From 'Here' (1941 Pearl Harbor) to 'Eternity' (war and death).

Rating: Null/10 (24 August 2015)

This was the darling of 1953, winning a whole slew of Oscars and several more nominations. One of the Oscars went to Sinatra for Best Supporting Actor. Most of us remember Sinatra for his singing but he was a fine actor with 64 roles credited to him.
This story takes place in Hawaii in 1941 on an Army base, just a few months before the eventual December 7th surprise attack of Pearl Harbor, the event that got the USA into WW2 against the Japanese. There is a boxing theme running through it, with the military championships scheduled for December 15th, and we know that will be upstaged.
Burt Lancaster in his early 40s is the lead as Sgt. Milton Warden. He is confident and runs a tight ship, but he also has his eye on the pretty girls, one in particular, the wife of his commanding officer. It seems pretty well known that the officer routinely cheats on his wife so that makes the pursuit somewhat logical. Deborah Kerr in her early 30s plays that woman, Karen Holmes.
The second main story involves Montgomery Clift as Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, a former boxer who quit after a man he knocked over was badly injured and lost his sight. So he was transferred to Hawaii and ceaselessly harassed by men in his platoon trying to get him to change his mind and fight on the team.
In his Oscar role Frank Sinatra was Angelo Maggio, a little guy with a big heart but who drank too much. In a bar another man, Ernest Borgnine as Sgt. 'Fatso' Judson, insulted Angelo's mother so Angelo hit Fatso over the head with a chair. The fight was broken up but later when Angelo was thrown in the brig for deserting his guard post, under the 'care' of Fatso, it eventually led to Angelo's death.
The last scenes in the movie depict the attack of December 7th and it appears that some real news footage of the attack was used.
Several good stories are woven in and while I haven't seen the movies this was competing against I can understand why it was then and still is considered such a timeless movie.