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| First Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) has a dangerous affair with the wife (Deborah Kerr) of his commanding officer. |
Release Date: Aug. 5, 1953. Running Time: 118 minutes. Screenplay: Daniel Taradash. Based on the novel by: James Jones. Producer: Buddy Adler. Director: Fred Zinnemann.
THE PLOT:
Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) loves the army. He insists that he's a "thirty year man," intent on making the military a career. But he's also prideful and stubborn - so much so that, after he's passed over for the post of First Bugler, he takes a demotion in order to transfer to Oahu.
Captain Holmes (Philip Ober) is delighted to have him, as Prewitt was a top middleweight boxer at his old regiment and Holmes sees boxing success as a path to promotion. There's only one problem: After accidentally injuring a friend while sparring, Prewitt refuses to box. Holmes prevails on his NCOs to make the private's life miserable until he accedes - but the private seems to actively take pride in enduring it.
First Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) is the man who truly keeps the company going, doing all the administrative work that Holmes ignores. He is initially unimpressed with Prewitt, dubbing him a "hardhead." As the situation goes on, however, he changes his mind. He intercedes when Holmes asks to prepare a court martial against Prewitt, and he even arranges for a weekend pass for the beleagured young man.
Both men become involved in relationships. Prewitt falls for a nightclub hostess (Donna Reed), though Capt. Holmes's "treatment" leaves him with limited opportunities to see her. Ward gets into an even riskier relationship, striking up an affair with Karen (Deborah Kerr), the captain's wife - which, if it became known, could end his career and even leave him in prison!
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| Warden meets the newest addition to the regiment: "hardhead" Private Prewitt (Montgomery Clift). |
CHARACTERS:
Sergeant Warden: Though he labels Prewitt a "hardhead," he's just as stubborn in his own way. Karen suggests that much of their dilemma would be solved if he applied to become an officer. The movie repeatedly demonstrates that he is a born leader and a gifted administrator, and everyone he mentions the idea to agrees that he would be a fine officer. Still, he resists the move - even though, inevitably, he's the one who takes charge when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Even this sequence contains a reminder that Ward limits his potential by refusing to advance, when he's delayed in getting weapons to his men because no officer is present to authorize it.
Private Prewitt: While he admits that the "treatment" he's receiving from Holmes's NCOs has him on edge, he seems to take a perverse sort of pride in enduring it. He refuses his friends' urgings to file a formal complaint. He says something about not wanting to "give (Holmes) the satisfaction," but that makes little sense; even by this point in the film, enough anecdotal evidence has accumulated that any investigation would likely give the promotion-happy captain the opposite of satisfaction. He absolutely should report the situation, not only for himself but for all the other soldiers Holmes has/will similarly torment; the "treatment" is so casually done that there's no way Prewitt's is the first case. Still, he just can't bring himself to involve others in what he sees as "his" problem.
His refusal to box is not simple stubbornness, however. We learn midway through the film exactly how badly his fellow boxer was injured, and that it happened as a result of a very normal punch to the head. This has left Prewitt afraid - not of potential injury to himself, but of inflicting a similar injury on others. Even when he is pushed into a fight late in the film with one of his tormenters, he spends most of the fight specifically avoiding any punches to the other man's head.
Karen: When Captain Holmes's wife is introduced, we're told that she's promiscuous. Seeing Ward's interest in her, one of his friends tells him that it's not just rumors - something he knows because he was one of the men. When Ward confronts her, she scornfully tells him exactly what led her to turn to other men. Deborah Kerr, who up to this point had been typecast as idealized "good girls," seems to relish playing the character's angry bitterness. She only gets one scene of substance opposite her husband, but it's also a striking moment, as she responds to him with contempt sharp enough to cut through steel... a contempt that, by this point, we know he has entirely earned.
Alma/Lurene: Also cast against type is Donna Reed, who would go on to win the Supporting Actress Oscar as the "hostess" (Hays Code speak for prostitute) with whom Prewitt falls in love. Though she goes by "Lurene" so that she'll sound more exotic for the customers, her real name is Alma. She has a firm plan for her future. She carefully saves the money she makes. Once she has a pre-set amount in savings, she will stop working and return home to buy a house and live a "proper" life. That Prewitt doesn't really fit into that plan is not lost on either of them. The final scene sees her talking openly about Prewitt on the one hand... but on the other hand, every word she says about him is a lie.
Private Angelo Maggio: Frank Sinatra also won an Oscar - and, more importantly, changed the course of his career with his energetic performance as Prewitt's likable best friend. Sensationalism aside, I'm fairly sure that no horse appendages ended up in anyone's bed to secure his casting. Sinatra was persistent in lobbying for the part, even paying for his own screen test; and since his career was at a low ebb, his very recognizable name value came with a ridiculously cheap $8,000 price tag. He's also perfect in the role. He brings a sort of weary cheerfulness to the downtrodden Maggio. He's almost always seen with a smile, but there's a hint of something pathetic about him, and his hot temper speaks of hidden resentments. Sinatra has excellent buddy chemistry with Montgomery Clift, whom he would later credit with helping him with his performance.
