James Jones’s ‘From Here to Eternity’ Is Uncensored - The New York Times The New York Times Books |Author’s Heirs Uncensor a Classic War Novel Search Continue reading the main story When the classic novel “From Here to Eternity” was published in 1951, a few things were gone that had been in the original manuscript: explicit mentions of gay sex and a number of four-letter words. The author, James Jones, objected to the changes at the time, arguing in a letter to his editor at Scribner that “the things we change in this book for propriety’s sake will in five years, or ten years, come in someone else’s book anyway.” But eventually he gave in to his publisher. Sixty years later Mr. Jones’s estate has made a deal to reissue a digital version of the book that restores those cuts. The book is still in print. “It’s been on my mind for quite a few years, and the right moment just hadn’t come up yet,” Kaylie Jones, Mr. Jones’s daughter, said in a telephone interview. “My father fought bitterly to hold on to every four-letter word in the manuscript.

The publisher was concerned about getting through the censors.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story The novel follows a group of soldiers at an Army post in Hawaii a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Mr. Jones, who died in 1977, drew from his own Army experiences on Oahu for the novel, which won the National Book Award and is frequently cited as one of the best American novels of the 20th century. For the restored version of the book, the estate turned to Open Road Integrated Media, a company that has quickly established itself as a go-to publisher of backlist titles whose digital rights are owned by authors or their estates. Open Road has published backlist books by William Styron, among others, and offers a 50-50 profit share on revenues from the e-book editions. Photo James Jones, author of “From Here to Eternity,” set in Hawaii just before Pearl Harbor. Credit Gjon Mili//Time Life Pictures, via Getty Images Open Road also plans to publish nine other titles by James Jones. One, “To the End of the War,” has never been published in any form.

All will be sold on Amazon.com and BN.com , as well as at other retailers, with most titles beginning May 10. Open Road is also producing videos about Mr. Jones’s life and his works, which will be posted online. George Hendrick, an emeritus English professor from the University of Illinois, has written a new afterword for “From Here to Eternity.” The new digital edition, he said, “presents the material even more truthfully than the print edition.” Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy “The text we have has been read by millions of people, and clearly it has been one of the major novels of the middle- and late-20th century,” Mr. Hendrick said. “But what was left out of the novel because of the editing in 1950 and 1951 left out many of the gritty details.” The novel was turned into a classic movie with one of the most memorable heterosexual sex scenes of all time, a passionate romp on the beach starring Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. Mr.

Hendrick said two scenes that had homosexual content were cut from the original version of the book and have been restored in the digital version. In one, a soldier, Pvt. Angelo Maggio (played by Frank Sinatra in the 1953 movie) mentions how he has oral sex with a wealthy man in exchange for $5 or $10 that “comes in handy the middle of the month.” Another deals with a military investigation into possible homosexual activity. Jane Friedman, a former president and chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers, who is a co-founder and chief executive of Open Road, said that republishing Mr. Jones’s books was an example of Open Road’s mission “to bring the greats back to life.” “We feel that so much of what’s in ‘From Here to Eternity’ will start some conversations in the culture,” she said. A version of this article appears in print on April 5, 2011, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Author’s Heirs Uncensor A Classic War Novel.

Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe From Here to Eternity Sinatra, Clift, producer Adler, author Jones Many studios toyed with the idea of filming the popular novel, but abandoned it as unworkable, due to length, the conflicted view of the military and because the censorable language and subject matter impossible to depict under the still enforced Production Code. A number of screenwriters took a crack at it for different studios without success, including Jones himself, who gutted his own novel in the hopes of getting it on the screen. He wanted to realize as much money as possible from the movie sale and said, "I don't give a damn what they do to the movie, the book will stand by itself long after the movie is forgotten." His psychic powers failed to discern that, 50 years later, many more people experience From Here to Eternity as a movie than as a book. The combined notoriety would make him, at 31, a life-long celebrity, in spite of the fact that his subsequent writing would never be as well received as his debut. Harry Cohn of Columbia paid $82,000 for the screen rights, and gossips called it Cohn's Folly.

Perhaps, it was whispered, Cohn was too crude to know how crude the novel was. The military said firmly, "No film based on this novel could benefit the Army." They were concerned about the accusations of condoned brutality, and that the families of servicemen would be horrified by the language and behavior of their sons and husbands away from the civilizing influence of women. It would certainly not increase morale or enlistment, a major reason for the Army to choose to participate. But, without military cooperation everything about the film would scream "fake." Producer Buddy Adler had been a Lt. Colonel in the Signal Corps during WWII and he brought his influence to bear. Writer Daniel Taradash, a pre-Pearl Harbor inductee, wrote a screenplay that smoothed over the Army's major objections. He eliminated all references to both male and female prostitution, tempered the brutality of the stockade scenes, and punished Captain Holmes (who in the book is not reprimanded for his misconduct, but receives a promotion). At that point, the Army relented, offering officers who would serve as technical advisors, troops, and the use of Schofield Barracks in Hawaii as a location.The film remains powerful without the excised story elements.

The budget was set at $2.5 million. A nation-wide search of Army surplus stores yielded pre-Pearl Harbor style Springfield rifles, canvas leggings, campaign hats and flat steel helmets. The extras, real soldiers, drilled to learn the use of the outdated equipment. Director Fred Zinnemann insisted on black and white, "color would have made it look trivial" and the film did not use any of the popular new widescreen ratios. Daniel Taradash suggested him to Cohn because he liked the way soldiers were depicted in some of Zinnemann's earlier films. The Search (1947) was filmed on location in the ruins of post-war Germany and starred Montgomery Clift immediately after his debut in Red River. Zinnemann characterized Clift as "exuberant and full of energy, he was an electrifying personality." Two years later, Zinnemann directed The Men, a story about paralyzed WWII veterans starring Marlon Brando, and then made a film about an Italian war bride, Teresa. In 1951 he directed High Noon, with Gary Cooper. Zinnemann was hesitant to make Eternity for a number of reasons, including an instinctive mistrust of Harry Cohn.

But, he also worried, "There was an automatic respect for Federal authority. To voice doubts about any of its symbols, the Army, Navy, or FBI was to lay oneself open to deep suspicion. McCarthyism was still very much alive and filming a book so openly scathing about the peacetime Armyï¿½was regarded by many as foolhardy if not downright subversive." Clift, Reed and director Zinnemann at far right. Cohn had wanted Columbia contract player Aldo Ray to play Robert E. Lee Prewitt. He still had hopes of making Ray a big star, and thought he looked like a boxer. But director Zinnemann felt Montgomery Clift was a much better casting choice. "He was no soldier, and no boxer and probably a homosexual" Cohn ranted. But Zinnemann felt the key to Prewitt's character was Jones' description of him as "a deceptively slim young man," and because the "story was not about a fellow who didn't want to box: it was about the human spirit refusing to be broken." Clift submerged himself in the character, learned to play the bugle (even though he knew he'd be dubbed) and took boxing lessons.

