie that’s worth checking out. A romantic war feature with little war (and strangely little romance), a film of the past that’s still worth revisiting.