Monty @ 100: Stardom's Peak in "From Here To Eternity"
Friday, October 9, 2020 at 1:20AM by Nathaniel R
Calling your picture From Here To Eternity, even if that's the name of the book its based on, is a major flex and a tempting of fate. How to live up to the title? 1950s and 1960s movies did this frequently, of course, in their battle against the looming threat of television. Screens got bigger and wider and the studio system was, if already mortally wounded, still working hard at making their movie stars iconic. Titles like Giant, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Greatest Show on Earth, frequently dared to proclaim their epic-ness, and if the titles weren't size-conscious, why not add an exclamation point a la Oliver!, Hello, Dolly!, Viva Zapata! or I Want To Live! In this lust for enormous movies, From Here To Eternity stands out, not just for living up to its promise and being eminently swoon-worthy but for its relative modesty -- capturing something grandiose merely by inhabiting the sealed world and social lives of soldiers and their women on the brink of cataclysmic change. It might have been mere soap opera without the skillful direction of Fred Zinneman and the simple fact that the stars themselves were monumental.
Chief among them was Montgomery Clift, scoring his third Best Actor nomination with his eighth film...
Private Robert Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) is the first character we meet in the ensemble picture, positioning Clift as the focal point of the ensemble, though the other characters follow in short succession. Prewitt befriends a happy-go-lucky fellow soldier (Frank Sinatra in his Oscar-winning role), and a Corporal (Jack Warden), romances a local "social club" worker (Donna Reed in her Oscar-winning role), makes enemies of the Captain (Philip Ober) and another soldier (Ernest Borgnine) and faces off with an ambitious Sergeant (Burt Lancaster), who is romancing the Captain's wife (Deborah Kerr). The collision of all of the characters portrayed by invested charismatic actors, in fluctuating moods of anger, horniness, bloodlust, friendship, respect, drunkeness, shame, and pride, give the movie its plentiful sparks. In the context of Clift's career, and as the definitive peak of his popularity, it holds a special fascination.
The very first time audiences saw Clift he was in military uniform in a contemporary picture set in post war Germany for The Search (1948) where he quickly returned for The Big Lift (1950). His third time in uniform, we're in pre-war Hawaii shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The military is fertile ground for Clift's ever-fascinating and perpetually tense star persona. Even outside of military pictures, as in Red River (1948) or A Place in the Sun (1951) he's othered... a 'different' kind of man at odds with expectations of what men should be in those environments; one shouldn't always read 'queer' though that's fun, too. In the all-male environment of the military, this conflict isn't subtext. Indeed, it's the primary conflict of his half of From Here To Eternity. Prewitt is immediately pissing other men off by betraying the natural order, if you will, and staying true to himself alone.
I can't figure him.
Sergeant Warden (Lancaster, terrific) calls him a "hard head" and they warily circle each other, with lots of staring. Prewitt and Warden don't understand each both but mutual respect begins to take hold. Others aren't so flexible and immediately dislike him. The Captain is deeply annoyed that he's a "lone wolf" and the boxing team at the base is thoroughly pissed off that someone who is a good fighter refuses to join their ranks. Prewitt is a contradiction, a life-long soldier who refuses violence, and many of his peers aren't having it.
The Captain and a group of the other soldiers conspire to make life difficult for him. Ostensibly they want to teach Prewitt a lesson about insubordination. In actuality, it's a punishment for his refusal to be the man they want him to be. He's subjected to months of grueling menial tasks which prove an inadvertently kind way to give us beefcake shots of the movie star. This is not an accident because one of the most honest things about From Here to Eternity is its horniness for its stars (who are also horny for each other) whether its Donna Reed in tight gowns, or Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr's rightfully famous and incredibly sexy roll in the sand.
Lancaster and Kerr make for a sizzling onscreen couple (both were Oscar-nominated) but Eternity doesn't leave Clift out of its carnal equation.