Zinnemann said, "Clift forced the other actors to be much better than they really were. That's the only way I can put it. He got performances from the other actors, he got reactions from the other actors that were totally genuine." Burt Lancaster was the one actor whose casting was without conflict. His portrayal of Sgt. Milt Warden was everything a WWII hero should be, "tough, gentle, fair, virile, brave and focused, Warden was an apotheosis of postwar American manhood." (Buford). Many of his prior roles had been somewhat lightweight, and he was conscious of the importance of the film. He was somewhat intimidated by Clift's skill and intensity and said, "I'd never worked with an actor of Clift's caliber before. I was afraid he was going to blow me right off the screen." Eli Wallach was supposed to play Maggio, but Frank Sinatra, whose acting career was on the skids, lobbied hard for the part.

Cohn, along with most in Hollywood, thought of Sinatra as "the fella who danced with Gene Kelly in MGM musicals." But, Sinatra had read the novel and felt this was a role that could turn his career around, as indeed it did. Hollywood legend says he used his mob connections to secure the job, and that this incident is related obliquely in The Godfather. Director Zinnemann said in his autobiography, "At no time were horse's heads involved in the casting decision." Sinatra's salary for the part was only $8000, a savvy pay cut that revitalized his career. Clift, Sinatra and author James Jones were very close during the filming, sharing monumental drinking binges. Clift coached Sinatra on how to play Maggio during their soberer moments, "He spelled out every beat, every moment and Sinatra was grateful," said a friend of Clift. (Bosworth). Joan Crawford had been set to play Karen Holmes but left either because of a costume dispute or because she wanted her part to be expanded. Zinnemann, Taradash and Adler came up with the idea of casting Deborah Kerr.

They felt a sexy actress would make the part too predictable and the ladylike Kerr does play Karen with a hunger Crawford couldn't have mustered. Perhaps her new-found sensuality was the result of an affair with her co-star, as Lancaster confessed to a few afterwards. Kerr said of her memorable love scenes with him, "There is a chemistry that happened between us, I was not conscious of it, and neither was he. But he had such a good and forceful attitude towards his part, and I towards mine." The romance takes up relatively little screen time but plays a dominant part in the story. At first, they kissed on the beach standing up, and it was Lancaster's idea for the love scene to be played horizontally in the surf. Their embrace was filmed at Halona Cove on the eastern end of Oahu and the location became a highlight of island tours for many years. The clinch has been endlessly parodied since its appearance. The MPAA banned photos of the kiss with the surf washing over Lancaster and Kerr as too erotic. Many prints had shortened versions of the scene because projectionists would cut out frames as souvenirs. Donna Reed, as well as Sinatra, won an Oscar for playing against type.

But, her subdued performance seems less impressive today, overshadowed by her passive role in It's a Wonderful Life, as well as her tenure as a perfect tv housewife. The film won 8 Oscars of 13 nominations, the most since Gone With the Wind. Clift received the last of his three nominations for Prewitt, which many consider his finest role. While Oscars went to the supporting actors Reed and Sinatra, they are much less magnetic than Lancaster and Clift. Lancaster's powerful masculinity and Clift's introspective determination are a riveting contrast in character and acting styles. Reed and Clift "A man who don't go his own way is nothing." Prewitt struggles to be a good soldier as well as true to himself. But why, exactly, is he so dedicated to the military? The novel and film's explanation that the Army was a home to him when his own family failed him seems weak justification for his tolerating the torture devised by a superior office determined to make him a member of the boxing team. The notion of duty has changed a great deal in the half century since From Here to Eternity reached the screen.

Just like any office where the occupants have too much time on their hands, the inhabitants of Schofield Barracks clearly need something to distract them besides the petty concerns of base life. There is a chasm between the enlisted men and the officers. Soldiers like Prewitt and Top Sergent Milt Warden are proud of being in the service, yet they hate the commissioned officers under whom they serve. One of the most unadaptable aspects of the novel concerns the off-base activities of many of the soldiers, of which you see no hint on the screen. In the book, the gay population of Honolulu is significant and visible, and many of the G Is, including Maggio, spend time with them as a source of income. Not, in most cases, involving sex, but companionship, going to their apartments, taking off their shirts, lounging around and looking beautiful and then getting paid "cabfare." Of course, some of the soldiers go farther, one even commits suicide over the fear of having "gone queer." Prewitt tags along with Maggio on one of his "dates" and doesn't have any qualms about it, he's been on the bum and knows the score on that account.

Casting Mongomery Clift gives an interesting undertone to the characterï¿½was the gay subtext meant to be hinted at by the casting of a gay actor? Patricia Bosworth in her biography of Clift quotes another of his friends as saying, "Jimmy Jones was on a real macho kick, which I found phony as hell. This was 1953, but he was wearing a silver Navajo belt, silver bracelets and tight jeans, and he came on very strong sexually. Jones asked whether Clift was a homosexual and confided, "I would have had an affair with him, but he never asked me." Is Clift's intensity as Prewitt a confluence of the author's sexual identity crisis, his conflicted fictional hero, and the performance of an actor who struggled with his own sexual identity? In all the writing about the film and its creators, this is a curiously untouched topic. Frank McShane dismisses any questions about the author's sexuality by stating unequivocally that Jones was not a homosexual.

But Jones was dead (1977) long before his book was published (1985) and there is no acknowledgement of his ever having had a conversation with Jones, although he did speak at length with Jones' wife and children. Patricia Bosworth, on the other hand, Clift's biographer (1978) did speak with Jones and hints of this interesting complication. No current reader of From Here to Eternity could fail to remark at the vast amounts of prose dedicated to this topic and the complete lack of comment on it in critical writings. Jones' reputation as a decorated chronicler of World War II remains firmly on the straight and narrow. Jane Handler, in her book, Best Sellers and Their Film Adaptations in Postwar America, tries to tackle this subject, but is defeated by her academic jargon. She does point out that other best sellers in 1951 included Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, Better Homes and Gardens Garden Book and Better Homes and Gardens Handyman's Book.

"Clearly while middle-class Americans were perfecting a meatloaf, pruning and tinkering with do-it-yourself projects, part of their attention was drawn to the literary and visual recreations of the recent warï¿½" She suggests that the popularity was a result of nostalgia for the recently relinquished male comradarie of WWII, as the discharged vets chafed under the restraints of post-war domesticity. The two conflicting role-models, the straight-arrow Milton Warden and the somewhat feminized Pvt. Prewitt, are behavioral opposites in an all-male society. And, of course, Warden's uncompromising heterosexual masculinity deals firmly with the onset of combat, insuring his survival. Karen Holmes, played by Deborah Kerr in the film, is not an appealing character in the novel. The beach scene as written is a disaster, everybody gets sandy and fussy. She also has an 8 year old son--missing in the film--in the 1950s you couldn't have a kid and be sexy at the same time.

Yet, she and her son are given the final word in the novel, on the boat, shipping back to the States after Pearl Harbor: "Mother, do you think the war will last long enough so I can graduate from the Point and be in it? Jerry Wilcox said it wouldn't." "No," she said, "I don't think it'll last that long." "Well, gee whiz, mother," her son said. "I want to be in it." "Well, cheer up," Karen said, "and don't let it worry you. You might miss this one, but you'll be just the right age for the next one." "You really think so, mother?" her son said anxiously. * From Here to Eternity helped popularize Aloha Shirts. All the beautiful shirts in the film were made by the Cisco Company. * (Photo Sources: Zinneman and Jones with cast from Films in Review, October, 1953, surf kiss Jerry Ohlinger's Movie Material Store, Aloha shirt details from The Hawaiian Shirt, Reed and Clift from November, 1966 Films in Review, all others from Daniel Blum's 1954 Screen Yearbook.

