Leofwine_draca I suppose that FROM HERE TO ETERNITY can best be described as the FULL METAL JACKET of the 1950s. It stars the eternally youthful Montgomery Clift (fresh from playing the role of the tormented priest in Hitchcock's I CONFESS) as a raw army recruit based in Hawaii during World War 2 who is subjected to endless bullying and bad behaviour for an unlikely reason: in peacetime Clift was an amateur boxing champion, and his superiors want him to join the army boxing team, but he refuses due to personal circumstances.It's a slight premise but as a film FROM HERE TO ETERNITY works very well indeed, in fact achieving the status of something of a classic. That's because it has real narrative depth and various sub-plots that interact in ways both expected and unexpected. The film boasts from a gritty realism and a lack of sentimentality that means not all of the characters are going to have happy endings. Frank Sinatra shines in the role of a brash young recruit who falls foul of Ernest Borgnine in a star-making performance as a bully. Burt Lancaster is the weary sergeant trying to hold everything together. The story climaxes with the attack on Pearl Harbor, portrayed in a way that is just as powerful as you could hope for.

MisterWhiplash This is ostensibly a film about life before war breaks out - the climax (not a spoiler I don't think) is the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 - but it's also about how much it sucks to be a man. And a woman. Actually it is not something that is too appealing it would seem to be a part of an army base during peacetime from the looks of this. The women in this world are in miserable marriages or at miserable jobs, and the guys are stuck in the same super-masculine patterns: do some boxing, trust me, Pruitt, it'll be good for you (nevermind that he blinded a guy by accident in a fight years before), and make sure to have plenty of booze when it's the nighttime.Even the setting is deceptive: the beautiful beaches and sweet presence of Hawaii (those shirts!) are masking how if a person cant take being around other a-holes it doesn't change anything. Through this it makes for a compelling batch of stories; you have Lancaster as a sergeant who falls for the Captains wife (Deborah Kerr in a performance that is so intense at times it nears going into being too much, but she always keeps a scene and her delivery of these lines in check) and the conflict in whether to go for it in the 'after all this' thing; Pruitt (Clift), who this feels like the movie is more about than its top billed star, is filled with guilt and angst and should also be too much to take, but also finds those lines of keeping it compelling and interesting, full of pain and fury and all that, but also not going too far.The only one who may be having 'fun' up to a point is Sinatras Maggio, who becomes the brunt of racist remarks (damn you Ernest Borgnine, who's great in his few scenes by the way and cuts a mean impression), and is the first to drown himself in booze when it becomes clear life is being much too oppressive. Though one knows how this story is leading up to its eventual conclusion, it feels more like a post war story (and it is by way of it being filmed in 53) while coming before. A guy like Maggio would've faced likely the same sort of bullies and pricks in post war life as pre, but in this world he has no escape from what this BS tough guy male world has to do to people. Or does it have to? Yeah, it does.There are points where it likely has dated, where the hopes and aspirations for the women especially (or some of them men too) are different than it would be today or even like 20 years after the pre Pearl Harbor days. What were the options then, one has to ask, and it leads to having to take things on the context when it was made. What makes it work today from being dated is the power of the performances and that the writing is smart enough to recognize everyone as flawed to varying degrees, and that Zinneman keeps a strong hold on the dramatic tone scene to scene. If there's anything flawed its minor, like leaving the Lancaster-Kerr relationship to the wayside for a good part of the run-time until returning to that in the third act.So if you only expect like the romance of that iconic bit on the beach you may be in for not so much disappointment but a heavier and more empathetic tale of soldiers and women and the problems in trying to be true to feelings when its not possible. Sure its a melodrama, but so what? If its done this well its worth embracing to this day, and Sinatra, Clift and Jean Arthur are worth noting for their terrific acting.

Hitchcoc This is a bit of a soap opera prior to the events of Pearl Harbor. Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift are the stars here. The romance is intense as it will always be in a military setting. What we all know is coming is a morning in December when Japanese planes made their way to the Hawaiian Islands, setting things in motion for the U.S. to enter the second world war. The special effects as the stupefied residents see the planes overhead are gut wrenching. What I remember most the incredible distress and lack of a plan as the bombs are dropping. The isolationist mentality has some strengths, but it can also create a vulnerability that is devastating. One can have weapons to retaliate, but there'd better be a method to deliver them.

851222 Greetings from Lithuania."From Here to Eternity" (1953) isn't a real classic, but it is a very solid movie, even when seeing it for a first time just yet in 2016. Performances were very good by all involved, directing and script were solid as well. Film is solidly paced, at running time 1 h 58 min it does not drag. Watching this movie now i realized that it influenced some movies which i have seen. Overall, "From Here to Eternity" is a good movie, which aged quite good, and while attack on Perl Harbor scenes at the end won't blow you away now, it is not about that day actually. It is about a story that was before that day, and it's good story done right.