From Here to Eternity (1953)

“Maybe back in the days of the pioneers a man could go his own way, but today you got to play ball.”

            I read about From Here to Eternity a few times in various film books. I think the first time I really read about it was when I was read a biography on Ava Gardner… no she is not in the film but she was married to Frank Sinatra who was in it (in case you did not know). I came across the film on TCM when they had Montgomery Cliff as their actor under the day. I was a bit excited to see it since I was heard about it. I did not go into it with high expectations or any expectations at all and thank God I did not because I would have been disappoint and was.

            There are like five plots going on at once and I did not like any one of them. If I had to pick I liked the plot of Burt Lancaster’s character Sgt. Milton Warden and Deborah Kerr’s character Karen Holmes really falling in love with each when they have never been in love before. Their relationship was not outrageously romantic but to me they were the best actors in the whole film which in turn made their scenes watchable and bearable. Their famous kissing scene on the beach was really good. Kerr was excellent she was angry and spiteful at the world and she knocked it out. She looked gorgeous too. Burt Lancaster was so handsome and was such a great actor, he was very believable.

            I actually did not even remember or realize Montgomery Cliff was in the film. I do not like him at all he drives me nuts. His story line was a load of crap I though. He plays a soldier named Robert E. Lee Prewitt who transferred from the bugle corps. Karen’s husband Capt. Dana Holmes found out that Prewitt used to be a boxer and wants him for a match against another company (or so I think). Prewitt does not want to so Holmes and other soldiers make his life miserable. While out he meets a girl named Alma (Donna Reed). They fall in love but she does not want to be a soldier’s wife but she eventually relents and agrees to an engagement.

            Prewitt’s only friend is a guy named Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra). Angelo is a typical Italian with a quick temper. One night he pisses off the head of the stockade while out at a bar. His life like Prewitt’s is made miserable. Angelo eventually winds up in the stockade where he is beaten over and over again.

            So pretty much the only good scenes were the ones with Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr and I also liked Donna Reed she was excellent. Frank Sinatra was perfect along with the three actors I mentioned made the film worth sitting through. Reed and Sinatra would both win Awards for Best Supporting Actress and Actor respectively. This is what revived Sinatra’s career, he was in such a bad slump he could not get a hit with his songs. At this point in his life he was married to Ava Gardner and neither one was seen very favorably because she broke up his first marriage. They just got a lot of bad press which did not affect her career but did his.

            From Here to Eternity was not to my liking. The film to me dragged so bad in so many parts that my attention wandered. I understand the stories and everything that went on I just could not get into the plots and stories that was needed. From Here to Eternity is one of the best known and well admired classic films; I can see why that is so but it is not one I well admired. Although I am not a great fan of the film it is one that deserves to be seen at least once. 

The Misfits (1961)

“Honey, we all got to go sometime, reason or no reason. Dyin's as natural as livin'. The man who's too afraid to die is too afraid to live.”  

            If you have ever heard of The Misfits it is probably because it is surrounded by so much legend and for a very morbid reason. This was the last film for Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable. Gable died of heart attack before the film was released and Monroe died a year later. Montgomery Cliff had been in his disfiguring car accident five years previous and I have to say I barely even noticed him in his first scene. Cliff would die only five years after the film was released. Yeah, so death and doom just lingers around The Misfits.

            The film starts out with a woman named Roslyn Taber (Monroe) getting a divorce in Reno. She helped out by her friend Isabelle (Thelma Ritter) who gets her to the courthouse on time and tries to cheer her up later on with a drink. While getting a drink the two women meet an old cowboy named Gay Langland (Gable) and his friend Guido (Eli Wallach). Roslyn has nowhere to go so she and Isabelle go out to Guido’s unfinished house for some fun.

            Gay and Guido offer Roslyn a place to stay since she has nowhere else to in life. She stays and lives with the two men. One day Gay and Guido decide to go looking for some mustangs out in the Nevada desert to sell. They gain the help of a horse and bull rider named Perce (Cliff) who works in a traveling rodeo.

            They all have a good time together no matter how tortured and lost they are all in their own ways. Out in the desert things begin to fall apart for the four lost souls when they go out wrangling mustangs known as misfits.

