From Here to Eternity

From Here to Eternity remains, half a century later, a singular cinematic experience, one of the landmarks of American film. Read full review

So clear-eyed and three-dimensional that it makes the recent ''Pearl Harbor'' look like a bunch of kids playing dress up. Aspects of the film have dated, but in the important things it's more mature than anything proposed lately by modern Hollywood. Read full review

It is now regarded as one of the finest war dramas ever to be made in Hollywood. And that beach scene with Lancaster and Kerr is iconic in movie history. Not bad for a film originally dismissed as a “folly”. Read full review

An outstanding motion picture...It’s still raw, tough dramatic stuff of great entertainment pull for adult ticket buyers. Only a few will find it too strong for their effete tastes. Importantly, the distaffers will like it. Read full review

Out of "From Here to Eternity," a novel whose anger and compassion stirred a post-war reading public as few such works have, Columbia and a company of sensitive hands have forged a film almost as towering and persuasive as its source...Stands as a shining example of truly professional moviemaking. Read full review

The massive James Jones novel, deemed impossible to put onscreen because of its strong sexual content and language, finally emerged as a lavish, star-studded spectacle, much bowdlerized but redeemed by a slew of fine performances. Read full review

There isn't a dull moment in the picture. Read full review

[An] expertly wrought movie. Read full review

This cast could hardly be bettered and it's a great story as well: a taut, engrossing, highly perceptive scan of the fears, desires, repressions and ugliness boiling under the deceptively quiet surface of pre-war years. Our movies rarely get an American story this rich, evocative and true, and rarely realize it as well. If "Eternity" has dated at all, it's only in a good way; we can only wish our own movies were half as good or reflected American reality half as well. [5 Dec 2003, p.C8]

Montgomery Clift is at his very best as Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt, a career soldier stationed in Honolulu just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, in this 1953 adaptation of James Jones's classic novel, directed by Fred Zinnemann with the utmost grace. [3 March 2006, p.12]

The movie succeeds by the smooth efficiency of Fred Zinnemann's lean, intelligent direction, and by the superlative casting.

At the same time, the movie (directed by Fred Zinnemann) is too tidy. Read full review

Contemporary audiences may not see why, even in its toned-down simplification of the novel, From Here to Eternity was the most daring movie of 1953, but it remains an acting bonanza. Read full review

The spectacular last-reel recreation of the bombing makes this, Michael Bay notwithstanding, the Pearl Harbor film to beat, but the unquestioned highlight is the famous on‑the‑beach adultery scene between virile sergeant Lancaster and an unusually unladylike Kerr, with the waves crashing around them to symbolise their unrestrained passions. Read full review

I have to say that Clift's plot is far less compelling than Lancaster's and something of the zip goes when Frank Sinatra disappears from the action, sent to the stockade. But what a punch this movie still packs. Read full review

The film is anonymously directed, functionally paced and hysterical at times, though it seduces as a hot-blooded spectacle that stitches emotional detail onto the epic canvas of history. Read full review

Hawaiian waves crash over a high-calibre Hollywood prestige drama, sharp and sobering, with top-drawer work from Lancaster, Clift and Sinatra. Read full review

The film tells a compelling story with many of the elements that audiences find appealing. However, 65 years later, there’s little about From Here to Eternity to differentiate it from other well-made productions of its era. Read full review

Despite sliding into melodrama a bit too often, From Here to Eternity remains a decent film due to the strong performances of its Oscar-nominated cast. Read full review

This film is sensationalism gone rampant with sex, cruelty, and all the ruddy elements which make for what is known as rough, rugged, brutal appeal. It has to do with soldiering, but it dallies preeminently with sex, and is only in minor degree concerned with war. Read full review

James Jones's antiwar novel was blandly realized by the usual bunch of Hollywood do-gooders in 1953...Sominex is cheaper and probably safer. Read full review