Sources include, From Here to Eternity by James Jones, Into Eternity, the Life of James Jones, American Writer by Frank McShane, Montgomery Clift: A Bio-Bibliography by Mary C. Kalfatovic, Montgomery Clift by Patricia Bosworth, Burt Lancaster The Man and His Movies, by Allan Hunter, Burt Lancaster A Filmography and Biography by Ed Andreychuk, Burt Lancaster An American Life by Kate Buford, Against Type The Biography of Burt Lancaster by Gary Fishgall, The Good War's Greatest Hits WWII and American Remembering by Philip D. Beidler, Guts and Glory The Making of the American Military Image on Film by Lawrence H. Suid, A Life in the Movies by Fred Zinneman, Best Sellers and Their Film Adaptations in Postwar America by Jane Handler, film review in Films in Review, October, 1953, Montgomery Clift by Robert C. Roman in the November, 1966 Films in Review, The Hawaiian Shirt Its Art and History by H. Thomas Steele.

c.moviedivaJuly2003 From Here to Eternity (1953) Pages: ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) Background From Here to Eternity (1953) is the powerful, realistic story (and fierce indictment) of the lives of American military men (and their women) stationed in peacetime Hawaii (near Honolulu) in the summer and fall before the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941 and the US entrance into WW II. The successful film, both critically and financially, soon became the second biggest hit of the year, behind The Robe (1953) (the first CinemaScope film) and ahead of Shane (1953) . One of the first remakes about the same topic was the ABC-TV mini-series titled Pearl (The Mini-Series) (1978) with superstars of the day Angie Dickinson and Dennis Weaver. It was also re-made as a glossy, 2-hour TV melodrama titled From Here to Eternity (1979) starring William Devane, Natalie Wood, Steve Railsback, Joe Pantolino, Peter Boyle and Kim Basinger, and directed by Buzz Kulik.

This 1979 movie was also spun off as a soapy TV mini-series in 1980. And Michael Bay's recent Pearl Harbor (2001) provided a soap-operatic, sappy, and predictable love story triangle with an authentic and convincing re-creation of the historic attack. In gritty, documentary-style black and white, director Fred Zinnemann (who had directed the acclaimed western High Noon (1952) a year earlier) accurately captured the isolation and boredom of the military personnel in a close-knit Army barracks on the island of Oahu, combining social/military history with the drama of the personal lives of its main characters - an enlisted man and a neglected officer's wife, and a prostitute and a military outcast. The major male characters wage their own 'battle' against corruption high up in the military ranks, each in their own ways. Three of the film's stars were cast against type and their wholesome images: Donna Reed as 'hostess' bar-girl (hooker) Lorene and dignified British actress Deborah Kerr (instead of Joan Crawford who was announced for the part, but allegedly detested the costuming) as an unfaithful and adulterous sexpot wife.

Montgomery Clift was also cast as a bugler, former boxer and stubborn, insubordinate soldier, although he was inexperienced in those areas and needed coaching. Burt Lancaster fit his role perfectly as a rugged sergeant. [Note: If casting decisions had gone differently, Aldo Ray, Edmond O'Brien, Joan Crawford, Julie Harris, and Eli Wallach would have played the roles given to Clift, Lancaster, Kerr, Reed, and Sinatra, respectively.] It was based on James Jones' hefty, 859-page smoldering 1951 novel of the same name, taking its title from Rudyard Kipling's poem "Gentlemen Rankers" - "damned from here to eternity." However, Jones' sprawling and complex story-line about Army life with its bold and explicit script (with strong language, violence and raw sexual content) was considered unsuitable (and unfilmable) for the screen and it was rejected. Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn, whose risky film project was soon nicknamed "Cohn's Folly," finally chose a more acceptable version written by Oscar-winning screenwriter Daniel Taradash.

However, two major concessions and changes from the novel had to be made: (1) Fatso's sadistic brutality against Maggio had to be interpreted as atypical of Army behavior, and (2) the fate of Capt. Holmes - he was to be reprimanded for his mistreatment of Prewitt, rather than promoted. Nonetheless, the ground-breaking film's subjects still include prostitution, adultery, military injustice, corruption and violence, alcohol abuse, and murder. Shot on location (including a three-week shoot in Hawaii's Schofield Barracks), this film was a monumental award winner - its thirteen nominations won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Donna Reed), Best Supporting Actor (Frank Sinatra), Best Screenplay (Daniel Taradash), Best B/W Cinematography (Burnett Guffey), Best Sound Recording, and Best Film Editing. It won the most Academy Awards for any picture since Gone With The Wind (1939) .

(Its other five nominations were: Best Actor (Montgomery Clift and Burt Lancaster, who split the votes), Best Actress (Deborah Kerr), Best Scoring, and Best B/W Costume Design.) At the time of its release, it was rumored that Sinatra's alleged Mafia ties (plus the help of his beautiful wife Ava Gardner) pressured tyrannical Columbia head Harry Cohn to relent and offer the part of Maggio to Sinatra instead of Eli Wallach. [This mythical, conspiracy-theory scenario seemed reprised with two characters in The Godfather (1972) : singer-actor character Johnny Fontane (Al Martino, similar to Sinatra) and studio head Jack Woltz (John Marley, similar to Cohn) and the infamous bloody racehorse's head-in-the-bed scene.] Nonetheless, Sinatra's 'comeback' performance helped to re-spark his film career, that had faltered after a string of appearances in mediocre 40s musicals (often with Gene Kelly), and throat problems that had curtailed his singing career. The Story The film begins with the credits playing above soldiers practicing their marching at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, 1941. A lone Robert E.

Lee Prewitt ("Prew") (Montgomery Clift) enters the base, passing Private Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra) - a genial and respected friend. Prewitt has requested a transfer to the base from the Ft. Shafter bugle corps. Maggio is doubtful about the wisdom of Prew's transfer to the new Company command: "You made a very bad mistake. This outfit they can give back to General Custer." But Maggio praises Prewitt's bugling talents: "You're the best bugler they've got on this whole island." The duty-obsessed, brutal base commander, Captain Dana Holmes (Philip Ober) speaks to Prewitt about his transfer, learning that it was because of "a personal matter." Career soldier First Sergeant Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster) realizes that the new soldier was demoted from corporal to "buck private": Prewitt, you was a corporal in the bugle corps. You took a bust to buck private to transfer to an infantry outfit. Why? Because you like to hike? Or was it because you couldn't stand to bugle?

Prewitt describes the circumstances for his transfer to Company "G" at Schofield - his protest over the appointment of an inferior bugler above him. His feelings and pride were hurt by favoritism: I was first bugler for two years. The top-kick had a friend who transferred in from another outfit. The next day, he was made first bugler over me. I was a better bugler...Maybe it ain't sensible, but that's the reason. The insecure Captain, the regimental boxing coach, 'pulled a few strings' to get Prewitt transferred to Company "G". He knew that Prewitt was a top middleweight boxer and urged Prewitt to box for the squad so that his company's boxing team could triumph in the regiment championship - his company's win would reflect upon his own superiority and bring a promotion: "I need a win this year." However, Prewitt insists that he hasn't been boxing for over a year, because of a tragic accident - he blinded an opponent while sparring in the ring. The strict Captain doesn't see hard-headed Prewitt's rationale for refusing to bolster the ranks of the team: You might as well say 'stop war' because one man got killed.

