Plot Intro
It’s 1941 at a military barracks in Hawaii - with Pearl Harbour just around the corner. Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) is new to the barracks, and when he refuses to participate in the boxing team, despite his prowess, his commanding officer, Holmes, bullies and punishes him unjustly. He does, however, find a friend in Private Maggio (Frank Sinatra) and love interest in Loreen (Donna Reed). Meanwhile, the commanding officer’s hapless wife, Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr) conducts an affair with Sergeant Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster) and they are particularly amorous amongst the sea’s waves...
Doug says...
More than anything I am beginning to get a sense of the cinema’s place in the lives of 1940s and ‘50s cinema-goers. As we sit down each Sunday to watch a classic film, I find I am swept up into it, given some exotic voyage or travel away from the mundane normalities of everyday life. And while I think film today has a position of ‘entertainment’, there’s far more obvious attempting to transport the viewer in these old Hollywood flicks. The music is surround-sound and sweeping, the frames are gorgeous and elegant, and there’s little attempt to make you think beyond the storyline - no symbolism that a viewer needs to grasp to enjoy what’s happening.
The 1950s has been particularly strong so far, with films that pull you right into the storyline and while An American In Paris was an odd piece, it still acted as a vibrant splash of colour. We’ve had Bette Davis roaring through All About Eve and last week’s spectacular circus fiesta The Greatest Show on Earth. So it’s with a little nonplussed confusion that I record From Here To Eternity as our first ‘meh’ film of the decade.
It’s got all the facets of one of the ‘trapped’ films - think Casablanca where they are all waiting to escape the Third Reich, or even The Best Years Of Our Lives where the returning soldiers are back in their old lives and trapped among attitudes they no longer understand. But while it’s a sweet film, and Deborah Kerr looks fab, there’s no real attempt to make you sympathise with the characters or actually get emotionally involved.
I think what this film signifies more than anything is a change in certain attitudes. For the first time we have a married woman having a (highly charged) affair. We also have a critical eye cast at the army and the bullying behaviours it can foster. It’s notable as the film that revived Frank Sinatra’s flagging career (and he does turn in a very respectable performance) and of course has that beach kiss scene.
Is it terrible? By no means. It’s a good story and the dramatic irony of us knowing the Pearl Harbor attacks are imminent lends an air of danger to the whole piece. But is it memorable - note-worthy - important? Probably not. I doubt a film like this would snatch any trophies today, but by putting the still-recent war at the heart of the film, they have instantly drawn in the audiences of 1953, and connected with them in a way that we will never be able to. For us nowadays, it’s just a bit bland.
Highlight
There’s not much that stands out, but there was a great turn from the not-a-brothel-but-clearly-actually-a-brothel’s madam who despises drunk soldiers and yet relies on them.
Lowlight
Not much to criticise here as nothing really stood out as great or awful. Probably the bad editing of clearly archive footage of bombings cut with the cast looking scared and running away.
Mark
5/10
Paul says...
What’s interesting about From Here to Eternity is that we have returned to the recurrent war theme for the first time since 1946’s The Best Years of Our Lives but with a new perspective. The war films of the early ‘40s like Mrs Miniver and Casablanca displayed the war as it was happening. Eternity is looking back on the war, with eyes that have seen the full extent of its effects, ranging from the massacres in the concentration camps to the long-term mental health problems endured by the officers who fought. Naturally, this is a different depiction of soldiers at war. Mrs Miniver and Casablanca didn’t shy away from showing humanity struggling whilst fighting, but it was obvious who our heroes were and which values we were supposed to condone.
Eternity takes an alternative path. Here, virtually everyone is so messed up due to something traumatic from their past, that their actions are either villainous or downright daft. And I think we’re meant to sympathise with all of them - right from the lovelorn wife whose husband cheats on her, so she conducts her own affair, to the Private so determined to go on a bender that he abandons his watch duty and ends up in the barracks’ equivalent of a prison. With audiences and film-makers alike still reflecting on the war that ended eight years beforehand, suddenly the good and bad characters are no longer cleanly divided, and audiences are asked to feel for people who act badly because they are in a bad situation.
No wonder such as film swept up eight Oscars. But has it stood the test of time? Well, not entirely. As interesting as it is, I didn’t feel a huge emotional attachment to any of the characters. Perhaps I’m not supposed to- perhaps this is designed to be more of a documentary than a drama. But I would like to feel something for me to be totally transported. Sinatra, usually raved about by virtually everyone, felt like that annoying comic-relief side character whom all the other characters love but, in real life, would come across as annoying. He comes in with a big cheesy grin, acts all jovial and charismatic, and then exits. He was very much the Scrappy Doo of the film for me. And Lancaster and Clift stunk so much of testosterone-laden masculinity with their brick-wall postures and frequent aggression that they didn’t appeal much to me.
The women of the picture, Kerr and Reed, had a little more to offer. The two characters are almost entirely unrelated in the film and only meet in the very final bittersweet scene. The complexities of their characters felt more natural to me than the more bellicose men. Kerr is lonely and unloved, but also quite demanding and self-involved, while Reed has a good heart but then makes up an entire story about her love interest being more heroic than he actually is- displaying society’s need for a Perfect Hero, and her insecurities that result from this. I would have liked more insight into that side of her, and into this idea of the imperfect hero, as we only see it in the closing seconds of the film.
From Here to Eternity is essentially a military-based soap opera. There are various storylines interweaving, providing insight into the darker side of war, but none of them are especially powerful from a modern perspective because they never really build up or climax. There’s a sense that we are entering in media res, and leaving without a full conclusion - needing a second season or a sequel. It’s a snapshot, but it could have been a full photo album.
Highlight
The final scene that suddenly provides extra dimensions to both female leads.
Lowlight
Frank Sinatra was too cheesy and musical-theatre-esque for me to be engaged.
Mark
4/10
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