FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953)

What a movie!  Set in 1941 on a military base in Hawaii, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY tells the story of a hardheaded soldier named Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) who always seems to do things the hard way.  As the film opens, he's losing his Corporal rank as a bugler to transfer to a rifle company as a buck private.  Once there's he's pretty much told by the Captain that he'll be promoted to Sergeant within a year if he joins the regimental boxing team.  Prew refuses and is then given "the treatment".  Meanwhile, the First Sergeant (Burt Lancaster) is getting sick and tired of being the Captain's work bitch and starts making googly eyes at the Captain's broken wife.

Having just finished the novel I was curious to see how they even made it into a mainstream movie back in 1953 since the novel itself is grim and sexually explicit, but they did a great job.  Yeah, a lot of stuff was cut out or changed completely, but the dismal feel is still there.  And the acting!  It's easy to see why this film received five Oscar nominations for Acting and won two...if Ernest Borgnine's role had been bigger he probably would have been nominated also! I don't even know who's performance was my favorite.  Montgomery Clift was great, especially at portraying the internal (almost suicidal?) struggles of Prewitt, Burt Lancaster was just straight up awesome, Donna Reed (who I mostly know from her show and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE) was surprisingly adult.  Seeing her here as a jaded hostess at private gentlemen's club was quite an eye-opener!

Beautiful B&W photography, Claude Akins screen debut, Frank Sinatra showing his acting chops, Deborah Kerr being sexy, excellent story, great pace, beautiful Hawaiian scenery.  If the story wasn't so censored, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY would be close to going on my Best Movies list, but as it is I think the majority of modern audiences would find the whole thing too dated.  Highly recommended though for classic movie fans.

THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE (1936)

Way up in the mountains of Kentucky, the Falins and the Tollivers have been feudin' for so long nobody even remembers what for.  They just know they hate the hell out of each other and will shoot to kill on sight.  Jesus!  In the middle of this madness walks Fred MacMurray.  He works for the coal company and he wants to buy land from both the Tollivers and the Falins.  And while he's at it, he might just take a fancy to Henry Fonda's main squeeze...his own cousin!  Double Jesus!!

For 1936 I was really impressed by the colour photography.  Supposedly this was the first movie to use Technicolor for the outdoor sequences and they look great.  The story on the other hand...ehh, it was just alright.  The tension between the hillbilly Fonda and the city slicker MacMurray is pretty predictable and outside of just a few minor skirmishes, we never get to see the Falins and the Tollivers feudin' for really.  I wanted to see some straight up badass gunfights, but it never happened.  Also Fonda, even this early in his career, deserved better than playing some backwoods hick who hates sophisticated outsiders and their highfalutin book learning so much that he throws his young cousin's colouring book in the fireplace.  Even with such a one-dimensional character he still turns in a good performance.

One aspect that wasn't captured, would have been instead of Fonda wanting to marry his own cousin, is to have Fonda (before MacMurray shows up) having a secret courtship going with a Falin girl, but then when Fred shows up, he throws a monkey wrench in the works and stirring up the feud even more.  Just a thought.  Over an hundred years too late (the novel was written in 1908), but I think it would have liven things up a bit.  As it is though it's an alright classic Hollywood timewaster that's interesting thanks to early performances by MacMurray and Fonda.