While it's fun to do queer readings of the filmographies of gay stars, it's not always entirely satisfying. This 1953 Best Picture winner is often discussed for its ambiguous male eroticism (both Lancaster and Clift are displayed for our pleasure, but only Clift is displayed this way without the context of a woman gazing at him along with us). Neverthless queer readings of From Here to Eternity too easily shrug off the matter of Alma/Lurene. Prewitt may be a 'different' kind of man, but there's a believably sexual charge to his scenes with Donna Reed that is closer to heternormative than Clift's previous onscreen romances. Here the female star is displayed and Clift, for his part, can't take his eyes off her. Alma and Prewitt's budding romance is nowhere close to the idealized heightened swoon he and fast friend Elizabeth Taylor conjured so unforgettably in A Place in the Sun but, like the Lancaster/Kerr union if to a much lesser extent, it feels rooted in actual rutting, or the potential of it.
Though Taylor will always be his definitive female co-star, Clift has wonderful moments with Donna Reed, both in their mutual flirtations and in their less pleasant moments including snappy disagreements, drunken episodes, and the outsized possessiveness that erupts quite suddenly and moodily from Prewitt. Clift also gets monologues in his scenes with Reed that the military scenes don't allow. The first is a very well executed speech about why he gave up fighting that the actor obsessed over and surprisingly underplays given his reportedly painstaking preparation. He's alive with Reed (and also with Frank Sinatra to be fair) in a way that seems more relaxed than he often appears onscreen but is still firmly rooted in this character.
And what a character Prewitt is. Or, rather, what a meal Clift makes of him Prewitt on the page has solid potential but might have been monotonous or simplified with a lesser actor. Consider the slyly performative quality Clift grants Prewitt's stubborness, for one.
This man isn't just defiant to be true to himself, but because he enjoys it. Or watch the tiny glimpses Clift allows us of the different gentler man Prewitt might have been outside of the military as with the the sudden passionate trumpet playing or the aforementioned monologue. In his second monologue there's even the suggestion that, for all his surety of self, he's maybe too self-deluded or masochistic about his place in the military. Prewitt gave Clift the committed actor a lot to work with and he rewarded the film with one of his very best performances.
The role also proved definitive to the actor's legacy.
As with the troubled soldiers and angry women onscreen, who are all unaware that their lives are about to violently change, tragedy would soon strike Clift offscreen. It would be four long years before Clift returned to movie screens, sealing From Here To Eternity in cultural history as the peak of both his stardom and beauty. The movie would prove to be Clift's all time biggest box-office hit, and win 8 Oscars including Best Picture. Despite his contributions to its enormous success, Clift would walk away empty-handed, again, a bonafide acting legend underappreciated in his time and even to this day. But as Prewitt himself would say over drinks, "a man loves a thing, that don't mean it's gotta love him back."
To the memory of Robert E Lee Prewitt.
Reader Comments (23)
Finally watched this for the first time tonight and it’s a very entertaining film (Sinatra does liven up scenes) and the whole cast is very solid. I did like Clift’s performance here a lot, although I’m not sure where I’d rank it among the other ones I’ve seen. I went into the movie only knowing about that iconic beach roll, and I was just expecting a romantic drama. I guess I didn’t pay attention to the time setting, so that Pearl Harbor attack was a big surprise.
Great write-up of a great epic. Monty at the height of his acting powers and sex appeal.
PS. In I Confess he plays a war veteran, making 50% of his filmography up to this point “Monty in the Military.” (To be continued in the next write-up, which I am not looking forward to.) Not to be confused with the "Monty the Martyr" section of his filmography, although there's some overlap, of course.
@ George P.: #2 ranking.
Just a great performance -- as much representative of the 50s as Brando in Streetcar/Waterfront and Dean in East of Eden/Rebel Without a Cause.
During the gays-in-the-military brouhaha in the first days of the Clinton administration, someone wrote that people should have been prepared for how controversial it was, asking "Didn't these people see From Here to Eternity?" This weren't just referencing Clift's private life; like you, it was zeroing in on Prewitt's other-ness -- his inability to conform to the masculine norms of the army that surrounded him.
I think Prewitt the character elevates From Here to Eternity -- makes it more than the melodrama some of the plotting suggests. He (in Clift's performance) raises uncomfortable issues and feelings -- taking the film out of the conformist niche that marked many 50s films, putting it on the side of the rebels (who were to emerge in greater numbers when the New Hollywood came along). I think this character almost single-handedly makes the film one of the most memorable best picture winners of the era.
