Picture 26: From Here to Eternity (1953)

It’s 1953. The year that saw humanity first conquer Everest. Will it be the year for the Academy Award for Best Picture to scale similarly dizzying heights?

Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster and Frank Sinatra appear in an all-star line up as we head to Pearl Harbor naval base in Oahu, Hawaii. It’s December 1941 so anyone who knows their history dates will rightly develop a sense of foreboding.

A sequence of plotlines emerge. Montgomery Clift’s character – Private Robert Prewitt – was once a keen boxer but has since retired after badly injuring an opponent. Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) has a risky affair with his Captain’s wife. Frank Sinatra gets drunk during guard duty, gets court-martialed and ends up in military jail. Some of the soldiers treat each other terribly with in-fighting, reprisals and knife fights being the order of the day.

Interesting as these stories are, an armada of planes from the Empire of Japan will soon arrive to put these earthly worries into a cruel perspective.

The stories do just enough to hold the attention and the sense of foreboding is powerful. However, it doesn’t quite live in infamy in the movie world. It goes for a 6.

Rating:

6/10

Reflections:

1. You may see this time as difficult but one day you may look at it as joyous in comparison to future struggles.

Oscar Best Picture Rankings:

1. Casablanca (1943)

2. Rebecca (1940)

3. Lost Weekend (1945)

4. All About Eve (1950)

5. Hamlet (1948)

6. How Green Was My Valley (1941)

7. Gone With the Wind (1939)

8. Mrs. Miniver (1942)

9. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

10. Wings (1928)

11. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

12. You can’t take it with you (1938)

13. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

14. Cimarron (1931)

15. Grand Hotel (1932)

16. An American in Paris (1951)

17. From Here to Eternity (1953)

18. It Happened One Night (1934)

19. Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)

20. Cavalcade (1933)

21. The Life of Emile Zola (1937)

22. Going My Way (1944)

23. The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

24. All the King’s Men (1949)

25. The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

26. The Broadway Melody (1929)

Previous or current ranking leaders are in bold.

With credit and thanks to the patrons of the Best Picture Film Club:

Dr Sophie Bloomfield

Dr Caspar Briault

Dr Fionnuala Durrant

Dr Meera Radia