Our fighting program is the best morale builder we have. If Prewitt will box on the regiment's boxing team, he will be rewarded with the esteemed post of bugler. But Prewitt defiantly refuses and flatly rejects the commander's offer. The Captain, a defender of team spirit, observes how Prewitt's principled stubbornness ("as a lone wolf") is disobedient and unacceptable in the Army - where individualism doesn't count: Looks to me as if you're trying to acquire a reputation as a lone wolf, Prewitt. You should know that in the Army it's not the individual that counts. Well, you'll find that we won't put any pressure on you in my outfit. Just don't make any mistakes in it, that's all.

The tough but fair and by-the-book First Sergeant Warden has little respect for the arrogant commander who leaves the running of the company to him: "He'd strangle in his own spit if he didn't have me around here to swab his throat out for him." He also advises Prewitt, the 'hardhead,' about how he should go along with the system and not champion the principle of individualism ("A man don't go his own way, he's nothin'"): Warden: You know what you did just now when you turned down dynamite Holmes? You put your head in a noose. Things are soft for a boxer in this outfit. Otherwise, you'd better know how to soldier. Prewitt: I can soldier with any man. Warden: ...You'll fight, Prewitt. You'll fight because Captain Holmes wants to be Major Holmes. He's got an idea he'll make it if he gets a winning team. And if you don't do it for him, you'll do it for me, 'cause my job is to keep him happy, see? The more he's happy, the less he bothers me and the better I run his company.

So we know where we stand, don't we, kid? Prewitt: I know where I stand. A man don't go his own way, he's nothin'. Warden: Maybe back in the days of the pioneers, a man could go his own way. But today, you gotta play ball. The rough-hewn Warden understands how to play the system to his advantage and keep everything under control, but is unwilling to manipulate the system to gain a promotion, like his manipulative commander. The sergeant begins to eye the base captain's wife, Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr), an unhappy, lonely, and frustrated wife who has gathered a reputation as being a loose and trampish woman. She has been told about Warden's qualities by her husband: "He says you're very efficient." Captain Holmes is often away from the post, "buttering generals" and drinking at the officers' club, and is acknowledged by his wife to be an unfaithful philanderer.

The entire boxing team attempts to pressure the obstinate Prewitt, reminding the ex-boxer: "Division champs get ten day furloughs." Maggio defends his friend's position and respects his steadfast decision and personal integrity: "Listen, the guy don't have to fight if he don't want to without gettin' kicked around." Prewitt courageously remains a highly principled individualist and soldier: Look. I told Holmes and I'm tellin' you. I ain't fightin'. I quit fightin'. You guys want to put the screws on, go right ahead. I can take anything you can dish out. Career soldier Sgt. Warden, who doesn't reject Prewitt outright, is seen as a smart, honorable and fair soldier by Corporal Buckley (Jack Warden): He ain't like the others. He'll make it tough on you, but he'll draw himself a line he thinks fair and he won't come over it. You don't see many top kicks like him no more...All I know is, he's the best soldier I ever saw. The whole outfit at the base accepts Prewitt's dare and makes life difficult for the hard-headed, introspective soldier.

They begin to find fault with everything he does and they harrass him endlessly. He receives "the Treatment" in order to break his spirit - undesirable tasks, emotional harrassment, physical abuse, extra marching duty from Sergeant Baldy Dhom (Claude Akins), and double-time laps around the track for having a poorly-assembled rifle during gun inspection. In bayonet drill, one of the sergeants deliberately trips Prewitt. When Maggio rebelliously defends his friend, they both are sent to do laps. Knowing that the captain will be gone, Warden calls on the restless, frustrated and testy Mrs. Holmes one rainy day for a drink and to initiate a relationship. She reveals how as an army commander's wife, she has wasted herself by being caught and trapped in a loveless, childless relationship - her unhappiness, sex starvation and longing for motherhood have driven her toward amoral behavior and promiscuity. They set the rules for the beginning of their secretive liaison: Mrs. Holmes: Perhaps he's in town on business...You're taking an awful chance, you know...That's what I like about you, Sergeant, you have confidence. It's also what I dislike about you.

Sergeant: It's not confidence, Ma'am. It's honesty. I just hate to see a beautiful woman goin' all to waste. Mrs. Holmes: Waste did you say? There's a subject I might tell you something about. I know several kinds of waste, Sergeant. You're probably not even remotely aware of some of them. Would you like to hear? For instance, what about the house without a child. There's one sort for you. Then there's another. (She takes a drink) You're doing fine, Sergeant. My husband's off somewhere and it's raining outside and we're both drinking now. You probably only got one thing wrong. The lady herself. The lady's not what she seems. She's a wash-out, if you know what I mean. And I'm sure you know what I mean. (She turns away after expressing self-pity.) Sergeant: Are you gonna cry? Mrs. Holmes: Not if I can help it. (He turns to leave.) What are you doing? Sergeant: I'm leaving. Isn't that what you want? Mrs. Holmes: I don't know, Sergeant. I don't know.

(He turns and approaches, and they kiss and embrace passionately.) Sergeant Maylon Stark (George Reeves, better known as TV's first Superman) has heard that Warden is "eyein' the Captain's wife like a hound dog at hunting time...She took up with a lot of men back there at Ft. Bliss...This ain't no story...Sure is somethin' strange about that woman." Two inter-related, parallel love stories that are both emotionally-dangerous, forbidden and career-threatening are inter-cut together during the film's continuing sequences - the relationships are between: Karen Holmes and the Sergeant Warden Private Prewitt and a hostess named Alma at the New Congress Club The virile Sergeant Warden and bored housewife Karen meet at a park bench at Kuhio Beach Park in a clandestine meeting away from the base. As a "non-com," Warden risks twenty years in Leavenworth prison for sleeping with a commissioned officer's wife: Karen: I didn't think you were coming. Warden: Why not? I ain't late. Karen: No, I guess you're not. Then, I got here a little early. I must have been over-anxious. You weren't though, were you?

Warden: I stopped along the way for a couple of drinks. Karen: You certainly chose a lovely spot for our meeting. I've had three chances to be picked up in the last five minutes. Warden: Well, that's par for the course around here. Karen: Well I don't care for it. I never went in much for back-alley loving. Warden: Take it easy. A History of the Oscar Powerhouse ‘From Here to Eternity’ - The Daily Beast Hollywood A History of the Oscar Powerhouse ‘From Here to Eternity’ Sixty years ago, a film with a now-iconic, steamy beach scene and a smoldering Sinatra stormed the Oscars and cemented itself in Hollywood lore. Allen Barra 03.01.14 5:00 AM ET Sixty years ago, the clear favorite at the Academy Awards, with 13 nominations, was the film version of James Jones’s huge bestseller, From Here to Eternity. And it delivered, nearly sweeping the boards with eight winners, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, and Best Screenplay.

