The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor takes place only near the end of "From Here to Eternity" (1953). But it's an ideal selection for the Maryland Historical Society's series, "Patriotic Hollywood: World War II in Film." Stephen Ambrose once wrote, "What held [American GIs] together was not country and flag, but unit cohesion." "From Here to Eternity" is about the pain of building that unit cohesion and the rewards it gives to all who join it, be they selfless, selfish or damaged.
The movie's anti-hero, Robert E. Lee Prewitt, loves the Army and wants to be "a 30-year man." The Army taught him how to play the bugle, and Prewitt (played by Montgomery Clift) acknowledges, "I bugle well." As he says in some of the most profound words uttered in any American movie, "A man loves a thing, that don't mean it's got to love him back. ... You love a thing, you got to be grateful."
Prewitt transfers from a buglers' outfit to an infantry company stationed in Schofield Barracks near Pearl Harbor because a lesser man with a horn has been unfairly named First Bugler. Unfortunately for Prewitt, his new captain prizes boxing over bugling, and though Prewitt was a budding middleweight star, he gave up boxing after blinding his mentor in a sparring match.
Much of the movie is about how Capt. "Dynamite" Holmes, a corrupt careerist, tacitly encourages his boxers - whom he has promoted, one and all, into noncommissioned officers - to give Prewitt "the Treatment" until he agrees to become part of the team. The Treatment includes nonstop menial duties and cruel and arbitrary punishments, such as digging a 6-foot-deep grave and then "burying" a paper at the bottom. The Treatment also involves being distanced from the rest of the troops, except for those fellow misfits who come to Prewitt's defense, like Frank Sinatra's irrepressible, liberty-loving Maggio.
Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster), who in effect runs Dynamite Holmes' unit, tries to protect Prewitt from his own hardheadedness. Prewitt feels, "If a man don't go his own way, he's nothin'." Warden wants to help Prewitt go his own way and the Army way. Prewitt's downfall is a tragedy for both men. But the brief spurt of action we see in "From Here to Eternity," as Warden springs into command with electric authority, shows the military payoff of the sergeant's overall efforts.
