From Here to Eternity

Winner of eight Academy Awards® and the biggest-grossing movie in Columbia history to that time, this powerful film adaptation of James Jones' blockbuster novel washed away the last traces of the studio's B-picture origins and made it truly one of the majors. Set in Hawaii at the outset of Pearl Harbor, it shows how the lives of several Army personnel and their women intersect. Burt Lancaster stars as the rugged sergeant who's having an affair with his commander's wife, Deborah Kerr, cast against type. Montgomery Clift appears as the sensitive bugler with a past, with Donna Reed playing the "party girl" he comes to love. Frank Sinatra (in the mother of all comebacks) portrays a pathetic little private, and Ernest Borgnine is the brutal sergeant in charge of the stockade, plus a cast of colorful supporting characters: Jack Warden, Philip Ober, Mickey Shaughnessy, Claude Akins and George Reeves. The Oscars® went to Best Picture, Supporting Actor and Actress (Sinatra and Reed), Director (Fred Zinnemann), Adapted Screenplay (Daniel Taradash), Cinematography (Burnett Guffey), plus Editing and Sound. (It was nominated for twelve in all.) The film also includes the famous necking-on-the-beach scene that has been endlessly parodied since, most notably by Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca on "Your Show of Shows."