In the memory of millions who loved the film, though, it’s also remembered for the one Oscar it didn’t win. The film starred Humphrey Bogart, Eli Wallach, Aldo Ray and Joan Crawford…almost. Taking its title from one of Kipling’s “Barrack-room” ballads—“Gentlemen-rankers out on a spree, damned from here to Eternity, God ha’ mercy on such as we…”—Jones’s enormous novel (861 pages in my father’s 1951 first edition) had an enormous cultural impact. No other book had dared to deal with the seamier side of Army life. It won the National Book Award and is generally regarded as the most critically acclaimed novel to come out of World War II—though almost the entire story is placed before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Jones’s friend, Norman Mailer, who had his own bestselling novel about the war, The Naked and The Dead, wrote that “Of all the novels I’ve read by the writers of my generation, no other book gave me as much emotion.” Perhaps no other American film owes its success so much to casting, and From Here to Eternity featured one of the greatest rosters of film actors ever assembled. And most of them were second choices. After Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures, paid Jones the enormous sum of $82,000 for the rights, the hottest topic in Hollywood was who would play the leads. On December 3, 1952, Hedda Hopper, the most influential Hollywood gossip columnist of her time, wrote “It seems that every rugged actor in town, wants to play the part of Sgt. Warden,” the hard drinking career non-com. For the coveted role of Kentucky-born, trumpet-playing Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, Cohn wanted one of the studio’s young contract players, Aldo Ray, a Navy veteran.

For Karen Holmes, the straying wife of the commanding officer of Schofield Barracks who has an affair with Warden, it was generally assumed that she would be played by Joan Crawford. For the role of Maggio, the brash Italian street kid from Brooklyn, Cohn was set on a brilliant New York stage actor named Eli Wallach. Bogart, though, wasn’t particularly rugged in 1952; already 53 years old, he would die of cancer less than five years later. Burt Lancaster, 40 that year and already a proven box office attraction from Jim Thorpe, All American and Come Back Little Sheba as well as adventure movies such as The Crimson Pirate, was a natural as Warden. For Prewitt, the director, Fred Zinnemann, argued for Montgomery Clift, whom he had directed in 1948 in The Search, and had become a major star by stealing scenes from John Wayne in Red River and drowning Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun. Cohn was concerned that Clift would cost a hefty $150,000 while Ray would come much cheaper; Zinnemann threatened to back out of the project and got his way.

Joan Crawford had the inside track for Karen, though in 1952 she was six years older than Lancaster. Concerned that their age difference might be obvious to the audience, Crawford wanted to use her own cameraman. Zinnemann refused. Cohn deiced to make a daring move and cast against type. Deborah Kerr was best known for what she called her “duchess” roles in British films, (“I feel naked without my tiara,” she joked while posing for publicity stills.) She was offered the part of the unhappy wife who rolls in the surf with Lancaster’s Warden in one of the most iconic scenes in movie history. Kerr and Lancaster were well rehearsed, having become romantically involved during the shooting. Eli Wallach’s screen test for Maggio was impressive, but Cohn’s wife Joan wasn’t convinced: “He’s a brilliant actor, but he’s not skinny and he’s not pathetic and he’s not Italian.” Cohn often deferred to his wife’s judgment, but overruled her on this one and offered the part to Wallach. But Eli but turned it down and honored a commitment to play in Tennessee Williams “Camino Real” on Broadway, directed by Elia Kazan.

Cohn relented, and the part of Maggio was awarded to Frank Sinatra after the Mafia cut off the head of Cohn’s favorite race horse and left it in his bed. That is the most enduring myth associated with From Here to Eternity, courtesy of Mario Puzo in The Godfather. Some gossiped that Cohn hated Sinatra and didn’t want him in the movie—or so said a small time Mafioso hanger-on named Johnny Rosselli in his memoirs. Screenwriter Dan Taradash insisted that Sinatra’s being awarded the role “had nothing to do with a horse’s head.” In his biography, Frank, James Kaplan relates that when Sinatra was ill, the producer sat by his hospital bed for hours on end. When he was leaving, Cohn, who felt he had to maintain his public image as a tough guy, told Sinatra, “You tell anybody about this, you son of a bitch, and I’ll kill you!” What The Godfather got right was that Sinatra was indeed desperate at that point in his career.

He was too old to play the kind of innocuous musicals he had made in the 1940s, and, as a grittier sound was coming into popular music, his record sales were in decline. By 1952 he could no longer afford a press agent and owed the IRS more than $100,000 in back taxes. He got the role of Maggio by sending Cohn a blizzard of telegrams (signed by “Maggio”) begging for a screen test while his wife, Ava Gardner, entreated Joan Cohn to give Frank a chance. Cohn did, but only after Sinatra agreed to a salary of just of $8,000. (Seven years earlier, when he made Anchors Aweigh with Gene Kelly, he received $150,000.) In Nancy Sinatra’s book about her father, Sinatra, An American Legend, she quotes Burt Lancaster as summing up the demons that drove Frank to his best performance: “His fervor, his bitterness had something to do with the character of Maggio, but also with what he had gone through the last number of years.

A sense of defeat and the whole world crashing in on him … they all came out in that performance.” Another legend that has attached itself to From Here to Eternity involves George Reeves, who had suddenly become famous—much to his chagrin—as TV’s Superman. In the 2006 film, Hollywoodland, Reeves, played by Ben Affleck, is at a pre-release screening of Eternity, and when his character comes on the screen, members of the audience hoot and jeer, “Look, it’s Superman!” The actor playing Zinnemann then cuts Reeves part to just a few seconds. Actor and writer Jim Beaver, who has researched a biography of Reeves’s for years, has written,“It’s not true. Daniel Taradash told me personally that he did not write a single scene for Reeves’s character that was not in the final release.” Get The Beast In Your Inbox! Daily DigestStart and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast. Cheat SheetA speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't). From Here to Eternity (1953) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title.

Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From Here to Eternity ( 1953 ) Not Rated | In Hawaii in 1941, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his captain's wife and second-in-command are falling in love. Director: Daniel Taradash (screen play), James Jones (based upon the novel by) Stars: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 21 titles created 09 Feb 2013 a list of 41 titles created 26 May 2013 a list of 40 titles created 06 Mar 2014 a list of 49 titles created 30 Aug 2015 a list of 49 titles created 2 months ago Title: From Here to Eternity (1953) 7.8/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin.

Won 8 Oscars. Another 14 wins & 7 nominations. See more awards » Videos A middle-aged butcher and a school teacher who have given up on the idea of love meet at a dance and fall for each other. Director: Delbert Mann Three friends struggle to find work in Paris. Things become more complicated when two of them fall in love with the same woman. Director: Vincente Minnelli A poor boy gets a job working for his rich uncle and ends up falling in love with two women. Director: George Stevens The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four-day drinking bout. Director: Billy Wilder Midshipman Roger Byam joins Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian aboard HMS Bounty for a voyage to Tahiti. Bligh proves to be a brutal tyrant and, after six pleasant months on Tahiti, ... See full summary » Director: Frank Lloyd The rise and fall of a corrupt politician, who makes his friends richer and retains power by dint of a populist appeal. Director: Robert Rossen The story of Thomas More, who stood up to King Henry VIII when the King rejected the Roman Catholic Church to obtain a divorce and remarriage.

