From Here to Eternity (1953): Eitan's Take

After hearing nothing but scorn for The Greatest Show on Earth and enjoying it wholeheartedly, I should have expected that the critics would be wrong again, and I would find little to like in the universally-acclaimed classic From Here to Eternity. Aside from the smoldering, virile sexuality of lost-puppy Montgomery Clift and a few scenes here and there that reminded me I wasn't watching a C-SPAN documentary on life in the barracks, I think this film is full of highly overrated performances and an aimless plot the likes of which I haven't seen since All the King's Men.

So prettyboy Prewitt is a boxer who is transferred to a fight-loving unit eight miles from Pearl Harbor. For about 90 minutes, the big question is exhaustingly asked over and over again: will he fight? Will he NOT FIGHT? Will some boring people make out on a beach for all of five seconds? Will banal army guys chortle over who's going to become an officer, and what their lives were like back in the States? Will Prewitt's life be made "miserable" by some dude kicking a pail of spit out of a boxing ring? At some points, I would have rather watched these mundane losers do push-ups than participate in their utterly empty pre-war lives.

And the beach scene. The beach scene. Having seen it recreated on posters, on DVD cases, in parodies, in countless "Great Movie Montages," and even in a haunting scene in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, I will never forget the utter disappointment I felt when I witnessed this Great Moment and realized that it was over in a manner of seconds. If the movie wanted to be a bland army procedural, it could have done that just fine -- I've enjoyed plenty of those over the years, including A Few Good Men and the first half of Full Metal Jacket and, hey, why not Striped while we're at it. Or, if the movie wanted to be a romance, it could have gone a little further and shown us some real passion between hunky Burt Lancaster and the ravishing Deborah Kerr. This is supposed to be legendary. Instead, it's little more than one hundred measly frames. I know that during this time, Lucy and Ricky had separate beds and chasteness ruled the day. But this is a plotline about a (supposedly) torrid extramarital affair. Give it some juice or don't show it at all.

One scene, though, completely gripped me, and is responsible for many of the points I gave this film. After Prewitt watches his best friend die in a ditch by the side of the road, he wakes up the next morning to perform Taps on his bugle, in an empty field in the middle of the compound. For a minute, the film stops. We watch a tear stream down his face, soldiers emerge and stand quietly in their doorways and on stairs. We watch the faces of men we know will be going to war in just a few days. There is no doubt in my mind that Frank Darabont was heavily influenced by this scene when he filmed the famous "Marriage of Figaro" scene, when Dufresne plays the opera over the loudspeaker and "for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free." Prewitt's bugle revery is beautiful scene, deserving of a much better movie.

"From Here to Eternity" -- a better description of my boredom than of this film's less-than-lofty ambitions. 5/10.

P.S. You gotta hand it to Fred Zinnemann (whose previous year's nominee, High Noon, is SO much better) for combining the two things the Academy loves best -- war and boxing -- into one movie.