From here to eternity 1953 - Pearl Harbor, Schofield Barracks, aspirations & frustrations

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IMDB Rating: 7,8

Director: Fred Zinnemann
Main Cast: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra, Ernest Borgnine

"There were few movies greeted with more anticipation than Fred Zinnemann's From Here to Eternity when it opened in 1953. Adapted from one of the best-selling novels of the previous ten years, it was a film for which everyone had high expectations. It lived up to all of them and then some, adding a new level of violence and frankness to popular dramatic films just when the public was ready to accept these elements. (However, the movie couldn't even hint at an aspect that James Jones' novel mentioned almost at its outset: the homosexual advances that Prewitt parried from his former sergeant, resulting in his transfer to a rifle company.)
Burt Lancaster, who'd previously established himself as a hero-victim in a series of film noirs made under the auspices of Universal and as a costume hero in a pair of Warner Bros. period adventure films (The Flame and the Arrow, The Crimson Pirate), transformed himself into the quintessential macho leading man with his performance; Montgomery Clift gave the performance of his life as Robert E. Lee Prewitt, unwilling boxer and trumpet player; ex-navy enlisted man Ernest Borgnine dominated every scene he was in as Sgt. Judson, the most vicious enlisted man seen onscreen in a mainstream American movie up to that time; Deborah Kerr, previously known for her plucky, lady-like roles, got to play an unabashedly sexual woman, and a married one at that; Donna Reed, cast against type as the prostitute with delusions of her own, gave the most honest and wrenching performance of her career; and Frank Sinatra, cast against all prevailing wisdom in Hollywood (and beating out Eli Wallach for the choicest supporting role in Hollywood that year), became a great actor overnight as the doomed Maggio.
No words could do justice to the film's most famous scene: the nocturnal romantic rendezvous on the beach, with Burt Lancaster's and Deborah Kerr's bodies intertwining as the waves crash over them. If you're able to take your eyes off the principals for a moment or two, keep an eye out for George Reeves; his supporting role was shaved down when, during previews, audiences yelled 'There's Superman!' and began to laugh.
From Here to Eternity raised the bar for realism (and the genuine, jagged, if ugly side of life) in war movies, and in movies in general; winning eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and supporting awards to Sinatra and Reed." - www.allmovie.com

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A place in the sun 1951 - With two of cinema's most beautiful faces

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IMDB rating: 7,9

Director: George Stevens
Main Cast: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere, Raymond Burr

"Previously filmed in 1931 under its original title, Theodore Dreiser's bulky but brilliant novel An American Tragedy was remade in 1951 by George Stevens as A Place in the Sun. Montgomery Clift stars as George Eastman, a handsome and charming but basically aimless young man who goes to work in a factory run by a distant, wealthy relative. Feeling lonely one evening, he has a brief rendezvous with assembly-line worker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), but he forgets all about her when he falls for dazzling socialite Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor). Alice can't forget about him, though: she is pregnant with his child. Just when George's personal and professional futures seem assured, Alice demands that he marry her or she'll expose him to his society friends. This predicament sets in motion a chain of events that will ultimately include George's arrest and numerous other tragedies, including a vicious cross-examination by a D.A. played by future Perry Mason, Raymond Burr.
A huge improvement over the 1931 An American Tragedy, directed by Josef von Sternberg, A Place in the Sun softens some of the rough edges of Dreiser's naturalism, most notably in the passages pertaining to George's and Angela's romance. Even those 1951 bobbysoxers who wouldn't have been caught dead poring through the Dreiser original were mesmerized by the loving, near-erotic full facial closeups of Clift and Taylor as they pledge eternal devotion. A Place in the Sun won six Oscars, including Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography, although it lost Best Picture to An American in Paris." - www.allmovie.com

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The heiress 1949 - Olivia de Havilland's Oscar-winning performance

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IMDB rating: 8,2

Director: William Wyler
Main Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins

"Henry James based his 1881 novella Washington Square on a real-life incident, wherein a young actor of his acquaintance married an unattractive but very wealthy young woman for the express purpose of living the rest of his life in luxury. Washington Square was turned into a stage play in 1946 by Ruth and Augustus Goetz; this, in turn was adapted for the movies under the title The Heiress. Olivia DeHavilland won an Academy Award (her second) for her portrayal of Catherine Sloper, the plain-Jane daughter of wealthy widower Dr. Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson). Catherine is not only unattractive, but lacks most of the social graces, thanks in great part to the domineering attitudes of her father. When Catherine falls in love with handsome young Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), she is convinced that her love is reciprocated, else why would Morris be so affectionate towards her? Dr. Sloper sees things differently, correctly perceiving that Morris is a callow fortune hunter. Standing up to her father for the first time in her life, Catherine insists that she will elope with Morris; but when Dr. Sloper threatens to cut off her dowry, Morris disappears. Still, Catherine threatens to run off with the next young man who pays any attention to her; Sloper, belatedly realizing how much he has hurt his only child, arranges to leave her his entire fortune. Years pass: Morris returns, insisting that he'd only left because he didn't want to cause Catherine the 'grief' of being disinherited. Seemingly touched by Morris' 'sincerity', Catherine agrees to elope with him immediately. But when Morris arrives at the appointed hour, he finds the door locked and bolted. Asked how she can treat Morris so cruelly, Catherine replies coldly 'Yes, I can be very cruel. I have been taught by masters'. Though The Heiress ends on a downbeat note, the audience is gratified to know that Catherine Sloper has matured from ugly-duckling loser to a tower of strength who will never allow herself to be manipulated by anyone ever again. World War II had forever changed the role of women in U.S. society, and The Heiress, in the guise of a period drama, carried the theme of women's increasing power in the postwar years. This is just one of several films from the era that were thus both excellent dramas and interesting allegories. " - www.allmovie.com

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Red river 1948 - Epic, emotional Western; a clash between the old and the new

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IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Howard Hawks
Main Cast: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan, Coleen Gray, Harry Carey Sr., John Ireland, Noah Beery Jr., Harry Carey Jr.

"In his first collaboration with John Wayne, Howard Hawks examines capitalism and dueling masculinities in the rousing context of a Western cattle drive. A Mutiny on the Bounty for Big Sky country, Red River features a challenge between Montgomery Clift's Matthew Garth and Wayne's Tom Dunson that becomes a contest between new and old models of Western manhood - a clash enhanced by the different performance styles of ambiguous, Method-acting, proto-rebel Clift and stolidly imposing star Wayne. Young and adaptable, Garth sees the necessity of finding new markets and cooperating with a community, including such potential adversaries as John Ireland's gun-loving Cherry, while Dunson's Old West individualism becomes an inflexible, economically ruinous monomania. The unsympathetic Dunson challenged the traditional Wayne persona, presaging the disturbed Western heroes that proliferated in the 1950s and 1960s, including Wayne's later role as psychotic Ethan Edwards in John Ford's The Searchers (1956) and in the films that Red River writer Borden Chase wrote for director Anthony Mann. Powered by Russell Harlan's dynamic yet moody black-and-white cinematography and Dimitri Tiomkin's score, Red River became a substantial hit, confirming Clift's star quality in his film debut and earning Oscar nominations for Chase and action editor Christian Nyby; it still stands as one of Hawks's top Westerns." - www.allmovie.com

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