From Here To Eternity !EXCLUSIVE!
The film won eight Academy Awards out of 13 nominations, including awards for Best Picture, Best Director (Fred Zinnemann), Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor (Frank Sinatra), and Supporting Actress (Donna Reed).[3] The film's title originates from Rudyard Kipling's 1892 poem "Gentlemen-Rankers", about soldiers of the British Empire who had "lost [their] way" and were "damned from here to eternity".
from here to eternity
In 1941, bugler and career soldier Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt transfers from Fort Shafter to a rifle company at Schofield Barracks on the island of Oahu. Because Prewitt was also a boxer, Captain Dana "Dynamite" Holmes wants him on his regimental team. Prewitt refuses. Consequently, Holmes makes Prewitt's life miserable and ultimately orders First Sergeant Milton Warden to prepare a court-martial. Warden suggests doubling Prewitt's company punishment as an alternative. Prewitt is hazed by the other NCOs and is supported only by his close friend, Private Angelo Maggio.
Prewitt and Maggio join a social club where Prewitt becomes attracted to Lorene. Prewitt confides to her he quit boxing after blinding his sparring partner. At the club, Maggio has an argument with stockade Sergeant "Fatso" Judson. Later, at a local bar, Judson provokes Maggio and the two nearly come to blows before Warden intervenes.
A member of Holmes' boxing team, Sgt. Galovitch, picks a fight with Prewitt. The fight is reported to Holmes who observes without intervening. Holmes is about to punish Prewitt again, but when he is told that Galovitch started the fight, Holmes does nothing. The regimental commander observes Holmes' conduct and, after an investigation, orders his resignation in lieu of a court martial. Holmes' replacement, Captain Ross, reprimands the other NCOs, demotes Galovitch to private, and affirms there will be no more promotions through boxing.
Maggio escapes from the stockade after a brutal beating from Judson and dies in Prewitt's arms. Seeking revenge, Prewitt engages Judson in a back alley knife fight. Prewitt kills Judson, but is badly wounded and stays with Lorene. Warden covers for Prewitt's absence.
Karen tells Warden that Holmes' resignation is forcing them back to the mainland, but Warden reveals he has no interest in becoming an officer, effectively ending their relationship. Warden promises her that they will meet somewhere some day.
In the novel, Lorene was a prostitute at a brothel, but in the film, she is a hostess at a private social club.[12] Karen's hysterectomy in the novel was caused by the unfaithful Holmes transmitting gonorrhea to her, but in the film, her hysterectomy resulted from a miscarriage, thus avoiding the topic of venereal disease. The changes were made to meet Code Office standards.[13]
In the novel, several of the enlisted men fraternize with homosexuals, and one soldier commits suicide as a result, but homosexuality is not mentioned or directly explored in the film. Again, the change was made to satisfy the Code Office.[13][17] However, J. E. Smyth has written that the film's treatment of Judson's behavior towards Maggio "has all the indications of sexual abuse, and therefore reintroduces the fear of homosexuality in the 1930s military that the rest of the script had to repress for obvious reasons of censorship".[18]
In the novel, Captain Holmes ironically receives his desired promotion, and is transferred out of the company. In the film, Holmes is forced to resign from the Army under threat of court-martial for his ill-treatment of Prewitt. The Army insisted on this change, which the filmmakers reluctantly made.[12][15][19] Director Zinnemann later complained that the scene where Holmes is reprimanded was "the worst moment in the film, resembling a recruiting short",[15] and wrote, "It makes me sick every time I see it."[20]
In the novel, Judson's systematic abuse of Maggio and other prisoners, including Prewitt himself at one point, is portrayed in detail. However, in the film, Maggio's abuse happens offscreen, and is told only verbally to Prewitt, who remains free. The Army required that the abuse of Maggio not be shown, and that Judson's behavior towards Maggio be portrayed as "a sadistic anomaly, and not as the result of Army policy, as depicted in Jones' book".[15] The filmmakers agreed, seeing these changes as improvements.[15][20] Maggio, who survives and is discharged in the novel, dies in the film,[12] having been combined with two other prisoner characters from the novel (one of whom is killed by Judson in the novel) to add drama and make Maggio a stronger, more tragic figure.[21][22][23] The Army was further pacified by the filmmakers' inclusion of a line suggesting that Maggio's death was partially caused by his falling off a truck during a prison break, rather than solely by Judson's beatings.[24]
The James Jones bestseller, From Here to Eternity, has become an outstanding motion picture in this smash screen adaptation. It is an important film from any angle, presenting socko entertainment for big business. The cast names are exceptionally good, the exploitation and word-of-mouth values are topnotch, and the prospects in all playdates are very bright, whether special key bookings or general run.[25]
Despite the rivalry between their respective characters, Sinatra and Borgnine, both from Italian roots, became lifelong friends. They corresponded with each other at Christmas season by interchanging cards signed using their film character's names "Maggio" and "Fatso". At a Dean Martin Celebrity Roast honoring Sinatra, Borgnine mockingly reprised his Fatso Judson character.
