1953 Best Picture:
From Here to Eternity

Competition: Julius Caesar, The Robe, Roman Holiday, Shane

Other Winners:
Best Actor: William Holden, Stalag 17 
Best Actress: Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday
Best Supporting Actor: Frank Sinatra, From Here to Eternity
Best Supporting Actress: Donna Reed, From Here to Eternity
Best Director: Fred Zinnermann, From Here to Eternity

Cast: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra, Philip Ober, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Warden

Storyline: The Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor is just around the corner, and in an army base in Hawaii, a former boxer, now a private in the army, is given a hard time by his troop when he refuses to fight.  Meanwhile, new love blossoms, and forbidden affairs continue, as army life goes on.

Did it deserve to win:  It certainly did!  ... And not just for the famous beach scene.  The producers and writers were successful in taking a controversial book and turning into a winning film, without too much compromise on its integrity.

Fans of biblical epics may be partial to The Robe, but that film lacked the freshness of Eternity.  Both Roman Holiday and Shane were very good films, but they lacked the sweeping grandeur that Oscar voters seem to love.  

Critique: After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, people today can watch this film with renewed interest.  From Here to Eternity captures something that is very relevant today.  The majority of the film deals with torrid affairs, personality conflicts, and inner struggles, all of which seem so unimportant when the Japanese finally attack.  

As a film, From Here to Eternity is a stand out film, with fine acting from all of the players, and a good script, despite the fact that it had been stripped of the countless vulgarities that gave the original novel its teeth.  

Best Scene:  "Hello, tough monkey!"  Too much drinking and brawling come to a head for poor Maggio, played by Frank Sinatra.  He seems born to play this role as the scrapper who gets put into the stockade for leaving his post and starting a fight.  The kicker, for him, is that Sergeant Fatso, played by Ernest Borgnine, is waiting for him when he arrives! 

Behind the Scenes: From Here to Eternity would tie Gone With the Wind for receiving the most Oscar wins up to that point, with a grand total of eight, out of thirteen nominations.

Frank Sinatra campaigned for the role of Private Maggio, which would later earn him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.  Up until that point, his career had been faltering from his run as a 40's crooner and teen idol.  Mario Puzo's book, and the Oscar winning film, The Godfather, had a story of an actor who uses the mob to get his dream role.  Rumor had it that it was based on Sinatra's real life experience.

Joan Crawford was originally cast in the role of Karen, but she turned down the role because she didn't like the costumes.  "Fuck her!" was the response form producer, Harry Cohn, who then cast the virginal Deborah Kerr in the lead.  

Both Montgomery Clift and Burt Lancaster received Best Actor nominations for their roles that year.  They were up against Marlon Brando (Julius Caesar), Richard Burton (The Robe) and the ultimate winner, William Holden, for Stalag 17.  Conspicuously absent from the list was Shane star, Alan Ladd.  He had left his studio contract with Paramount that year, and was effectively blacklisted by them.  Part of being shunned included not having access to the publicity department to run an Oscar campaign.  

The Legion of Decency and Joe Breen approved the final cut of From Here to Eternity, but not without a few cuts.  The original novel contained a host of objectionable phrases and scenes that had to be altered.  All of the coarse language was removed for the script.  The brothel scene, with a love affair between a private and a prostitute was changed.  The brothel became a second rate U.S.O., and the prostitute became a B-girl.  

"Failure and its accompanying misery is for the artist his most vital source of creative energy." Montgomery Clift

Deborah Kerr as Karen, refuses to tell her husband who she is seeing on the side.

A beaten Sinatra, escapes from the stockade, only to die in the arms of Clift.