Product Description

In this landmark film, passion and tragedy collide on a military base as a fateful day in December 1941 draws near. Private Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) is a soldier and former boxer being manipulated by his superior and peers. His friend Maggio (Frank Sinatra) tries to help him but has his own troubles. Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) and Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr) tread on dangerous ground as lovers in an illicit affair. Each of their lives will be changed when their stories culminate in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Winner of eight Oscars(r), including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting awards for Sinatra in a career-defining role and for Donna Reed as a not-so-wholesome club hostess.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5069 in DVD
• Color: Black & White
• Brand: Columbia Pictures
• Model: 9531
• Published on: 2001-10-01
• Released on: 2001-10-23
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai
• Dubbed in: French, Portuguese, Spanish
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 118 minutes

Amazon.com
Here's a model for adapting a novel into a movie. The bestseller by James Jones, a frank and hard-hitting look at military life, could not possibly be made into a film in 1953 without considerably altering its length and bold subject matter. Yet screenwriter Daniel Taradash and director Fred Zinnemann (both of whom won Oscars for their work) pared it down and cleaned it up, without losing the essential texture of Jones's tapestry. The setting is an army base in Hawaii in 1941. Montgomery Clift, in a superb performance, plays a bugler who refuses to fight for the company boxing team; he has reasons for giving up the sport. His refusal results in harsh treatment from the company commander, whose bored wife (Deborah Kerr) is having an affair with the tough-but-fair sergeant (Burt Lancaster). You remember--the scene with the two of them embracing on the beach, as the surf crashes in. The supporting players are as good as the leads: Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed won Oscars (and Sinatra revitalized his entire career), and Ernest Borgnine entered the gallery of all-time movie villains, as the stockade sergeant who makes Sinatra miserable. Zinnemann's work is efficient but also evocative, capturing the time and place beautifully, the tropical breezes as well as the lazy prewar indulgence. This one is deservedly a classic. --Robert Horton

Additional features
Not much of a bonus package on the DVD, considering the film's classic status. The best is the audio commentary, which features Tim Zinnemann, the director's son (and a filmmaker in his own right), and Alvin Sargent, who connects with Fred Zinnemann in two unrelated ways: he wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for Zinnemann's Julia, yes, but years before that he was an obscure actor who had a couple of scenes in From Here to Eternity. Their comments are pleasantly anecdotal, shedding insider light on the making of the film and Fred Zinnemann's meticulous approach. Fans of Montgomery Clift will be intrigued by the different, conflicting memories of that troubled actor. A making-of featurette is a bogus montage of very brief location footage, and patching together a few excerpts from an interview with Fred Zinnemann doesn't constitute much of an extra feature (why not include the entire interview?). The usual trailers and skeletal filmographies fill it out. --Robert Horton