Despite the positive response of the critics and public, the Army was reportedly not pleased with its depiction in the finished film, and refused to let its name be used in the opening credits.[28] The Navy also banned the film from being shown to its servicemen, calling it "derogatory of a sister service" and a "discredit to the armed services".[29]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 88% from 96 reviews. The consensus summarizes: "It has perhaps aged poorly, but this languidly paced WWII romance remains an iconic, well-acted film, featuring particularly strong performances from Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift."[30]
In February 1941, Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, nicknamed "Prew", reports to his new posting at G Company, a US Army infantry unit stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. Prew is a career soldier (a "thirty-year man") with six years' service, an excellent bugler, and a former boxer. He was transferred from his last unit, a Bugle Corps, with a reduction to the lowest rank after complaining that a less skilled bugler, who was a friend and sex partner of the Chief Bugler, had been made First Bugler over him.[6]
G Company's commanding officer is Captain Dana "Dynamite" Holmes, the regimental boxing coach, who chose Prew for his unit because of Prew's past history as a talented welterweight boxer. Holmes thinks that winning a boxing championship will greatly help his chances for promotion and concentrates on building a strong team, offering incentives such as promotions to men who box well. However, Prew swore off boxing after accidentally blinding his sparring partner and even transferred out of a past regiment to get away from boxing. Prew refuses to box for Holmes' team, resulting in his being given "The Treatment" by his platoon guide Sergeant Galovitch and others. "The Treatment" is a daily hazing ritual in which Prew is constantly singled out for extra drill exercises, unwarranted punishments, and undesirable work assignments in hopes of breaking him down through exhaustion. Despite the abuse, Prew stubbornly refuses to change his mind about boxing.
Prew befriends a new young soldier, Private Angelo Maggio, whose temper and impetuous behavior sometimes get him into trouble. Returning from a drunken night on the town, Prew and Maggio encounter military policemen (MPs), and Maggio fights them. As a result, Maggio is sentenced to a term in the stockade, the local military prison. At a local brothel catering to servicemen, Prew meets a beautiful prostitute, Lorene, whose real name turns out to be Alma Schmidt. Lorene is planning to save the money she makes and use it to establish herself in respectable society back in her Oregon hometown and eventually marry a man who is so respectable that no one would ever believe she had been a prostitute. Over time, she and Prew fall in love, but she refuses to marry him because she does not think he is respectable enough.
Just before the company's big boxing match, Prew gets into a fight with Private first class Isaac Bloom, one of the boxers, and beats him so badly there is a concern that Bloom can no longer box. However, Bloom boxes and wins his match with a quick knockout. Later, Sergeant Galovitch attacks Prew with a knife while Prew is unarmed. Prew knocks out Sergeant Galovitch but refuses to testify that Galovitch had a knife; as a result, Prew is sentenced to three months in the stockade. While Prew is in the stockade, Bloom, a closet homosexual, commits suicide.
In the stockade, Prew sees prisoners routinely beaten and abused by Staff Sergeant "Fatso" Judson, the prison second-in-command. Prew reconnects with Maggio, who is in the "Number Two" barracks where the hardest and most recalcitrant prisoners are kept. Maggio has undergone repeated beatings and solitary confinement in the prison and is now hardened as a result. Prew schemes to be transferred into Number Two by committing an infraction and then being beaten and then spending time in the "Black Hole", a dark solitary confinement cell where prisoners are fed minimal bread and water rations. When he comes out, he is placed in Number Two and forms a camaraderie with the other prisoners there. Maggio finally schemes to get out of the prison and out of the Army altogether by pretending to have gone crazy. He is repeatedly beaten for many days by Judson, who strongly suspects that he is faking and is trying to get him to admit it. Judson fails to get an admission out of Maggio although Maggio manages to get a message back to his friends that he is all right. Maggio is finally given a Section 8 dishonorable discharge, and Prew never sees him again. 041b061a72