In 1953 movie audiences were settling into a new post-World War climate of fiscal comfort and resurgent family values. Television dominated personal leisure by continuing to displace motion picture palace at the center of many people's recreational lives and the United States was ending its war in Korea. The Baby Boom was slowing and memories of the Great Depression were held in check with higher wages and decreasing unemployment. General Eisenhower had used his military record to win the presidency and the future of the country appeared optimistic despite Cold War politics and the developing arms race.

At the same time there was a burgeoning of artistic and cultural activity running contrary to the dominant strains of society. Forming much of what would later be identified as the counter-culture, the early '50s witnessed various artists, critics, activists and disenfranchised people announcing their dissatisfaction with the American project. Lacking a collective voice to air their concerns some citizens recognized and embraced their individual distinctions as never before.

The civil rights movement was born as a national political interest. Efforts to legitimize the struggles of women in the domestic field and in the workforce also succeeded in gaining popular attention. The term "special interest" itself came to be identified with any one of a number of groups lobbying for government support and social recognition just as the ground rules for social change were set alongside the backdrop of TV dinners and an expanding highway system.

Symbolizing this evolution the Academy Awards race of 1953 featured an historical drama with Marlon Brando's revolutionary style of method acting in Julius Caesar, a technological breakthrough staged as a movie spectacle in The Robe, an escapist romance in Roman Holiday, a darkly rendered western in Shane and an anti-military war movie from James Jones's best-selling novel called From Here to Eternity. Voters may also have wanted to consider Billy Wilder's Stalag 17, itself a war movie, but the critical whirlwind named From Here to Eternity movie of the year, and for good reason.

Not wanting to swoon over the picture, especially when given its limitations as a realist drama but not without noting the overall competence of its execution, it is important to remember how Fred Zinnemann's picture functioned in its moment. Adapted from Jones's novel by Daniel Taradash the effort to bring the book to life was everywhere limited by toning down the anti-military themes and profanity-laden dialogue to accommodate the active participation of the U.S. Army in completing the film. Gone were many of the more critical sequences of the book although Taradash was able to display the corruption seemingly inherent in all bureaucratic operations while also idealizing certain army personnel for their valorous conduct.

Set in the months leading up to Pearl Harbor From Here to Eternity concerns life on a Hawaiian army base when Private Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) transfers into the unit. Known as good boxer he has become a discipline problem after blinding an opponent in the ring. Sympathetic but hard-nosed First Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) warns Captain Holmes (Philip Ober), his commanding officer, to remember this fact but Holmes wants the new man for his boxing team therein introducing the movie's central conceit.

Because every relationship in the film is strained by the difficulties of living up to responsible, ethical conduct in the face of often conflicting demands for personal satisfaction, each character is motivated by impossible ideals. In keeping with the movie's setting these personal needs are also suffused with the timeliness of 1941 being the last time Americans knew peace before the storm of World War II engulfed them. Thus Holmes is a self-serving and inconsiderate while Prewitt is a fatalistic loner and Warden is a well-intentioned leader with limited powers and a sense of personal obligation to his fellow soldier.

As Holmes slowly works on Prewitt, pressuring him to join the boxing team with unpleasant duties and frequent punishment, Private Maggio (Frank Sinatra) sticks up for the new man and demonstrates his own streak of independence. Striking up a fast friendship they carouse with local girls in town before Prewitt falls for Alma Burke (Donna Reed) and Maggio makes an enemy of Staff Sergeant Judson (Ernest Borgnine) in a drunken brawl.

Meanwhile Warden falls for Captain Holmes's wife Karen (Deborah Kerr) when she confides in him about her husband's philandering. As their love affair blossoms under mutual desperation their only satisfaction comes from one another yet even that joy is tragically tainted by rumors of her sordid past and his sense of loyalty to the military.

Eventually Maggio goes AWOL and is thrown into Judson's brig, Prewitt is finally provoked into a fight and Warden realizes he won't leave the army for Karen so he breaks off their affair. Then Judson murders Maggio, Prewitt retaliates by killing Judson and the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in a flurry of original footage mixed with newsreel footage taken from the day of the actual bombing raid.

Trying to return to his post Prewitt is gunned down after refusing to identify himself although Warden covers up the cause of his death and becomes a hero. Leaving Hawaii with heavy hearts Alma and Karen meet, Alma believing Prewitt died defending his base while Karen intuitively knows the more complicated truth as the final credits scrawl across the screen to end the movie.

Budgeted at $1.65 million the picture was much anticipated largely on the reputation of its source novel. Competing with box office hits like Peter Pan that itself grossed some $87 million, From Here to Eternity managed to plug into the zeitgeist of its year and earn a pretty penny for its investors on the way to collecting eight Academy Awards from among 13 nominations. With its insider's tale of military life it also held up the most martial of American institutions to critique despite years of deeming the military a somewhat sacrosanct subject standing above the pall of unkind words.

Using Jones's book with its counterculture impressions and a basic distrust of bureaucracy as its thematic purpose From Here to Eternity skewered the military. Not only is Holmes a figurehead of what's wrong with the army, it's equally clear that noble and courageous soldiers like Warden, Prewitt and Maggio are constantly limited by an organization that promotes allegiance over initiative and cruelty over fairness. Plus there is ample evidence within the picture of a long held notion about bloodthirsty sadism running rampant throughout the teaming ranks of military personnel. Altogether these inflammatory elements struck a cord of meaning with the movie-going public, perhaps most especially those moviegoers with experience in the military stemming from service in World War II.

Audiences also turned to the film to glory in its tawdry scenes of Karen and Warden making love under the crash of ocean waves while enjoying the sun-swept Hawaiian scenery. More to the point moviegoers responded to Judson's bullying, Maggio's sympathetic underdog and Prewitt's misguided sense of justice with the same eye-for-an-eye mentality that was put under the microscope throughout the film as being a negative value despite its somewhat logical use.

In so doing From Here to Eternity took issue with the codes of military discipline in light of then unknown patterns of military corruption and broke through the broadly totalizing effects of '50s-era consensus and conformity. Though not carried out with the kind of detail and conviction that would eventually characterize most big screen portraits of the military, and of war movies more generally, the wide open cracks and fissures concerning traditional masculinity and authority were everywhere blown apart in the film.

Of course this isn't to dismiss its lasting value as an iconic film filled in at its center with the unforgettably powerful image of Kerr and Lancaster making love on the beach. Nor can the movie's influence be minimized in light of its presentation of subjects like miscarriage, sterility and adultery that are each used to motivate various characters and their actions.

For many viewers From Here to Eternity is one of the most sweeping romantic stories ever made. For others it is one of the finest war stories ever produced having struck a successful balance between the contributions of important early '50s popular figures like Lancaster, Clift, Sinatra, Kerr and Reed and the overall drama that involved timely ideas about sacrifice, honor and innocence lost.

Neither group can lay absolute claim to which version of the film is more apt and accurate to its underlying themes. Not when the technical beauty of the filmmakers and emotional impact of the performers is weighed in against our contemporary attitudes that see From Here to Eternity as a somewhat limited realist drama.

Sure its story is immediate and thought provoking. Sure Lancaster is beautiful and Kerr is frequently quite inviting yet it's more fun to watch the movie for its historical value than for its lasting impression as movie art. That is to say, it's fun to watch Sinatra earn his supporting actor Oscar even if his role, like all the roles in the film, suffers from being a bit too wholesome and refined like much of 1950s America with its culture of consensus and conformity.