Director: Fred Zinnemann A reporter pretends to be Jewish in order to cover a story on anti-Semitism, and personally discovers the true depths of bigotry and hatred. Director: Elia Kazan Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy. Directors: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise Stars: Natalie Wood, George Chakiris, Richard Beymer The World War II phase of the career of the controversial American general, George S. Patton . Director: Franklin J. Schaffner A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I. Director: Lewis Milestone A man from a family of rich snobs becomes engaged to a woman from a good-natured but decidedly eccentric family. Director: Frank Capra Edit Storyline It's 1941. Robert E. Lee Prewitt has requested Army transfer and has ended up at Schofield in Hawaii. His new captain, Dana Holmes, has heard of his boxing prowess and is keen to get him to represent the company. However, 'Prew' is adamant that he doesn't box anymore, so Captain Holmes gets his subordinates to make his life a living hell.

Meanwhile Sergeant Warden starts seeing the captain's wife, who has a history of seeking external relief from a troubled marriage. Prew's friend Maggio has a few altercations with the sadistic stockade Sergeant 'Fatso' Judson, and Prew begins falling in love with social club employee Lorene. Unbeknownst to anyone, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor looms in the distance. Written by Ed Sutton <esutton@mindspring.com> The Original Pearl Harbor Story (2002 DVD Release) See more » Genres: De aquí a la eternidad See more » Filming Locations: 3 Channel Stereo (Western Electric Recording) Color: Did You Know? Trivia Fred Zinnemann insisted on filming in black and white, as he felt that "color would have made it look trivial". He also eschewed the use of any of the popular new widescreen ratios. See more » Goofs After the bar fight, Warden kicks the flick knife way off to the left, away from the bar. But Prewitt is then seen picking up the knife next to his table off to the right, towards the other end of the bar. See more » Quotes Robert E.

Lee "Prew' Prewitt : You've been hoggin' the Whiskey Angelo... Angelo Maggio : Not me buddy. Its that Sandra, shes a nice girl, but she drinks like a fish! Angelo Maggio : [Picks up glass and tosses leftover outside the window] Hope there's a cop under that! [Big laugh] Opening credits prologue: SCHOFIELD BARRACKS HAWAII 1941 See more » Connections A Realistic View of the Army 2 September 2005 | by bkoganbing (Buffalo, New York) – See all my reviews One of the big blockbuster best sellers of the post World War II years is James Jones's From Here to Eternity, a tale of the peacetime army in Hawaii before Pearl Harbor. The book was definitely going to be made into a film and it was only a question of casting to make it a success. Director Fred Zinneman had a good intuitive sense about casting here, even against type. The two principal female parts were done against type. Deborah Kerr who made a career of playing respectable women played a captain's wife who's drinking and playing around.

Not that husband Philip Ober is letting grass grow under his feet either, but Kerr's latest sexual exploit involves her with the First Sergeant of her husband's company, Burt Lancaster. Donna Reed, who up to that point was best known for being Mary Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life, plays a prostitute here. A girl from the wrong side of the tracks, jilted by a rich boyfriend stateside, she's in Hawaii to make money and then go home and buy some respectability. She's not looking for romance with any soldiers, but you can't plan these things. Especially Montgomery Clift if he comes in your life. It's been argued that this is Clift's greatest role and a case can sure be made for it. His character of Robert E. Lee Pruitt is like so many who still join the army today, from small town America who have no future there and find a home in the Armed Services. What makes Clift unique is that strong sense of individualism he can't control in an organization that does not encourage individuality. Clift and Lancaster are a great study in contrasts and that's what drives From Here to Eternity.

Lancaster as Sergeant Milt Warden is the ultimate professional soldier, held in the highest regard by his men. Lancaster is someone who knows how to work the system, you see it in the way he manipulates his captain. Of course he's got to be a manipulator there since he's having an affair with Deborah Kerr. He tries to protect Clift from himself and ultimately fails. Clift has transferred into an infantry company and he was at one time a boxer. But he blinded someone in a fight and quit boxing. Philip Ober who prides himself on having several champions in various weight classes worked to get Clift in his company. Clift upsets his plans by refusing to box so he has the various sergeants give him "the treatment." Clift's best friend in the company is a tough street wise soldier from the big city named Angelo Maggio, played by Frank Sinatra. Sinatra read the book and knew this part was for him. He did everything he had to do to get that part, including working for scale. At the time Sinatra was considered a has been as singer and actor. Sinatra was right on the money in terms of picking a role.

His faith in himself and Columbia Pictures and Fred Zinneman's faith in him netted him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, one of eight awards won by From Here to Eternity. By the way Sinatra credited both Lancaster and Clift in helping him through this film as a dramatic actor. Lancaster and Sinatra didn't inhabit the same Hollywood orbit, but they remained friends for life. The same could not be said for Clift. Allegedly, some five or six years after From Here to Eternity and after Monty Clift's automobile accident while shooting Raintree County, Clift at some party at Sinatra's made a drunken pass at one of Sinatra's retainers. That got him kicked out of Sinatra's circle permanently. In fact From Here to Eternity was also the Best Picture of 1953, with Zinneman getting his second Best Director Oscar in a row after the one he took home in 1952 for High Noon. Donna Reed won for Best Supporting Acress. Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift were both nominated for Best Actor, but split the vote allowing William Holden to win for Stalag 17. Another great acting job itself.

And Kerr was up for Best Actress, but lost to Audrey Hepburn for Roman Holiday. From Here to Eternity is a film loaded with good actors in small roles who got their first notice in this film. Ernest Borgnine, Robert J. Wilkie, Claude Akins, Jack Warden, Mickey Shaughnessy, all play various soldiers and each one is memorable. Especially Borgnine as the vicious sadistic sergeant of the stockade. TV's Superman was in From Here to Eternity also. George Reeves who was looking to escape the typecasting from Superman has a part as another sergeant who warns Lancaster about Deborah Kerr. He gave a fine performance, but most of it wound up on the cutting room floor. That would have unforeseen tragic consequences. This is not any kind of glamorous army. These people are all too real and not very noble. The original novel was toned down quite a bit for the screen. But when the attack on Pearl Harbor comes, the men rise to the occasion, do their jobs in a more than competent manner and led by Burt Lancaster in that company.

It's these men who won that war in the Pacific and the one in Europe as well and From Here to Eternity despite the less than noble portrayals of them as individuals is a great tribute to them as a team. 88 of 116 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes James Jones - Wikiquote James Jones James Ramon Jones ( 6 November 1921 – 9 May 1977 ) was an American author, who became famous after the publication of his first novel, From Here to Eternity . See also: Quotes[ edit ] It will say just about everything I have ever had to say, or will ever have to say, on the human condition of war and what it means to us, as against what we claim it means to us. This place is hell . They herd you around like cattle ; they order you around like dogs ; they work you like horses ; and they feed you like hogs. I write to reach eternity .

As quoted in "From Eternity to Here" in Newsweek (13 January 1958) It will say just about everything I have ever had to say, or will ever have to say, on the human condition of war and what it means to us, as against what we claim it means to us. Introduction for his unfinished novel, Whistle (1978) the third part of his war trilogy (which was completed by Willie Morris ); quoted in TIME magazine (13 March 1978) I want to make everybody in the world groan with the inevitability of sorrow . As quoted in Into Eternity : The Life of James Jones, American Writer (1985) by Frank MacShane, p. 305 Colour makes a difference. Gender makes a difference. Ethnicity makes a difference. Acting as if they don't will create more problems than it will solve. As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang From Here to Eternity (1951)[ edit ] Somewhere along the line, he thought, these things have become your heritage.