            I had a hard time getting into the story and understanding it as I was watching it but after researching it a bit I understand the characters better and what the story was saying. Arthur Miller, who was once married to Monroe, wrote the film while out in Reno waiting for his divorce from the actress. It is sad to see what is a mix of truth and fiction about Monroe and what was going through Miller’s mindset at the time. All the characters are misfits of society with sad and tragic happenings in their lives to make them the way they are: Monroe is a divorced, sad, lonely, and emotional woman; Gable is an old cowboy who has not gone out with the old ways of his kind; Perce has lost out on his inheritance his father has left him when his mother remarried and is left wandering around as a rodeo entertainer; Guido lost his wife who he knew since they were both seven and fought as a fighter pilot in the war. The three men make life a little bit harder for Roslyn as they try to win her love. At the end their chasing comes to a head with Roslyn already very emotional.

            Every one of the actors gives such amazing performances. I am not a huge of Marilyn Monroe she really does nothing for me if I ever sit through a film of hers. I actually really liked Monroe she was so good. It is sad to see her in this film not only because it is her last film but because she gave so much to this role and really knocked it out and this is what we could have seen more from her had she lived. There was one scene in the desert where Roslyn runs away from the men out in the desert and just yells and screams. Monroe was fabulous in the scene to me there are no words to describe it as well as it can be it just needs to be seen. This has to be my favorite Clark Gable role I have seen of his so far. He was the tough guy but had a heart and really cared for Roslyn. His best scene in a film is when Gay sees his kids after not having seen them in a year he had gone out to get Roslyn so she could meet his kids. When they walk back into the bar his kids are gone. Drunk and out of control he gets angry and yells and falls all over the place. Again, no words to describe how amazing the scene was. I barely even recognized Montgomery Cliff when he first shown he just looked so much different. He was good too but I cannot understand why he was third billed when Eli Wallach was in it more than him. Wallach I have never seen him in a film before this and I found him very good.

            John Huston was an amazing director. The entire film was just shot beautifully.  He brilliantly captured the desert surrounding the characters when they were out there.

            The Misfits is a beautiful film. I will admit, like I said, I did not understand it until I researched it and before that I did not really know what to think of the story and the characters. Now looking back at it everything about The Misfits is great. There is a wonderful mix of beauty and sadness in The Misfits. Do not just watch the film as the last film for Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe and all the doom and death that surrounds it looking at it that way will only be a distraction. Look at the characters and really pay attention to them as lost, wandering people. The Misfits is a film that should be seen by all movie lovers no matter what era/eras you enjoy, it is a cinematic gem. 

The Heiress (1949)



“He's grown greedier over the years. Before he only wanted my money; now he wants my love as well. Well, he came to the wrong house - and he came twice. I shall see that he does not come a third time.”

            I happened to find The Heiress on sale at Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago and of course I had to get it Olivia de Havilland is the star and she won an Academy Award for her role. And I have also for the past couple of weeks have been on a bit of an Olivia de Havilland kick thanks to Monty over at All Good Things when he had the actress as his Classic Movie Goddess of the Month in July. Monty had The Heiress listed as one of his essential films to see of de Havilland.

            The Heiress is about a young woman named Catherine Sloper (de Havilland). Catherine is a quiet, naïve girl who lacks social skills and great beauty. Her father, Dr. Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson), is not at all pleasant to his daughter. He keeps comparing the poor girl to her mother who was beautiful and sociable and had great talent for many things. Catherine’s aunt Lavinia Penniman (Miriam Hopkins) keeps telling her brother to be nicer to Catherine and not compare her to her mother. Whenever Dr. Sloper is mean to Catherine she goes further into timidity and awkwardness.

            At a party one night Catherine meets a young man named Morris Townsend (Montgomery Cliff). He is very handsome and for the life of her she cannot figure out why he is following her and being nice to her. Morris dances with Catherine and even speaks to Dr. Sloper and Aunt Penniman. Aunt Penniman is totally smitten with Morris and is very excited to see a young man speaking to her niece. Dr. Sloper becomes very suspicious of the young man right off the bat. He reasons that the young man has no money and is only interested in his daughter because of her inheritance… and also because he cannot fathom any man being interested in his daughter since he thinks she is dull.

