From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity is a
1953 movie based on a
James Jones novel in which characters work through ordinary bouts of intimidation and infidelity on a military base in the days preceding the
attack on Pearl Harbor.
The film won eight
Oscars:
*
Academy Award for Best Picture -
Buddy Adler, producer
*
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor -
Frank Sinatra*
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress -
Donna Reed*
Academy Award for Best Cinematography, black-and-white -
Burnett Guffey*
Academy Award for Directing -
Fred Zinnemann*Best Film Editing -
William A. Lyon*Best Sound Recording -
John P. Livadary*Best Writing, Screenplay -
Daniel TaradashNominations
It received nominations for a further five Oscars:
*
Academy Award for Best Actor -
Montgomery Clift*
Academy Award for Best Actor -
Burt Lancaster*
Academy Award for Best Actress -
Deborah Kerr*
Academy Award for Costume Design, black-and-white -
Jean Louis*Best Music Score -
George Duning and
Morris StoloffIn
2002 the United States
Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the
National Film Registry.
|
Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in the famous beach scene in From Here to Eternity. |
Among the cast members without Oscar nominations are
Philip Ober,
Ernest Borgnine,
Jack Warden, and
Merle Travis. The novel's author had a small, uncredited part in the film.
*Legend has it that Frank Sinatra got the role in the movie because of his speculated
Mafia connections, and that this was the basis for a similar subplot in
The Godfather. The truth is more likely to have been that Sinatra's then-wife
Ava Gardner persuaded studio head
Harry Cohn's wife to go to bat for him, the version related by
Kitty Kelley in her comprehensive Sinatra biography.
*The famous beach lovemaking scene between Lancaster and Kerr was lampooned in the movie
Airplane!, where
Robert Hays' and
Julie Hagerty's characters become covered in seaweed.
*The movie was also remade as a
TV miniseries in
1979.
*The
U.S. Army withheld its cooperation from the production until the producers agreed to several modifications, most noticeably the fate of Captain Holmes.
*
William Holden, who won the
Best Actor Oscar for
Stalag 17, felt that he didn't deserve it.
Holden thought
Burt Lancaster should have won for this film.
*
From Here To Eternity at All Movie Guide*
Script (pdf)
