From Here to Eternity (1953)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Booklet Main Menu Audio & Animation Audio Commentary-Tim Zinnemann & Alvin Sargent Featurette-Making Of-(2:23) Featurette-Excerpt From "Fred Zinnemann: As I See It" (9:33) Theatrical Trailer-1.33:1, not 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 (1:02) Trailer-The Bridge On The River Kwai; On The Waterfront Filmographies-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	1953
Running Time	113:14
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (65:40)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Fred Zinnemann
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Burt Lancaster Montgomery Clift Deborah Kerr Donna Reed Frank Sinatra
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$36.95	Music	George Duning

    You may never have seen the film, but there is a fair chance that you have seen that scene somewhere. I have to confess that long before I had ever seen the film, I knew that scene very well indeed. The reason why that scene is so famous is not just because it remains one of the greatest kisses in film history but for its day it was an incredible raunchy scene - and is probably in itself one of the reasons why the film became one of the most successful of 1953 and had filmgoers queuing around the block to see the film. Oh come on - you know the scene I am talking about surely? The one where Deborah Kerr kisses Burt Lancaster on the sand as the waves crash over them?

    Made for the modest budget of $2 million, the film went onto make a packet at the box office (something in the region of $90 million) as well as securing Fred Zinnemann's star as one of the great directors (since this followed up the classic western High Noon - another great film well overdue for issue on Region 4 DVD). Long before the modern day disaster Pearl Harbor appeared, with its huge budget and rubbish story, there was and always will be the infinitely better From Here To Eternity - the love story (of sorts) set against the backdrop of the period leading up to and including that fateful day in December, 1941. How much better? How about thirteen Academy Award nominations and winner of eight, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Screenplay? Not bad for a modest budget film that no one thought could be made as it was based upon the rather large and un-PC like novel by James Jones. Not bad either for a film that was fraught with difficulties from the start, not the least of which was the casting process, largely due to the iron-handed fist with which Harry Cohn ran Columbia Pictures.

    The story is simple enough, but is intertwined with enough subplots to keep the interest at peak levels for the whole film. The broad story is of one Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift), a bugler who has transferred to G Company to taste life in the infantry. He was a boxer and his new company commander, Captain Dana Holmes (Philip Ober), is determined to have him box on the company team for the inter-regiment tournament. He does not take kindly to the news that Prew has given boxing away and sets his non-com team to work on the private. We then get to endure with Prew "the treatment" as meted out by the non-coms in their quest to convince Prew to box on the team. We also get to see how Prew and his Army mates, such as Private Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra) relax when finally let loose in Honolulu - and the local gentlemen's club is the place to head, which is of course where Prew meets Alma Burke (Donna Reed), otherwise known as Lorene, to set up one of the love scenarios of the film. It is also where we meet the lousy pianist Sergeant "Fatso" Judson (Ernest Borgnine), who shall feature prominently in the life of both Prew and Maggio subsequently.

    Against this little collection of stories is set that of the adulteress wife of Captain Holmes, Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr), who by repute has had plenty of men at every barracks her adultering husband has ever been assigned. But this time it is true love as First Sergeant Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster) falls for the lady. The only trouble is of course that Warden happens to be the company clerk and his immediate superior is Captain Holmes. Still, since Warden knows when the Captain is going to be in town with his lady friends, naturally enough he is unlikely to get caught. But when the course of true love takes a turn that requires him to take the officers' course, things get a little too hot for the officer-hating Warden. So the stories slowly build to a climax set against the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour.

    As a condensing of a large novel, this is an extremely effective screenplay, even though some changes were demanded by the censorship of the times as well as the demands of the Army (in order to get the use of Schofield Barracks in Honolulu). So the bordello of the book became the gentlemen's club and the prostitutes became the escorts, whilst the ending of the book as regards Captain Holmes was turned around at the request of the Army to be the exact opposite of the book. Still, judging by the letters James Jones wrote to Fred Zinnemann (quoted in the commentary), he was more than happy with the result. But taking the great screenplay as the basis, the assembled cast managed to produce some of the greatest acting performances ever, such that they still today hold up extremely well. All five lead actors garnered Academy Award nominations, although it was only the two supporting actors that won. Still, there is no denying that Frank Sinatra did a terrific job as Maggio and Donna Reed was no less deserving for her role as Alma Burke. Indeed it is very true that this film was the kick start that Frank Sinatra's career needed and had he not done the film he would have in all probability dropped out of sight completely. I doubt that he ever reached these acting heights again though. The shame is that Burt Lancaster did not win the Oscar, for this to my mind was the pinnacle of his career and I don't think he ever did anything better than this. He probably lost too many votes to his co-star Montgomery Clift, who in reality was probably no less deserving of the accolade either. Deborah Kerr played very few roles of this kind and certainly proved that when she was required to, she was more than up to the task. Arrayed behind the acting talent was an excellent behind the camera staff that thoroughly deserved the accolades that came their way as a result of multiple Oscar wins.