            Morris starts coming over to the Sloper house every day after the party. Catherine is very shy and embarrassed over his constant coming over and his professing how much he likes her. After a while she begins to feel comfortable with him being around and becomes blinded by his love. Morris keeps sucking up to Dr. Sloper but still he only sees the young man as only trying to get at money since Morris has no job and is not looking for one.

            Dr. Sloper decides to take Catherine to Europe for six months to get Morris off of her mind. If she still loves Morris in that time he will permit them to marry. Of course Catherine still loves him and she and her father leave their European trip early to get back home to New York. Once home and reunited with Morris, Catherine tells him that she wants to run away that night and marry him. Morris and Aunt Penniman had it planned that the two would marry the next day but Catherine cannot wait she wants to get married right away. She seems to make a mistake though by telling him that her father will disinherit her and she will not have the money she has been receiving from her mother’s death and what she will receive if the doctor dies. That night Catherine waits and waits for Morris to come with a carriage to take her away but he never comes and she does not hear from him for the next two years.

            Dr. Sloper is happy that Morris is gone. As he and his daughter talk about what has happened he reveals to her what he thinks of her. He tells Catherine she is a coward and plain, no man will ever love her, she has no backbone and the biggest blow that she is not like her mother at all. Catherine finally realizes her father does not love her at all he is ashamed of her. She gets a backbone and for the first time she tells her father to write her out of his will so she will have no money. He confesses he only meant he will disinherit her as a threat he never intended to leave her without money. Now she is very angry with him because she is still hurt from Morris leaving and he never would have left her had it been for her father.

            A few months later the doctor dies. Catherine never forgives her father for what he did and said to her that she does not even go to his side as he is dying. Not long after Morris comes back. Catherine has become a very bitter person and her bitterness comes out even more with Morris’s return.

            Will Catherine go back to the man she once loved or does she finally see Morris Townsend as her father saw him: a gold digger?

            While I will agree with Monty that this is a must see film I do not think it is an essential Olivia de Havilland film. Sure she won the Academy Award but I just cannot see how she won. De Havilland is nothing short of a great actress in any film she is in but I did not see how her performance as Catherine Sloper was enough to give her an Oscar. First of all, I think I may just be sick and tired of seeing her in period films. The woman did so many damn period films!!! In the beginning there is a scene of Catherine getting dresses and putting her slip or something on and I just though “Olivia de Havilland by this time must have been a pro at putting 1800s style clothing on.” Second, I thought she looked TERRIBLE! Seriously she looked like Gollum from Lord of the Rings! That was distracting I could not get over how awful she looked. The costumes were not bad at all but her hair and her lack of makeup did nothing for her. I think it was more the hairstyles than anything because when de Havilland played Melanie Hamilton she barely had any makeup on and she looked great but her hair here did not frame her face well at all. I apologize if this makes me seem shallow and mean but I was distracted by these things.

            Montgomery Cliff I can take him or leave him… mostly leave him. I just did not like him and it was not because of his character. I do not like his acting. Apparently he did not like Olivia de Havilland’s acting and the two of them did not get along. You can see their complete lack of chemistry I mean yes I know that Catherine was shy and Morris was forcing himself into her life and they had nothing in common but to me there should have been a little chemistry between the actors. I think Cliff is overrated as an actor I do not really see anything great about him. I did manage to sit through I Confess with him as the star but that is only because the story was good and it is a Hitchcock film.

            I had never seen Miriam Hopkins in a film before this. I thought she was good. Ralph Richardson was perfection as the evil, manipulative father.

            The Heiress has a good story, I believe it is a little ambiguous. I did not know whether to believe if Morris really loved Catherine or if he was just always after his money and just left her because he meant well and did not want to get her in trouble or he was upset she would no longer be getting money. Olivia de Havilland, as I said, is nothing short of a great actress and she does give a good performance just not an Academy Award winning performance. Even though I could care less about Cliff I did like the cast they were all excellent in their parts. If you are a classic film fan The Heiress is one film that you should not pass up.

            The Heiress is available on DVD and to view on youtube.

Carol Burnett's parody of The Heiress is hysterical