You are multiplied by each sound that you hear. And you cannot deny them, without denying with them the purpose of your own existence... When he finished packing, he walked out on to the third-floor porch of the barracks brushing the dust from his hands, a very neat and deceptively slim young man in the summer khakis that were still early morning fresh. First line. "Jones packs a hell of a lot into that first line. He tells you it's summer, he tells you it's morning, he tells you you're on an Army post with a soldier who's obviously leaving for someplace, and he gives you a thumbnail description of his hero. That's a good opening line." ~ Ed McBain (Evan Hunter) in Killer's Payoff (1958) Somewhere along the line, he thought, these things have become your heritage. You are multiplied by each sound that you hear. And you cannot deny them, without denying with them the purpose of your own existence. Yet now, he told himself, you are denying them, by renouncing the place that they have given you. Unofficially, nobody really minded the clap.

It was a joke to those who had never had it and to those who had been over it for a while. No worse than a bad cold, they said. Apparently the only time it was not a joke was when you had it. And instead of hurting your unofficial reputation it boosted you a notch, it was like getting a wound stripe. They said that in Nicaragua they used to give out Purple Hearts. But officially it hurt your Service Record, and it automatically lost you your rating. On your papers it put a stigma on you. When he put in to get back in the Bugle Corps, he found that while he was away they had suddenly gone over-strength. He went back on straight duty for the rest of his enlistment. "A deathbed promise is the most sacred one there is," she hawked at him from the lungs that were almost, but not quite, filled up yet, "and I want you to make me this promise on my deathbed: Promise me you wont never hurt nobody unless its absolute a must, unless you jist have to do it." "I promise you," he vowed to her, still waiting for the angels to appear. "Are you afraid?" he said. "Give me your hand on it, boy.

It is a deathbed promise, and you'll never break it." "Yes maam," he said, giving her his hand, drawing it back quickly, afraid to touch the death he saw in her, unable to find anything beautiful or edifying or spiritually uplifting in this return to God. He watched a while longer for signs of immortality. No angels came, however, there was no earthquake, no cataclysm, and it was not until he had thought it over often this first death that he had had a part in that he discovered the single uplifting thing about it, that being the fact that in this last great period of fear her thought had been upon his future, rather than her own. He wondered often after that about his own death, how it would come, how it would feel, what it would be like to know that this breath, now, was the last one. It was hard to accept that he, who was the hub of this known universe, would cease to exist, but it was an inevitability and he did not shun it. He only hoped that he would meet it with the same magnificent indifference with which she who had been his mother met it.

Because it was there, he felt, that the immortality he had not seen was hidden. Why was it everything was always so goddam complicated? Even the simplest things was so goddam complicated when you come to doing them. Prew bit his lips. He got his envelope roll out of the wall locker and the combat pack off the bed foot. He laid them on the floor and opened the light pack. Everyone in the squadroom sat up and watched him silently and speculatively, as they might watch a sick horse upon whose time to die they had gotten up a pool. This is the song of the men who have no place, played by a man who has never had a place, and can therefore play it. He looked at his watch and as the second hand touched the top stepped up and raised the bugle to the megaphone, and the nervousness dropped from him like a discarded blouse, and he was suddenly alone, gone away from the rest of them. The first note was clear and absolutely certain. There was no question or stumbling in this bugle. It swept across the quadrangle positively, held just a fraction longer than most buglers hold it.

Held long like the length of time, stretching away from weary day to weary day. Held long like thirty years. The second note was short, almost too abrupt. Cut short and soon gone, like the minutes with a whore. Short like a ten minute break is short. And then the last note of the first phrase rose triumphantly from the slightly broken rhythm, triumphantly high on an untouchable level of pride above the humiliations, the degradations. He played it all that way, with a paused then hurried rhythm that no metronome could follow. There was no placid regimented tempo to Taps. The notes rose high in the air and hung above the quadrangle. They vibrated there, caressingly, filled with an infinite sadness, an endless patience, a pointless pride, the requiem and epitaph of the common soldier, who smelled like a common soldier, as a woman had once told him. They hovered like halos over the heads of sleeping men in the darkened barracks, turning all the grossness to the beauty that is the beauty of sympathy and understanding.

Here we are, they said, you made us, now see us, dont close your eyes and shudder at it; this beauty, and this sorrow, of things as they are. Robert E. Lee Prewitt playing Taps This song is Reality . Remember ? Surely you remember? This is the song of the men who have no place, played by a man who has never had a place, and can therefore play it. Listen to it. You know this song, remember? This is the song you close your ears to every night, so you can sleep. This is the song you drink five martinis every evening not to hear. This is the song of the Great Loneliness, that creeps in the desert wind and dehydrates the soul. This is the song you'll listen to on the day you die.

When you lay there in bed and sweat it out, you know that all the doctors and nurses and weeping friends don't mean a thing and can't help you any, can't save you one small bitter taste of it, because you are the one that's dying and not them; when you wait for it to come and know the sleep will not evade it and martinis will not put it off and conversation will not circumvent it and hobbies will not help you to escape it; then you will hear this song and remembering, recognize it. This song is Reality. Remember? Surely you remember? "Day is done... Sol jer brave God is nigh..." The clear proud notes reverberating back and forth across the silent quad. Men had come from the Dayrooms to the porches to listen in the darkness, feeling the sudden choking kinship bred of fear that supersedes all personal tastes. They stood in the darkness of the porches, listening, feeling suddenly very near the man beside them, who also was a soldier, who also must die. Then as silent as they had come, they filed back inside with lowered eyes, suddenly ashamed of their own emotion, and of seeing a man's naked soul.

Maylon Stark, leaning silent against his kitchen wall, looked at his cigaret with a set twisted mouth that looked about to cry, about to laugh, about to sneer. Ashamed. Ashamed of his own good luck that had given him back his purpose and his meaning. Ashamed that this other man had lost his own. He pinched the inoffensive coal between his fingers, relishing the sting, and threw it on the ground with all his strength, throwing with it all the overpowering injustice of the world that he could not stomach nor understand nor explain nor change. "You've killed me. Why'd you want to kill me," he said, and died. The expression of hurt surprise and wounded reproach and sheer inability to understand stayed on his face like a forgotten suitcase left at the station, and gradually hardened there. Prew stood looking down at him, still shocked by the reproving question. The Paris Review interview (1958)[ edit ] I'm an American , and always will be. I happen to love that big, awkward, sprawling country very much — and its big, awkward, sprawling people . The Thin Red Line (1962)[ edit ] There's only a thin red line between the sane and the mad .

This book is cheerfully dedicated to those greatest and most heroic of all human endeavors, WAR and WARFARE; may they never cease to give us the pleasure, excitement and adrenal stimulation that we need, or provide us with the heroes, the presidents and the leaders, the monuments and museums which we erect to them in the name of PEACE. Dedication The two transports had sneaked up from the south in the first graying flush of dawn, their cumbersome mass cutting smoothly through the water whose still greater mass bore them silently, themselves s gray as the dawn which camouflaged them. First lines There's only a thin red line between the sane and the mad. "Old midwestern saying" created by Jones for his story, as stated in James Jones: An American Literary Orientalist Master (1998) by Steven R. Carter Don Swaim interview (1975)[ edit ] WWII (1975)[ edit ] What it is that makes a man go out into dangerous places and get himself shot at with increasing consistency until finally he dies , is an interesting subject for speculation. History is always written from the viewpoints of the leaders. And increasingly, in our age, war leaders do not get shot at with any serious consistency.