Crawford turned down the role and with the huge success of the film she must have regretted it to the last breath. Karen, the character, changed the perception the industry and the studio that owned the actress's contract (MGM) had about her; after the film, Deborah Kerr started receiving proposals to play characters who diverge from the "good and asexual british lady" type. What would have led the actress to say: "I don't think anyone knew I could act until I put on a bathing suit."
The irony is that she would have one of her greatest hits in the near future, playing just a "good and asexual british lady" in The King and I (1957).
Gwen-- i didn't know that piece of trivia but I think Kerr is smashingly good in this and it is so different than most of here famous roles. Anyway, I'm glad she got out of the asexual rut because she's also so good in Sundowners which definitely has a sensual feeling about its married couple protagonists.
Tom Q - co-sign. Ben-Hur, From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, and All About Eve are such good Best Picture winners that decade (even if none of theem are THE very best pictures of those particular years). It's too bad Oscar couldn't have chosen as well in the other years. The 1950s might have been the best decade for Best Picture winners.
working stiff & george p -- i'd rank this as his second best performance (after A Place in the Sun) and he definitely should have won the Oscar for it.
I wish Columbia had cast their own star, Rita Hayworth, as Karen Holmes. Back at her home studio after her miserable marriage to Prince Aly Kahn, Rita seemed sad and world-weary ever after. Hayworth could have brought a lot to the role of the disillusioned army wife.
And my other day dream wish would be that Columbia had borrowed Elizabeth Taylor to reunite opposite Clift as the "hostess" who's looking to get out. This would have given ET her first chance to play the good/bad girl that she was so good at.
Nothing against the women who played the roles, but their casting against type still feels more like miscasting.
Cheers, Rick
One of those films that justifies the existence of Hollywood, as film scholar Robin Wood would say--well, he said it about RIO BRAVO, but I'd say it about FHtE.
Monty is one of my favorite actors, but this is my least loved of his 4 Oscar nominated performances.
1) The Search - astonishingly beautiful and should have won over Olivier's much too old Hamlet.
2) A Place in the Sun - near perfection and he and Liz just burn up the screen with iconic images.
3) Judgment at Nuremberg - short, frightening and despite all that's been written about his lack of focus during filming, a fine performance that I feel should have walked away with the Oscar over Chakiris, whose dancing was phenomenal, but whose acting falls flat and nearly ruins his film.
4) From Here To Eternity - Okay but far from the Best in this lot. Lancaster and Kerr deserved the leading Oscars for this, and both Reed and Sinatra's wins are embarrassing. Hello Thelma in her BEST performance ever. And anyone, anyone other than Frank, who never forgets to remind us that he is a MOVIE STAR. And somehow, I will never forget the Johnny Fontaine subplot in "The Godfather..." He must have been enraged!
I enjoy so many other less acclaimed Monty performances, namely in "The Misfits," "Lonelyhearts," "I Confess," 'The Heiress," "Wild River," and I hope someday, somehow to be able to view "Freud" in full.
Does anyone know the reason that Monty needed to be shaved for this movie? Did the army not like Hirsute men? Or was that a 50's thing, which seems to go against the conservative nature of the decade?
A very enjoyable read about my favorite Best Picture winner! I'm not saying its the best film ever to win, though it's in the top rank, but it's the one I enjoy the most with All About Eve just behind.
While Clift is a big focal point he's not the only one and everyone is at the top of their game. There are no weak performances, not just the main stars but all the way down the line. Even inconsequential characters like those played by Mickey Shaughnessy (Lancaster's adjutant), Jack Warden (Clift's neighboring bunk mate) and John Dennis (the lunkheaded Galovitch) come in, do their small bit and feel organic to the setting and situation. Zinneman keeps his direction lean and the pace consistent so as the film jumps from story to story its never jarring but a cohesive whole.
