From Here To Eternity - 1953
Cats: Set Your Recorders, Romance, Drama|| May 7, 2008 | ||
| 8:00 pm | to | 10:00 pm |
“I’m back baby, I’m back!” said Frank Sinatra to his then wife Ava Gardner when he won his Oscar for best supporting actor for the role of Maggio in this Fred Zinnenman masterpiece. The fact that Capitol records had picked up his contract (after being let go by Columbia) and paired him with Nelson Riddle in the musical pairing of the century had something to do with it too. It was a good year career wise for Frank.
It was great year for film as well. The Best Picture, Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress and Actor, and so forth were filled with tough choices, all incredibly Oscar worthy. Montgomery Clift and Burt Lancaster were both nominated for Best Actor but lost to William Holden for Stalag 17. Deborah Kerr lost to newcomer Audrey Hepurn for Roman Holiday. Frank and Donna Reed won Supporting Oscars, Fred Zinneman won Best Director, the movie won Best Picure and a bunch of others tieing Gone With The Wind in number of wins.
The picture is full of great character actors. It also has a young Ernest Borgnine plucked straight form small rolls in B pictures as well as several Captain Video episodes playing Sgt. James “Fatso” Judson. Also watch for George Reeves, tv’s Superman. Reeves was cast in the supporting role of Sgt. Maylon Stark but during test screenings every time his name appeared on screen people would yell out “hey Superman”. The studio thought that this was a bad thing and had all his scenes cut except one, an important one. The scene is with Burt Lancaster and Reeves’ natural, easy going, relaxed, understated performance is a perfect compliment to Lancaster. I will not say what the scene is about or why it is important. When you see it you’ll know.
Although I would place this in the Drama catagory it is a good introduction to war films for the kids. In fact on the last night of Movie Place someone asked me “what should my soon to be 10 year old daughter’s first war film be” and I recommended “From Here To Eternity”. Not too much war but you know it’s there. More “kissey stuff” than war. The attack on Pearl Harbor though is frightening and is probably the first depiction of the attack in a motion picture. My mother saw the film in 1953 during it’s first theatrical release and told me once that when the attack started some people in the theater started to cry and scream. Maybe it was too soon for post World War 2 America. However most kids have grown up in a post 9/11 world and our kids have grown up in a post 9/11 New York. So maybe, and I hate saying this, it’s something that they have already seen.
Wednesday May 7th at 8:00 PM on TCM.
