From Here to Eternity

After requesting a transfer, Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) is stationed at an army base in Hawaii 1941.   There, Officer Dana Holmes (Philip Ober) hears of his boxing reputation and wants him to represent his unit.  Robert refuses and tries to hide his haunting past about his time in the ring.  In order to break him into boxing again, Holmes makes Robert’s life a living hell and puts him on the most grueling details.

Robert’s friend, free spirited Private Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra), helps him blow off some steam in their free time by taking him to a social club where Robert falls in love with one of the employees (Donna Reed).  While there, Angelo gets in fights with  ‘Fatso’ Judson (Ernest Borgnine), the stockade Sergeant.  When Angelo goes AWOL, Fatso makes sure he’s severely punished, but things go too far.

Behind all of this, Sergeant Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster) starts a romantic relationship with Officer Holmes’ wife, Karen (Deborah Kerr).  We learn of her strained marriage filled with tragedy and begin to approve of this affair.  As the two become deeper in love, Karen hatches a plan for Milton to become an Officer and be stationed back in the states where she’ll follow after divorcing.  It all seems so perfect, until the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.

The film is based on the novel by James Jones, who witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor.  From Here to Eternity is considered the first of his life’s war experience trilogy, The Thin Red Line and Whistle complete it.

The most memorable scene of this film is when Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr are in the throws of romance in the Hawaiian surf.  There is swelling music and the sounds of waves crashing over the two as they embrace.  It really pushed to the limit of romantic scenes in the 1950’s.   The way Deborah suddenly runs, throws herself on her back in the sand, I feel like today that quick burst of passionate energy and motion would only be replaced with a cheap boob-shot.   Burt’s naturally awesome hair is dripping all over, he’s got nothing but those tight little trunks on and he just falls to his knees beside her, surely some prudent mothers urged their daughters to avert their eyes.  To this day, the scene still holds it’s merit in sex appeal, simply because it is so iconic and classy.

While From Here to Eternity is not the sort of Oscar winning picture that I personally found in the realm of greatness, it is very good and, in my opinion, the best of the 1953 nominations.  The film won the Oscars for screenplay, sound, cinematography, editing, director and picture.  Donna Reed and Frank Sinatra also picked up Supportive Acting Oscars.  Next time you feel the itch to watch Pearl Harbor, let me suggest From Here to Eternity instead.  There’s less mush and more compelling story, even with lines like this:

“Nobody ever kissed me the way you do.”

It’s a Wonderful Life

Once again, I have finally watched one of those classic feel good movies that comes on every Christmas and realized what I have been missing.  It’s a Wonderful Life is full of Jimmy Stewart’s aw-shucks attitude, Christmas spirit and Frank Capra’s simple wholesome movie magic.

The movie starts with everything looking like Christmas time and prayers going out.  They are received by some cosmic masses, who discuss sending an angel, Clarence (Henry Travers), to go convince this George (Stewart) from taking his own life.  This is Clarence’s big chance to finally earn his wings, but first ,he needs to learn a bit more about George.

From here on, we’re shown the major events in George’s life, beginning with his episode as a boy saving his younger brother when he fell through some ice.  This incident left George deaf in one ear.  As he grows older, all he dreams of is traveling, getting an education and building the next great things in the world.  But all that is sacrificed when his father suddenly dies and to prevent the heartless, money driven Henry f. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) from taking the business and ruining the good people in town, George takes over.  From then on, George marries his sweetheart, Mary (Donna Reed), and lives an honest and happy life never having much money.

But this day, this Christmas Eve, his business partner Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) has accidentally lost eight thousand dollars.  In 1946, that’s enough to ruin the business and if George can’t find the money he’ll be arrested, thrown in jail and his family will go hungry.  The most valuable thing he has is his life insurance and he realizes that he’s worth more money dead than alive.

When Clarence intervenes, George is no less morose, and wishes he had never been born.  So Clarence shows George exactly what his town would be like today if he had never been born.  It’s enough to shock George to realizing that no matter how bad his life gets, he has done a lot of good for his world and he just wants to live.