Of course Clift most constant scene partner is Donna Reed and she turned out to be perfect casting. The original choice for Lorene was Shelley Winters but she had to decline because of pregnancy then Gloria Grahame was considered but Zinneman thought that going against type would make the role have a greater impact and went with Reed. It was the right decision, while both Shelley and Gloria would have done terrific work their brand of sexuality was more pronounced the ladylike Donna did project that otherness from her surrounding that drew Monty's, and the audience's, eye to her. She said that she and Clift worked on their scenes to bring out the nuance and he inspired her to the performance she gave. She was always a decent actress but this is her strongest work.
Monty is exemplary in A Place in the Sun but I think this is his best performance and where he should have won his Oscar. It's too bad Bill Holden lost his rightful award in Sunset Blvd. to Jose Ferrer's ponderous Cyrano and received his compensation Oscar this year.
I'm not as convinced of Montgomery Clift's greatness as a lot of people on this site, but his performance here is absolutely amazing. This is his finest work. It's a real shame that he didn't have a chance to win the Oscar here - Burt Lancaster had won the New York Film Critics Award, and he had the most momentum. I think the enormous success of From Here to Eternity shows that audiences would come out in droves for an excellent film that didn't have gimmicks to "sell" it. This is one of my favorite films of all time and Clift takes the honors as best in show among an outstanding cast from top to bottom
@ Nathaniel: Yes, George Eastman = #1
@ forever1267: Monty was so hairy everywhere that some amount of manscaping would have been considered necessary in any era. But since he was so shirtless in FHtE they probably figured it was easier just to shave the Full Monty (ouch) rather than trim here and there.
@ forever1267- hairy chests were somehow controversial. Producer Daryl Zanuck made all the men who appeared shirtless in his movies shave including William Holden. Don't know if he was involved with this movie. Clark Gable had no natural hair on his chest and thought it was a slight against his manhood so in his contract all other men had to be shaved. His costar from Mogambo Donald Sinden had to shave even though he had no shirtless scenes. Clift didn't want to appear shirtless in Place in the Sun and won that battle but such a scene would be unavoidable in FHTE.
@ Gwen- I thought most of her prim English spinster roles were yet to come (Separate Tables, The Innocents, Night of the Iguana to name a few) but in the King and I with Zulu Brynner's open shirt, extended arm, hand around her waist and lots of whirling around ending in heavy breathing and a shout of "We do it again!" is probably the sexiest scene she did since FHTE. You can feel the passion when he puts his arm out.
Yul Brynner-- stupid autocorrect
I saw this last year as Burt Lancaster is one of my dad's favorite actors. Man, it is a fucking incredible film. Everyone was on point in that film. Not a false note.
A perfect movie with perfect performances, but Clift is the best among them.
I really like Holden in Stalag 17, but I think he got the Oscar because of Sunset Boulevard (a couple years before). Monty should have won easily.
I love this movie and I think Clift is amazing in it. I don't begrudge Holden an Oscar and him winning for a Wilder film is apropos, but I wish he won it for the Wilder film Clift left.
Monty is absolutely sublime in this. One of my favorite performances ever nominated in Best Actor and just in general. Would’ve got my vote this year though Lancaster’s great too. Great piece Nathaniel.
"Monty is exemplary in A Place in the Sun but I think this is his best performance and where he should have won his Oscar. It's too bad Bill Holden lost his rightful award in Sunset Blvd. to Jose Ferrer's ponderous Cyrano and received his compensation Oscar this year". @Joel6
Totally agreed!!!
Cool that in these old movie posters they point out that the film originates from a book and even show a book with the name of the film on the cover, in case anyone watching is distracted like me. Perhaps because having a literary source gives weight to the film as some might think.
He deserved the Oscar. But Hollywood didn't want to recognize his talent because he was an outsider. Today the story would be very different. His legacy never ends. He was an inspiring actor for the generations that came after. He will be always remembered.
@Patryk. I dont know exactly what you mean when you say you hope to someday view "Freud" "in full", but here is a link to the movie. Maybe it's available elsewhere to stream or view. In any case, the copy is not very good.
https://ok.ru/video/1567491688998
Inspired by this article, I finally watched this today and it’s quite wonderful - the whole cast is perfection, yet one thing crossed my mind - while I understand that in this era actors (not roles) were Leading or Supporting... Deborah Kerr is absolutely Supporting and surely would have won in that category? Reed is also great but Kerr is astounding...