I've found parts of this very odd

Rating: 8/10 (5 January 2008)

This is the film that won an Oscar for Frank Sinatra. It would win seven others, including picture, director Zinneman, screenwriter and fellow supporting player Donna Reed, who's really has as much screen time as Deborah Kerr. One of Sinatra's problems was a merciless beating he gave to a reporter few years earlier and he gets beaten to death here.
Well, this was made when my parents' generation was young and they loved Sinatra. That's why I started my first sentence the way I did.
The real stars are Burt Lancaster, who doesn't want to be an officer though he definitely acts like one even when doing work he disagrees with. Actually, a more conflicted and less likable character than Montgomery Clift's, who gets the treatment for refusing to box because he blinded somebody.
To get back at his commanding officer, Lancaster romances Deborah Kerr, who's at the top of her game here as is he. But I found myself more involved with Cliff getting the treatment. His one friend is Sinatra who at times shares in getting the treatment too.
Cliff falls for one of the girls, actually a prostitute but this is 1953, sensitively played by Donna Reed which pretty mush throws logic out the window. Frankie boy gets drunk and tangles with Ernest Borginine which will eventfully lead to fatal results.
However, I can't help liking this film. Zimmerman made his actors all act earnestly and I believed them even when I knew I shouldn't.
Unspoken but it's there in the last Lancaster-Kerr scenes, is that he really does want to an officer in the army but in his terms not hers. Then the Japanese strike and Lancaster takes command.
Cliff gets cut down from friendly fire hiding out with Reed after killing Borgnine out of revenge for Sinatra. The movie ends with two female leads on a boat to San Francisco with their tossed leis showing that neither will return to Hawaii.
Contary to urban legend, George Reeves is in this. It's a small part but he's there showing what charm he did posses.