"A man loves a thing, that don't mean it's got to love him back".

Rating: 8/10 (15 May 2010)

Once you get hooked on cinema, you want to experience every great movie that ever earned a reputation. It took me a long time to get to "From Here To Eternity", but at a certain point you just have to pull the trigger and make the commitment. The first thing that surprised me was that iconic beach scene with Burt Lancaster and Deborak Kerr. If you've seen the brief three second clip of that highlight, you've seen it all. What you don't figure on is that they both wind up in an argument immediately after, and have to patch things up to keep the affair going. Needless to say, the sun never set on that romance.
Maybe the clip they should show more often as representative of this film is Montgomery Clift blowing Taps for Frank Sinatra, tears streaming down his face over a wasted loss of life, that of a best friend to boot. When Fatso Judson (Ernest Borgnine) first emerged from the alley fight, I couldn't believe he got the upper hand on Prewitt (Clift); that was a great tease. I have to say, I identify with Clift's character, he didn't give in to 'The Treatment' and stayed the course over his own ideals. There were times I thought he would crack, but Monty didn't let me down. Knowing his personal history though, I did a sit up and take notice when Sinatra goads him to go into town after hours - "You got any prejudices against girls?" I wonder what he thought about that line.
The surprise of the picture for me was Donna Reed. Not the role model Mom from The Donna Reed Show here. Though I don't go so far as to consider her character a prostitute that so many reviewers on this board adhere to. She was working a gentleman's club, true, but it didn't appear to me that she compromised herself to earn a living. Just stringing the guys along for drinks and a good time as part of the job.
You know, I saw him in the picture, but was Frank Sinatra ever that skinny? He was a downright stick figure at times. I had to wonder with all the drunk scenes he did whether he was acting or if the filming was done around him to capture the essence of the character. I think his best moment was when he threw snake eyes with the pair of olives, very convincing.
And then there's Lancaster. He sure fills out the uniform, especially when he's stripped down to swim trunks. He commands every scene he's in, even when in the proximity of Captain Holmes (Philip Ober). Except for the fact that the story was written that way, I didn't get the attraction for the boss's wife. The chemistry between Lancaster and Kerr didn't quite click for me, and I already mentioned that beach scene. In a way, I'm satisfied that they didn't hook up after all.
Considering the film's reputation as a World War II epic, it was somewhat surprising to see so little in the way of battle action. The stock footage was expected, and I'm glad the good guys got to take out a Zero. But overall, the War played second fiddle to the human drama, and probably for the best. I don't much care for war films that get tangled up with romance and side stories, so in that regard, this one's execution stayed focused on the human element, and the fighting just happened to be a sidebar.