Capra loves to play on the idea of giving rather than receiving, no better setting to put one of his films than Christmas.  Throughout the film we see so many examples of this, George sacrificing his travels, his education even his honeymoon for the sake of others.  Under a portrait of George’s father in the office is the caption “All you can take with you is what you’ve given away.”  Wonderful words to live by.

Through generations we have upheld It’s a Wonderful Life, and every December you’ll find it airing on a few channels.  I can finally understand how this film warrants this honor, its message warms the heart and make us all see and appreciate the wonderful life we have.  No matter how little we have, we should cherish and be grateful for the live we are given.

“Each man’s life touches so many other lives.”

The Human Comedy (Found from 1943)

On the surface, The Human Comedy is a story about the Macauleys, an American family during WWII.  The father (Ray Collins) has died two years ago, but provides narration in his afterlife.  Oldest son Marcus (Van Johnson) is away from home serving in the army, leaving middle teenage son Homer (Mickey Rooney) home working as a telegram delivery boy to help support the family.  Ulysses (Jackie ‘Butch’ Jenkins) is just a little boy asking his mother where his father and Marcus have gone and Mrs. Macauley (Fay Bainter) and sister Bess (Donna Reed) in her late teens run the home.

It wasn’t long before I was seeing a very mythological setup happening.  In the epic poems from ancient Greece, the Iliad and the Odyssey were written by Homer telling the story of Odysseus, known in some forms as Ulysses, who lives in Ithaca.  To me, that trifecta could not be ignored, but how is the story affected by the mythology?  I have come up with some unstable theories, but found nothing to back them up.  Perhaps Homer’s perspective on the war will help him guide his younger brother through life.  Maybe the misadventures Ulysses has and his childhood discoveries in the film can be compared to Odysseus’s journey.  But where does Marcus come in, does he simply personify the Trojan War?  What are we to make of the ghostly father?  Perhaps I’m trying to find too much meaning in a film that is simply about WWII on the American home front.

Homer works with two men.  Tom Spangler (James Craig) is younger and very encouraging to Homer, while white haired Willie Grogan (Frank Morgan) has been in the telegram business a long time.  Because of all the bad news Willie has been the barer to, he drinks too much.  He even gives Homer instructions on what to do if he becomes too drunk at work, which Homer does have to deploy a couple times.

As we expect, Homer’s job delivering telegrams brings heartache.  One touching scene is when Homer delivers his first telegram to inform a woman that her son had died in the war.  He’s nervous and to make matters worse, the woman cannot read.  As he reads the awful news to her, Homer nearly breaks down crying trying to comfort her by saying that maybe the army made a mistake.  This woman is still a mother, takes pity on the boy and gives him some candy.  She sits in a rocking chair, starts singing to herself and the image changes to her as a young woman cradling a baby in that same chair, then changes back.  The whole scene heartbreaking but unexpectedly sweet.

Throughout the film, we’re shown progress on Homer’s brothers.  Marcus plays the accordion and leads the men in songs to keep their spirits up, even as they’re on a train towards war.  He tells his new friend Tobey (John Craven) everything about Ithaca and his family, making Tobey want to live there after the war.  Meanwhile, little Ulysses has adventures around the neighborhood discovering the library and trying to steal apricots with the other boys.  One of the best moments with Ulysses is when he first discovers fear; he’s small enough that that concept hasn’t dawned on him yet. Ulysses is watching a man dressed as a clown in the drugstore window, after all the other people have dispersed the man scares Ulysses, sending the small boy crying in the streets.  When Homer finds him and asks what has scared him so badly, Ulysses becomes overjoyed realizing that he now understands what fear is.  It’s a sweet moment that also ties into Marcus realizing his fear of deployment and dying in the war.

In the end, The Human Comedy is wonderful film even though it seems to lack a real plot and the mythological references seem only half conceived.  This might be Mickey Rooney’s finest work, his Homer is heartfelt, driven and a wonderful portrait of a boy forced to grow up too fast because of the war.  If you want to see this film, it’s best to keep an eye on Tuner Classic Movies, it took me months to find this.

“Homer in Ithaca.  Sounds almost classic.”