    Those of you who have read my bio will no doubt know that this is a film that I have been eagerly awaiting on Region 4 DVD. Even nearly fifty years on, it leaves twaddle like Pearl Harbor well and truly gasping in its wake. Superbly acted, with a wonderful screenplay (funny that both of these essentials were missing from that twaddle isn't it?), this provocative film (at least by 1950s standards) remains one of the true classics of the era and as such deserves a place in every collection. Whilst the DVD package is nowhere near what the film deserves, I am just glad that we have got the film on DVD. A special edition, complete with restoration, can come in the fullness of time now.

Video

    Whilst there are certainly issues with the quality of the video transfer, on the whole the underlying image is actually pretty darn good for an unrestored film of this age. The transfer is of course presented in a Full Frame format and it is not 16x9 enhanced.

    Apart from a couple of dodgy scenes as far as softness and lack of depth are concerned - notably the very fake looking background to the end of that scene - the transfer displays a high degree of sharpness and definition throughout. Indeed, were it not for the slightly impoverished shadow detail, this would have ranked amongst the better looking black and white transfers I have seen as far as detail and definition were concerned. There is a degree of graininess in the transfer but this is probably partly the result of the film stock, and it never really descends into anything annoying. The clarity of the transfer remains quite good throughout, irrespective of the presence of grain.

    Where this transfer really scores in my view is the depth to the black and white tones. The blacks are genuinely black for a change, which partly results in the slight shadow detail problem, and the grey scales are well judged throughout. You never see anything murky here apart from during the stock footage used of the actual bombing of Pearl Harbour. Whilst a little more white in the whites might not have gone astray at times, the whole transfer has a quite natural balance across the grey scales that to some large extent vindicates Fred Zinnemann's decision to go with black and white rather than colour film.

    There were no apparent MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There were no apparent film-to-video artefacts in the transfer. Then it all falls down for at times this is blessed with some of the worst snowstorms ever seen on the Hawaiian Islands. Whilst the specks in themselves would not be very intrusive, the sudden flurries of them against the darker backdrop of the film make them rather difficult to not notice. The lack of restoration, which would have eliminated most of the problems, is all the more noticeable due to the snow flurries. The stock footage of the bombing of Pearl Harbour is also blessed with black lines and other marks which are out of character with the rest of the film.

    This is an RSDL formatted DVD with the layer change coming at 65:40. Whilst it comes mid scene, it is quite well handled and not that disruptive to the film, even though it is fairly obvious. I cannot help but feel though that given the length of the film and the modest extras package, a better transition point could have been found.

    There is an absolute smorgasbord of subtitle options on the DVD, all of which were useless to me barring the English efforts. They are quite well handled with a slightly smaller font than normal so as to interfere less with the Full Frame picture. They are quite accurate but miss a little of the dialogue here and there.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are six soundtracks on the DVD, all being Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtracks. The language choices are English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and an English Audio Commentary. I listened to the two English soundtracks.

    The dialogue comes up well in the transfer, perhaps a little too stridently so but nothing really bothersome. It is quite easy to understand. There appeared to be no audio sync problems in the transfer.

    The background music, as it is credited in the opening credits, is from George Duning and a fairly decent effort it is too, as you would expect from an Oscar nominee. It is one of those nicely understated efforts that does not really draw any attention to itself but just inveigles its way into your perception whilst watching the film. Whilst I don't necessarily agree with the Oscar nomination, I have heard a lot worse actually win Oscars.

