FROM HERE TO ETERNITY

(1953, Fred Zinnemann) "If a man don't go his own way, he's nothin'." 1941 at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii: in-for-life private Montgomery Clift refuses to box for the company team despite intense pressure from his slimy captain, then finds romance with club "hostess" Donna Reed; 1st Sergeant Burt Lancaster "hates officers" but ends up in the surf with captain's wife Deborah Kerr; while Frank Sinatra's hot-headed Private Maggio heads for a showdown with Ernest Borgnine's sadistic stockade chief Sgt. "Fatso" – then suddenly it's December 7...

REVIEWS

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"A singular cinematic experience, one of the landmarks of American film."
– Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

"An acting bonanza—including Frank Sinatra's notably focused comeback turn as the volatile Private Maggio and the cast-against-type perfs by Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed. Burt Lancaster anchors the movie with his tough first sergeant; Montgomery Clift soars as the tragic company misfit Private Prewitt. The moment in which Prewitt blows a few bebop riffs on the bugle is a fanfare for himself. Nearly everyone gets a drunk scene and the adulterous Kerr-Lancaster clinch in the surf was the Eisenhower-era high-water mark of Hollywood sexual passion."
– J. Hoberman

"Succeeds by the smooth efficiency of Zinnemann's lean, intelligent direction, and by the superlative casting."
– Pauline Kael