Eternity In One Quick Installment

Rating: 7/10 (21 July 2009)

That James Jones' novel had the word "Eternity" in its title seems no accident. It runs over 800 pages, features multiple story arcs, and more or less continued through two subsequent books, one of which became a celebrated film in its own right: "The Thin Red Line".
That film lasts nearly three hours. This one clocks in at under two. I give scripter Daniel Taradash and director Fred Zinnemann credit for that. The story is tightly focused, but with room to breathe. The characters stick out, but as people, not caricatures. There's a lot of good performances and some nice lines.
So why don't I like it more? Maybe because I expected a movie that is set around the U.S. military in Oahu in late 1941 to be more about the stuff that interests me, particularly the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that December. By focusing on the romances of two military men, including a dangerous affair with a commanding officer's wife, "Eternity" serves up a lot more "Kings Row" than Battleship Row.
The best thing in the movie for me, by far, is Montgomery Clift's performance as the central character, Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt. Clift creates in Prewitt a solitary, edgy character who just happens to really love being in the Army even as he is pushed by his commander to perform various hard duties in order to make him box. "A man loves a thing don't mean it's got to love him back," he tells his unbelieving girlfriend.
There's distinctive support work, particularly from Burt Lancaster as Prewitt's virile, understanding "topkick" master sergeant, Warden; and Frank Sinatra as Prewitt's wisecracking pal Maggio. All three were nominated for Oscars, and Sinatra won his in part because he didn't have to compete with the other two. (Lancaster and Clift were both nominated for Best Actor; Sinatra for Supporting Actor). Ernest Borgnine lends such menace to his first big role as prison sergeant "Fatso" Judson it's hard to believe he didn't go on to fame strictly as a cinematic heavy.
Are the romances of Prewitt and Warden really so involving, or are they more like dead-end relationships that tie down the film for long stretches into exercises in alcoholic navel-gazing? Prewitt's core conflict with the military is compellingly introduced but never adequately resolved. Both Prewitt and Maggio are set up as victims of circumstance, but seem more in the end like prisoners of their own stupidity.
There are a number of good scenes in "Eternity", and a couple of great ones. In one, Prewitt takes on Judson in a back alley in a scene that is played not for excitement but sordidness; I felt like I needed a bath just watching it. The other is the last scene, where lead actresses Donna Reed and Deborah Kerr meet for the only time. Reed's final speech was a head-scratcher to me for a while, but it sticks with you precisely because it's so off-kilter - like war's aftermath itself.
But "Eternity" also has one scene that is overrated: Kerr and Lancaster getting wet together on a beach. It set pulses racing in 1953 but doesn't do so much now except remind me of "Airplane!" Overall, "Eternity" offers a master class in the art of boiling down something big into something that's cinematically digestible. The result is decent enough but doesn't leave you wanting more.