"Fatso" Judson: Yet another case of excellent casting, with a young Ernest Borgnine memorably chilling as the sadistic stockade sergeant. When Prewitt and Maggio first encounter him, they're warned that he enjoys violence. He's the last person either of them should antagonize... which means that Maggio inevitably picks a fight. Judson warns Maggio that someday, he'll end up in his stockade, and then “I'll show you a couple of things.” It would have been easy to overplay this, but Borgnine doesn't even deliver the line as a threat. He just states it, calmly and simply, as an immutable fact.
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| Maggio (Frank Sinatra) antagonizes sadistic stockade sergeant "Fatso" Judson (Ernest Borgnine). |
FILMING THE UNFILMABLE NOVEL:
James Jones's novel, From Here to Eternity, was regarded as unfilmable. It was long - almost 1,000 pages - and that page count was not in any way inflated with big print or wide margins (quite the opposite). It was a work that was highly critical of military culture, which was a problem when Army cooperation would be needed to film it with any degree of authenticity. On top of all that, the book featured frank sexuality that was woven into the work in such a way that it was difficult to imagine the story working without it.
Somehow, screenwriter Daniel Taradash managed to deal with all of these issues without losing the core of what made the novel so memorable. I'd even go so far as to say that the film improves on the book in many respects. Subplots are either simplified or pruned away entirely. Profanities have been removed, but the spoken dialogue still feels real. Many minor characters have been deleted, and others have been merged; notably, Frank Sinatra's Maggio fills the role not only of book Maggio, but also of some minor prisoners tormented by Judson in the novel. This makes the Judson subplot more focused and more personal to both Prewitt and the viewer.
The movie implies brutality instead of showing it. When Maggio inevitably ends up in Judson's stockade, the viewer is never directly shown the violence. The conflict between the two men has already been established, and all that is directly shown is a single moment. Maggio is taken before Judson, who smiles in recognition. Judson's billy club sits on his desk, and the man waits until Maggio sees it and looks at it. Then Judson reaches out for the weapon - and the scene fades to black. We don't see anything more, and we don't need to. The simple gestures of Maggio staring at the club, followed by Judson reaching for it, tell the full story.
When I reviewed producer David Selznick's Rebecca, I posted a supplemental essay about Selznick's struggles against the Hays Code. I noted that Hays Office dictates resulted in severe compromises to Rebecca's story. It's still a fine movie, but its impact was blunted by the demands of the Code.
Well, From Here to Eternity may represent the other end of the scale. This is a movie that I think is better for having to work within those constraints. There is still a heavy carnal element to the relationship between Warden and Karen, which is all the stronger thanks to the chemistry between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr - but that element is never the point of their scenes, which always focus tightly on the two characters.
Even the famous beach embrace is followed by a character-focused monologue, as Karen recalls the miscarriage that was made into a medical crisis by her husband's drunkenness. This is another change from the novel, in which her bitterness and infidelities began after her husband passed an STD to her... and it's yet another alteration that I find to be for the better.
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| Alma (Donna Reed), Prewitt's love interest, has no room for him in her carefully planned future. |
OTHER MUSINGS:
Director Fred Zinnemann focuses on making the film feel as real as possible to the viewer. He shot in black-and-white and in the standard 1.33:1 format, feeling that either color or widescreen (which was just emerging) would be distractions. He shoots in an almost documentary style. Visual flourishes are kept to a minimum, with the waves crashing over Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr as they embrace on the beach being the most "Hollywood" image presented.
This approach extends to the performances. There are plenty of quotable lines. Prewitt responds to Warden's hesitation about applying as an officer candidate by telling him that "a man should be what he can do." He replies to Alma's confessions by saying that "nobody ever lies about being lonely." But, as with Ernest Borgnine's deliveries of Judson's threats, lines like these are simply spoken. The sense is of people talking, and sometimes stumbling across eloquence without knowing it, rather than of actors chewing on movie quotes.
I think this has helped From Here to Eternity to age better than many of its contemporaries. The story is as much a soap opera as the one in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show On Earth. It's the presentation that makes this soap opera feel more meaningful than that one did. Characters are shown as ordinary people, and the world in which they exist feels lived-in. What might have come across as cheap melodrama ends up feeling grounded and real, which keeps the story involving.
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| The mournful bugler: Prewitt plays 'Taps.' |
REMAKES AND RETELLINGS:
While there has been no direct remake on the bigscreen, there have been a couple of attempts to retell this story for television.
In 1966, a thirty-minute pilot was shot with Darren McGavin in the role of Warden. It was not picked up as a series, which was likely a good choice.
A 1979 miniseries saw William Devane and Natalie Wood taking over for Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. I haven't seen it, but it was generally well reviewed and was highly successful. Proving that network execs don't know when to quit, it then became a weekly series, with Devane but minus Natalie Wood. It lasted all of twelve episodes, as strong initial ratings rapidly tailed off. The back half of the series was repackaged as TV movies, burned off throughout 1980 during what would otherwise have been rerun season.
OVERALL:
1953's From Here to Eternity benefits from strong direction, excellent performances across the board, and an adaptation that captures the spirit of the novel while paring the story down to its essentials. It's a rare film that I prefer to its source novel, and time has been kind to most of the choices made in this adaptation.
Overall Rating: 9/10.
Best Motion Picture - 1952: The Greatest Show on Earth
Best Motion Picture - 1954: On the Waterfront
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