Maggio (Frank Sinatra) talks fellow Hawaii-based soldier Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) through pay-day and ensuing festivities, while Warden (Burt Lancaster) gets a warning (about Deborah Kerr) from George (later "Superman") Reeves, in the 1953 Best Picture winner From Here to Eternity.>
The famous Snake Eyes scene with Montgomery Clift as Pearl Harbor-based soldier Prewitt and Donna Reed as girlfriend Alma, was Frank Sinatra's audition for his Oscar-winning role as soldier Angelo Maggio in From Here to Eternity, 1953, Fred Zinnemann's film from the James Jones novel.>
Dismissing buddy Prewitt (Montgomery Clift), Maggio (Frank Sinatra, in his Oscar-winning performance), with his only semi-musical bit, catches guard duty, setting off a tragic series of events in director Fred Zinnemann's 1953 Best Picture winner, From Here to Eternity. >
Angelo (Frank Sinatra) beginning his routine at the New Congress Club, annoyed by Judson (Ernest Borgnine) on piano, Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) being shown around by Annette (Jean Willes), until he spies "Lorene" (Donna Reed), in From Here To Eternity, 1953.>
The landmark surf scene in its entirety, Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) with his commanding officer's wife Karen (Deborah Kerr), a good deal of exposition following the action, in From Here To Eternity, 1953, from the James Jones novel, directed by Fred Zinnemann.>
Pearl Harbor, 1941, Warden (Burt Lancaster) telling Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) he will end up boxing for the regiment, escorts him to Leyva (Mickey Shaughnessy), arrival of commander's wife Karen (Deborah Kerr) switching the focus, early in Fred Zinnemann's From Here To Eternity, 1953.>
Elia Kazan only directed 19 films, but 23 of his actors received Oscar nominations and 9 of them won. He also directed such classics as 'Gentleman's Agreement', 'A Streetcar Named Desire', 'Viva Zapata', 'On the Waterfront', 'East of Eden', 'Splendor in the Grass' and 'America America'. 4 of those films were Oscar-nominated and 2 of them won. Kazan himself won 2 of the 5 Oscars he was nominated for as Best Director and any of the films mentioned, as well as several others, are worth a look. One of the all-time greats.
A man who spent his formative years in prison for murder is released and struggles to adjust to the outside world.
Having served eighteen years in prison for killing his father, Bill Clark is a free man, but finds the outside lonely and bewildering. After he is betrayed by a friendly man who turns out to be a newspaper reporter looking for a scoop, Bill heads for New York City to avoid the attention generated by a sensational article that identifies him as having been the state's youngest murderer at the age of thirteen. Bill makes a tentative friendship with a platinum blonde taxi dancer, Catherine, who shows him around the city, but her boyfriend, George Conover, finds them at her apartment and starts a fight. Bill is knocked out, then Catherine accidentally shoots George in self-defense, but later leads Bill to believe that he did the shooting. They flee the city after learning from a radio broadcast that George, a police detective, died from the wound. Forming an uneasy alliance, Bill and Catherine borrow her brother's car to get over the state line, then stow away in a truck hauling automobiles across country. At a motel, after checking in as "Mike and Nikki Lewis," they decide to marry using the assumed names. To assist with their disguise, Catherine dyes her hair back to brunette. Although mutual trust is slow to develop, their passion for each other grows. Finally, while waiting to hop a train, Bill tells Catherine how, at the age of thirteen, he passed out while defending his mother from one of his father's brutal beatings, and awakened to find him shot dead. Unable to express remorse for the death of his father, Bill's honest relief was mistaken as coldbloodedness by the jury, who passed a guilty verdict in spite of his youth. With no destination in mind, Bill and Catherine continue to work their way west, and hitch a ride with Henry and Stella Dawson and their young son Johnny, who are on their way to Salinas, California, to work in the lettuce fields. After being convinced to join them, Bill and Catherine set up in one of the cottages provided for the workers. Although they remain wary of the law, they find happiness in the hard work and community of laborers. When Bill is offered a welding job which will begin after the harvest season and Catherine learns that she is pregnant, they seem content. Then Johnny finds a picture of Bill in a pulp magazine article about murderers, which offers a sizable reward for his capture. Although the Dawsons are fond of Bill and Catherine, Henry considers turning in Bill until Stella convinces him that they do not want "that kind of money." Bill is unaware of the Dawsons' discovery, but perceives a change in the Dawsons' behavior toward him, and feeling distrustful, backs out of a fishing trip with Henry. Later, Bill's sense of paranoia increases when he sees police at the Dawsons' cottage, and even after Stella tells Catherine that Henry's car has collided with an oil truck, his wariness does not completely diminish. Upon learning that Henry needs expensive medical treatment in Los Angeles for burns suffered in the crash, Stella reluctantly alerts the police about Bill hoping to get the reward money. Meanwhile, Bill and Catherine panic watching more police activity outside the Dawsons' cottage, and Catherine finally tells him that it was she who shot George. Disbelieving, Bill plans to escape at all costs, and when the sheriff arrives at their door, Bill is armed with a scythe. To keep him from getting into more trouble, Catherine disables Bill by shooting him in the shoulder and Bill is taken into custody. Trying to protect each other, both Bill and Catherine confess to killing George, but after listening to their stories, the New York district attorney finally tells them that George made a statement before he died, claiming that Catherine shot him in self-defense. Although their disappearance looked at first suspicious to the police, he explains, they were not being pursued until the pulp magazine printed the "half-cocked" story and created a need to clear up the misunderstanding. With the case closed, Bill and Catherine are free to resume their new life together.
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