Leaders make momentous , world -encompassing historical decisions . It is your average anonymous soldier, or pilot, or naval gunnery rating who has to carry them out on the ground. Where there is often a vast difference between grandiose logic and plans and what takes place on the terrain. What it is that makes a man go out into dangerous places and get himself shot at with increasing consistency until finally he dies , is an interesting subject for speculation. And an interesting study. One might entitle it, THE EVOLUTION OF A SOLDIER. Preface - 'To Us Old Men' To Reach Eternity (1989)[ edit ] To Reach Eternity : The Letters of James Jones (1989) edited by George Hendrick, There were such things he wanted to be, to do, to write : He wanted to be the voice that shrieked out the agony of frustration and lostness and despair and loneliness , that all men feel , yet cannot understand ... I'm really serious about this writing thing. What time I haven't been writing, I've been reading: Thomas Wolfe , if you know who he is. His writing is mostly built about the central character of a writer, himself.

Altho it's fiction, it deals with his life and experiences. In my opinion, little as it's worth, he is the greatest writer that has lived, Shakespeare included. He is a genius. Letter to his brother Jeff, from Hawaii (7 April 1941); p. 11 Sometimes the air is awfully clear here. You can look off to sea and see the soft, warm, raggedy roof of clouds stretching on and on and on. It almost seems as if you can look right on into eternity.

Here's the way I wrote in one of the things I wrote a while back: "But since he had been in the army, he had come to understand his ungraspable longing and his phantasmal and belly-shrinking dissatisfaction: there were such things he wanted to be, to do, to write: He wanted to be the voice that shrieked out the agony of frustration and lostness and despair and loneliness, that all men feel, yet cannot understand; the voice that rolled forth the booming, intoxicating laughter of men's joy; the voice that richly purred men's love of good hot food and spicy strong drink; men's love of thick, moist, pungent tobacco smoke on a full belly; men's love of woman: voluptuous, throaty voiced, silken-thighed, and sensual." I suppose that sounds an awful lot like Wolfe, but if it does, it's exactly the way I feel. Letter to his brother Jeff, from Hawaii (7 April 1941); p. 13 Sometimes the air is awfully clear here. You can look off to sea and see the soft, warm, raggedy roof of clouds stretching on and on and on.

It almost seems as if you can look right on into eternity. Letter to his brother Jeff, from Hawaii (22 March 1942); p. 17 I wasn't hit very badly — a piece of shrapnel went thru my helmet and cut a nice little hole in the back of my head. It didn't fracture the skull and is healed up nicely now. I don't know what happened to my helmet; the shell landed close to me and when I came to, the helmet was gone. The concussion together with the fragment that hit me must have broken the chinstrap and torn it off my head. It also blew my glasses off my face. I never saw them again, either, but I imagine they are smashed to hell. If I hadn't been lying in a hole I'd dug with my hands and helmet, that shell would probably have finished me off. The hole was only six or eight inches deep, but that makes an awful lot of difference, and it looked like a canyon. Letter to his brother Jeff from Guadalcanal (28 January 1943); p.

25 It doesn't make any difference who you are, how tough you are, how nice a guy you might be, or how much you may know , if you happen to be at a certain spot at a certain time , you get it. In spite of all the training you get and precautions you take to keep yourself alive, it's largely a matter of luck that decided whether or not you get killed. It doesn't make any difference who you are, how tough you are, how nice a guy you might be, or how much you may know, if you happen to be at a certain spot at a certain time, you get it. I've seen guys out of one hole to a better one and get it the next minute, whereas if they'd stayed still they wouldn't have been touched. I've seen guys decide to stay in a hole instead of moving and get it. I've seen guys move and watch the hole they were in get blown up a minute later. And I've seen guys stay and watch the place to which they had intended to move get blown up. It's all luck. Letter to his brother Jeff from Guadalcanal (28 January 1943); p.

27 If I get it, no one will ever know to what heights I might have gone as a writer. Maybe if you wrote about the promise that was there, all wouldn't be lost. I'm going to ask you something. If I do get killed, and I honestly don't see how I can help it, I want you to write that book we were thinking about when I enlisted. If I get it, it's a cinch I won't be able to do it, and it would make me feel a whole lot better to know that if not my name and hand, at least, the thot of me would be passed on and not forgotten entirely. You know, sort of put into the book the promise that I had and the things I might have written so at least the knowledge of talent wasted won't be lost. . . If I get it, no one will ever know to what heights I might have gone as a writer. Maybe if you wrote about the promise that was there, all wouldn't be lost. Letter to his brother Jeff from Guadalcanal (28 January 1943); p.

28 I have discovered only two writers whom I can take all the way, or at least nearly so; and those are Scott Fitzgerald and Tom Wolfe . I think Hemingway is confused on lots of things, just as I think the Fountainhead was confused; but I also think both are magnificently right in many things.) Letter to Maxwell Perkins (21 October 1946); p. 77 I have separate lists titled by characters in which I list each scene concerning that character consecutively and also the proposed scenes for that character along with notes of how I want to write it. So I take these and by them map out ahead the final draft, interlacing the scenes between various characters. Wonderful, isn't it? If I fail as a writer, I can always become a bookkeeper. I have always been bothered because I couldn't remember details of time, place, etc. and I used to find myself either surrounded by reams of written pages, or else rewriting the same thing three or four times. This helps somewhat to alleviate that. Letter to Maxwell Perkins (21 October 1946); p. 78 Also by the way, I have found a title for this book.

From Here to Eternity. Taken from the "Whiffenpoof" song, of Yale drinking fame. It goes: "We are little black sheep who have gone astray, baa . . . baa . . . baa. Gentlemen songsters out on a spree, damned from here to eternity. God have mercy on such as we. Baa, etc." Maybe it's maudlin, but so am I. I get chills every time I sing it, even when sober. Letter to Maxwell Perkins (21 October 1946); p. 80 Quotes about Jones[ edit ] James Jones was not just a good writer but a good man . Roger Ebert , in his review of A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (25 September 1998), reprinted in Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert (2008), Part 5 : Overlooked and Underrated, p. 330 For almost thirty years, James Jones was the friend , and frequently the benefactor, of American writers at home and abroad. Despite his clear importance in the writing community, the academy still largely ignores him.

PMLA biographies from 1951 to 1976 list only ten articles about his work in scholarly journals and essay collections, three of which are in publications outside the United States. It often seems that, when academicians remember Jones, it is as the spokesman for an anachronistic male supremacy or as a writer of flawed naturalistic prose. James R. Giles in James Jones (1981) James Jones is an established literary figure. He's a monumental figure, a novelist. I remember him best for From Here to Eternity and The Thin Red Line — among the best war literature of Americans. Probably for this reason: I think it is one of the few war books written by somebody who was there, in the military and in combat . Most of our other war books are not.

Question: Who wrote the novel 'From Here To Eternity'?
Answer: JAMES JONES