Gritty army-based classic has some great character sub-plots

Rating: 7/10 (26 March 2017)

I suppose that FROM HERE TO ETERNITY can best be described as the FULL METAL JACKET of the 1950s. It stars the eternally youthful Montgomery Clift (fresh from playing the role of the tormented priest in Hitchcock's I CONFESS) as a raw army recruit based in Hawaii during World War 2 who is subjected to endless bullying and bad behaviour for an unlikely reason: in peacetime Clift was an amateur boxing champion, and his superiors want him to join the army boxing team, but he refuses due to personal circumstances.
It's a slight premise but as a film FROM HERE TO ETERNITY works very well indeed, in fact achieving the status of something of a classic. That's because it has real narrative depth and various sub-plots that interact in ways both expected and unexpected. The film boasts from a gritty realism and a lack of sentimentality that means not all of the characters are going to have happy endings. Frank Sinatra shines in the role of a brash young recruit who falls foul of Ernest Borgnine in a star-making performance as a bully. Burt Lancaster is the weary sergeant trying to hold everything together. The story climaxes with the attack on Pearl Harbor, portrayed in a way that is just as powerful as you could hope for.