Next time you have a rainy afternoon to spend with a box of chocs and a video, you can't do better than this. If you hanker for a time when everyone was elegant, witty and blessed with a honeyed voice, this is for you. The music is, of course, the main focus; but there's some brilliant acting going on here as well.
Next time you have a rainy afternoon to spend with a box of chocs and a video, you can't do better than this. If you hanker for a time when everyone was elegant, witty and blessed with a honeyed voice, this is for you. The music is, of course, the main focus; but there's some brilliant acting going on here as well.
From the days when doorstop novels (or at least large chunks of them) were turned into films rather than mini-series, From Here to Eternity may be toned down to please both the censors and the US Army, whose co-operation was vital to the film, but it's still a superb piece of film-making that slips in a few powerful punches between the lines.
Set in Pearl Harbor in the months leading up to the Japanese attack, it focuses on two professional soldiers: Prewitt (Montgomery Clift), a hard-headed ex-boxer given 'the treatment' by his commanding officer to force him to fight in the regimental boxing championships, and the company's Top Sergeant (Burt Lancaster), who is having an affair with the officer's frigid wife (Deborah Kerr).
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Of the 4 leads in this musical,only Vivienne Blaine belongs in a musical, being a major vaudeville & Broadway singer & hoofer before this was made.
Despite this, it's a thoroughly enjoyable experience, good colour and sound and an outstanding supporting turn by Stubby Kaye. Jean Simmons retains her English innocence well as a Salvation Army lass and even assists in helping you forget that Damon Runyon's picaresque language translates hopelessly to screen.
But the best bits are Brando & Sinatra. Brando surprisingly fits well into Sky Masterton and tackles things with enthusiasm. There's also a permanent smirk on his face, because he knows that Frankie wanted HIS part all along, and doesn't it show! Frankie's face throughout looks ... Read More:
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Of the 4 leads in this musical,only Vivienne Blaine belongs in a musical, being a major vaudeville & Broadway singer & hoofer before this was made.
Despite this, it's a thoroughly enjoyable experience, good colour and sound and an outstanding supporting turn by Stubby Kaye. Jean Simmons retains her English innocence well as a Salvation Army lass and even assists in helping you forget that Damon Runyon's picaresque language translates hopelessly to screen.
But the best bits are Brando & Sinatra. Brando surprisingly fits well into Sky Masterton and tackles things with enthusiasm. There's also a permanent smirk on his face, because he knows that Frankie wanted HIS part all along, and doesn't it show! Frankie's face throughout looks ... Read More:
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An unusual type of thriller, which works as well as a dark satire as it does a thriller. Infact as a thriller it is a little cumbersome, a bit hard to follow, although it is inventive. It is quite bold, in the same sort of way that Dr. Strangelove was a year later, in having a good dig at American paranoia and the way it pervaded the country's politics at the time. It was definitely made by liberals, which explains Sinatra's casting and may also explain Harvey's, as perhaps even several years after the bad smell of McCarthyism, (brilliantly ridiculed in one passage in the film) many US actors still feared for their careers in taking on such 'subversive' roles. An Englishman already with a solid career behind him may be less fearful of the fall out by hysterical right wing critics, ... Read More:
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The only good thing about this movie is Frank Sinatra, and in particular his memorable performance of 'The Lady is a Tramp'. Cut this out and throw the rest away. Kim Novak's performance is wooden and Rita Hayworth's not much better. Moreover the rest of Rodgers and Hart's music is devalued by the fact that neither of the leading ladies are capable of singing, so their voices had to be dubbed by others. What a con'when others could have been recruited to fit the bill. Without Sinatra 'no stars'.
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