From Here to Eternity

Wowza!

From Here to Eternity (1953)

There’s a reason From Here to Eternity won eight Academy Awards and was nominated for five others. The stellar cast is in large part responsible as two leading men and several supporting characters of almost leading caliber delivery hard-hitting performances.

The story follows a Hawaiian military base in the months preceding the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s official entrance into World War II. Because the country is not at war for most of the picture, however, we get to see what life was like for the “30-year” men who enlisted with the aim of making a career out of military life. Yes, they do drills, but they also spend their evenings in town getting drunk and meeting women.

But the story is as unsavory as that. It commences with the arrival of Pvt. Robert E. Lee Pruitt (Montgomery Clift) on base, having transferred from his post as a bugler because he was passed over for the first bugle position. He was directed to his receiving base because Capt. Holmes (Philip Ober) once saw him box and aspires to have his division win the inter-regiment boxing league. Pruitt refuses to box, however, because the last time he did he blinded a man.

Pruitt’s story surrounds the intimidation and mistreatment he receives at the hands of the other boxing men in the ranks who try to pressure him to enter the ring. Pruitt makes a great pal, however, in Pvt. Maggio (Frank Sinatra) –a high-spirited soldier who introduces Pruitt to the benefits of a social club in town. It is at said club that Pruitt meets Lorene (Donna Reed), with whom he quickly falls in love. The two maintain a romance that is stifled by Lorene’s confession she does not want to marry an army man.

Maggio, meanwhile, makes a fast enemy in “Fatso”, the sergeant of the stockades (Ernest Borgnine). At a bar in town, Maggio argues with him over the sergeant’s piano playing, the musician calls Maggio a “wop” and the disagreement continues for months. When Maggio is given a last-minute assignment to cover the watch, he shirks his duty and goes on with his original plans to get drunk. His court martial lands him in the stockade where Fatso brutally beats him for weeks. Maggio escapes from the stockade and finds his way to Pruitt only to die moments later.

But those two dramatic tales are not alone in From Here to Eternity. Burt Lancaster as Sgt. Warden presents the story’s romantic plot. Warden is assistant to Cpt. Holmes and catches the eye of the philandering officer’s wife, Karen (Deborah Kerr). Although Karen has been known to get around herself, she confesses to never having known a feeling like that she experiences with Warden. By the end of the movie, the couple hopes to get married, but if Karen is to divorce Holmes, Warden will have to secure an officer’s position in order to transfer out of the regiment. The enlisted man is resistant to the idea, however, and when the war starts, everything will change.

No matter which character you become invested in, by the end of From Here to Eternity you will find yourself heartbroken. For a war movie set during (relative) peace time, the tragedies endured by the various characters are significant. Although the villains –Cpt. Homes and Fatso– get what they deserve, the sweetest character –Maggio– suffers the worst fate. Sinatra won the Best Supporting Actor award and deservedly so. He had pushed to get the role for which producers had passed over Eli Wallach because of his salary demands. Filmmakers thought Sinatra’s skinny build portrayed the helpless image the character called for, and so he got the part. Joan Crawford endeavored to take the role of Karen but also had demands that put her off for the filmmakers. The role was a different one for Kerr who typically played sophisticated roles. Although she brings an upper class air to the part, the character nevertheless has a semi-sordid past.

The direction of the film, by Fred Zinnemann is also superb with beautifully composed deep-focus shots and some of the most memorable scenes in movie history –see Lancaster and Kerr cavorting among the waves. From Here to Eternity does nothing to show the Army in a positive light, yet the Army itself approved its screening in camps. The Navy, meanwhile, banned it for its derogatory portrayal of a sister service.

Source: TCM.com

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Johnny Guitar

Gasser

Johnny Guitar (1954)

     I have been relishing the opportunity to watch Johnny Guitar because I have been convinced it would be horrendous. You might then understand my utter amazement at how good the movie is. Outside of Joan Crawford who is the only downfall of the flick –and a big one at that– Johnny Guitar is a great story that takes an untraditional approach to the western genre.

     Westerns generally depict the feuds between men, but Johnny Guitar‘s main focus is on two fighting women. Crawford is saloon owner Vienna who has become generally associated with the gang of the Dancin’ Kid. Mercedes McCambridge as Emma, on the other hand, aligns herself with a rival posse of ranch hands that includes the sheriff and a U.S. Marshall. At the opening, Emma’s brother is killed in a stagecoach robbery and that group of ranchers blame the Dancin’ Kid’s quartet. They go to Vienna’s saloon to search them out but do not find the supposed culprits there, at least not at first. When the Dancin’ Kid (Scott Brady) does show up, he denies involvement with the robbery and shooting. Emma has a particular hatred for this man, but Vienna maintains it is because she wants him but in a star-crossed lover sort of way cannot have him. The Kid, might want Emma as well, but he’s also pushing to get in Vienna’s bed. In light of the feud and shooting, the sheriff declares a law that would prevent Vienna from offering booze or gambling at her establishment and calls for the Kid’s gang to get out of town –all within 24 hours.

     Throughout this, a new man in town, Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden) has arrived at Vienna’s request for a job playing music at the saloon. He gets on the bad side of the Dancin’ Kid gang and beats up Bart, played by Ernest Borgnine, and shoots a gun out of young Turkey’s hand (Ben Cooper). We eventually learn that this Johnny Guitar –or Johnny Logan– was Vienna’s past love, but the woman’s seedy bedroom forays in the past five years stand in the way of a reunion.

     Because the Kid’s gang is being run out of town, the group decides to actually commit a crime on its way out. Just as Vienna is withdrawing her money from the bank now owned by Emma, the men barge in and rob it of all its gold. The authorities naturally associate Vienna with the crime and Emma is out for blood. Before Vienna and Johnny can skip town, however, they are faced with a wounded Turkey, whom they must hide in the saloon as Emma and the ranchers barge in. All is well until Turkey’s hiding place is discovered and the law and Emma force him to say Vienna helped in the robbery or else be hanged. He does so but the posse now rushes off to hang them both. A chase and shootout compose the remainder of the plot.

     McCambridge was truly stunning in her brutal portrayal of a frontier woman with masculine strengths. Often the camera takes a close-up on her homely face as she seethes with rage in either yelling at or campaigning against her nemesis in Vienna. McCambridge and Crawford hated each other off screen making their onscreen feud all the stronger, but Crawford’s approach is more cool and aloof and does not stack up against her rival. Besides having left her beauty behind her by this point in her career, Crawford is absolutely out of place in a western. Her clothing, face and hair are absolutely spotless throughout the movie as though the woman never ventures outside into the dirty, dry world of the western U.S. The gun belt she wears looks more like a fashion accessory than a weapon holster, and she holds a gun more like Mildred Pierce than a gunslinger. For one portion of the flick, Vienna dons a purely white dress that somehow never dirties despite being hauled on a horse to her hanging, hiding against the earth and strolling through a mine. Even after getting wet while wading through a river and passing through a waterfall, moments later she is dry, her hair pristine and the man’s clothes she’s borrowed perfectly clean and well-fitting. It takes no stretch of the imagination that Crawford likely required these perfections for her role. She certainly required all close ups be filmed in a studio rather than on location so that the lighting could be controlled to her advantage.

     Besides Crawford sorely standing out as the wrong person for the role, I greatly enjoyed the story of Johnny Guitar even if it has less to do with the titular character than the women who consume the story. It is a great twist on the classic western and draws many great performances.

Source: TCM.com