From Here to Eternity

I have been slacking on my 35 by 35 goal to watch all the Best Picture winners. Luckily I'm getting helped out by Fathom Events, which today showed the 1953 Best Picture Winner From Here to Eternity. Most remember this film for the iconic kissing on the beach scene. And the scene did not disappoint, even if Ben Mankiewicz joked after the film that it was film on a studio back lot with stand-ins (all untrue!)

From Here to Eternity is the story of two men, both in the Army in Hawaii just before Pearl Harbor is attacked, and the women in their lives. Sgt. Warden, played by the handsome Burt Lancaster, is an enlisted man who runs Company G for the never-present General Holmes. The General decides promotions based on which soldier fights in the yearly boxing matches. Just-transferred Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (the dreamy Montgomery Clift) used to be a middleweight fighter but doesn't want to fight anymore. This causes a lot of trouble for him, as the General needs to win the boxing matches for a promotion for himself.

I found the backbone of this story - the men treating Prewitt bad because he won't box - to be rather thin. With all the things a soldier in the Army needs to do, these guys are really concerned because one of them isn't going to box?

Sgt. Warden's story - he's having a love affair with General Holmes' wife. It seems the General and his wife have come to an agreement about the state of their marriage - due to a death of a child, multiple indiscretions, and a lack of love, they are really only married in name. She herself has had affairs, too. But this one with Sgt. Warden is real love.

I find their love story not entirely compelling. They have a few scenes together and they fail to generate any sort of connection. Even after their lovely and sexy kiss in the waves, they get into an argument. He chooses that moment to ask about her other men, and has the audacity to get angry about it. She tells him her sob story of the pregnancy and such, and then they are clutching each other tightly.

It is interesting to view the story with my modern eyes. The men are all prone to take out their emotions with violence. Even for the smallest infraction (Prewitt refuses to box because he once made a man blind, but has no qualms getting into a knife fight in an alley because his friend is being treated poorly in the stockades - really?). The women are there to support and be literal arm-candy for the soldiers.

The film went up against Roman Holiday and the western classic, Shane.