From Here to Eternity (1953)

Directed by: Fred Zinneman | 118 minutes | drama, war, romance | Actors: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra, Philip Ober, Mickey Shaughnessy, Harry Bellaver, Ernest Borgnine

Some films are just a nice snack and also offer some pastime in the nostalgic area. ‘From Here to Eternity’ is one of them. Burt Lancaster is in the prime of his life; Montgomery Clift – an unruly version of Elvis – is a discovery as a sympathetic freebooter; Frank Sinatra is still a very skinny youngster and we are presented with solid action that doesn’t revolve around special effects. However, the eight Oscars that the film won are a typical example of American patriotism. ‘From Here to Eternity’ is a solid, if somewhat flat Hollywood film, with an innovative element here and there. For example, there is a lot of sympathy for the deviant individual in the army and the role of women can also be called special for that time. Karen Holmes (Kerr) smokes like a man when the bell rings, she opens the front door with a cigarette between her lips – and Lancaster and Kerr’s making out in the surf is also of a bold nature.

Of course, it doesn’t make us either hot or cold, but when these people go on to perform heroic deeds during the traumatic attack on Pearl Harbor, the members of the Academy quickly lose their rational thinking ability; That’s really not such a bad thing, but it does mean that this soap drama is still listed as a classic fifty years later and although ‘From Here to Eternity’ is not as drapy as the empty melodrama ‘Pearl Harbor’, where two studs hug each other Keetje Beat Beckinsale completely understandable, but why would you make a film of it, after two hours you still have the feeling that you have bought a pig in a poke.

OK, that Clift is a real one rebel without a cause and the love drama between the sergeant and the fallen woman also has potential, but it lacks depth. We come to know that Karen Holmes has a tragic marriage because her husband was too drunk to help her during labour, causing her baby to die. This is a typical soap element and could still play a significant role if worked out better. Her new relationship with Sergeant Warden, however, ends for the banal reason that he does not want to become an officer. And then with tears in the eyes on the ferry to the mainland; how hard it is for love in this hard world. And Sinatra? He can – just like Elvis – sing well.