    There really is not a whole lot to say about the soundtrack. It is a fairly typical mono effort of the day, carrying the dialogue and sound effects pretty well but lacking a degree of naturalness that stereo can bring. Thankfully there is little in the way of obvious hiss in the soundtrack and overall it is just a decent example of mono sound.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    It might look like an impressive collection of extras on paper, but ultimately it is a hugely disappointing package that does not do justice to the film nor the length of time it has taken for the film to appear on DVD. The only positive is that Region 1 was equally poorly treated it seems.

Menu

    It would have been nice if something other than a still from that scene was used as the background to the main menu, but I suppose that was expecting too much. The audio and animation enhancement is minor league stuff and there is nothing especially great about the menus on the whole.

Booklet

    Not so much a booklet as an advertising effort for the nine films in this Academy Award Winners series, with short introductions to each by Bill "I love this movie and I hope you do too" Collins. Thankfully his contribution is only written, for had it been audio-visual I would doubt my television would have survived the night. Presumably this same booklet will feature in all nine releases in the series, so you best get used to it if you collect the series.

Audio Commentary - Tim Zinnemann and Alvin Sargent (Actor)

    You probably got very excited by the back cover proclaiming an audio commentary from director Fred Zinnemann right? Sorry, Columbia TriStar are having delusions of grandeur, especially since Fred died in early 1997. Instead of the man himself, we get his son Tim Zinnemann who offers up some observations on the film based upon what he saw as a thirteen year old kid and from what his father told him. He also quotes from some letters of his father. He is assisted by Alvin Sargent, who seems quite bemused to be there doing a commentary and who was equally bemused to be cast in a small part in the film as he wasn't an actor at the time - he was an advertising salesman. Surprisingly, at least before they ran out of steam about two-thirds of the way through the film, they offer up an interesting if not especially lively commentary that certainly fills in some background to the film quite well.

Featurette - The Making of From Here To Eternity (2:23)

    When is a featurette not a featurette? When it runs for less than two and a half minutes, that's when. We are talking about one of the biggest films of 1953, one of the classic films of the era and a multi-Academy Award winner, and all they can come up with is less than two and a half minutes of a featurette? Unbelievable. Okay, so the footage included is quite interesting as a lot of it is the director's own home movies, but surely there is plenty more than could have been done here? The picture exhibits all the sorts of faults you would expect of 1950s home movies, but is otherwise acceptable enough. The presentation is in a Full Frame format that is not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Featurette - Excerpts from "Fred Zinnemann: As I See It" (9:33)

    A somewhat better effort, featuring interview extracts with the man himself, mainly covering the problematic gestation of the film (notably Harry Cohn, head of Columbia's insistence upon Aldo Ray for the part of Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt). Obviously Fred Zinnemann won that argument as Montgomery Clift did end up in the role, but it seems this was a film with plenty of casting issues. Interesting, and much more so than the other mini-featurette. It is presented in the same format, although this time the transfer is quite grainy and blessed with plenty of film artefacts.

Theatrical Trailer (1:02)

    Short and to the point, not the greatest trailer you will ever see and blessed with terribly hissy sound and plenty of film artefacts. It is presented in the same format as the feature.

Trailers - The Bridge On The River Kwai & On The Waterfront

    Two other major Academy Award winners - seven and eight respectively - presented as rather marginal trailers. The former is blessed with plenty of film artefacts, fairly ropey visuals and seems to be lopped off at the end, whilst the latter suffers from some rather strident, ropey sound. Both feature Dolby Digital 2.0 sound, with the former in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and the latter in a Full Frame format: neither are 16x9 enhanced.

Filmographies - Cast and Crew

    The normal decent if not entirely complete efforts we expect from this source.

    As far as we are aware, there are no substantial differences between the Region 1 release and the Region 4 release. As far as we can see, the booklet in the Region 1 release is a proper production notes booklet and the disc has a trailer for The Guns Of Navarone rather than On The Waterfront. From the reviews sighted, it would seem that the transfers are extremely similar and therefore there is no great preference either way.

    Given the eternity it has taken for From Here To Eternity to appear on DVD, the result as a DVD package is somewhat underwhelming. That a film of this stature has not gone through even a partial restoration job to tidy up the at-times snowstorms of film artefacts is greatly disappointing. That nothing more substantial for an extras package could have been assembled just adds to the disappointment. Still, it is far better to have the film on DVD than not and despite the film artefacts, the transfer is actually quite decent. If you enjoy great acting, then this is a film that should be in your collection. Lovers of classic films of the the last century should rejoice for another gem is on the release sheets.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall