[3.7]
A good cast helps a film, but when a story is spread out over too many characters and situations (as it is here), the overall impact is diminished and it becomes harder to relate to and care about the protagonists. Burt Lancaster is the most interesting man in the film, as he is the most ambiguous and difficult to read. At first we totally disdain Lancaster, who plays a tough, hard-working Sergeant who falls in love with his superior’s wife. His tenderness for Karen (Deborah Kerr) is accompanied by contempt for her and his own insecurities about his place in the army. His passionate embrace of Karen on the beach and his subsequent kindness for Private Prewitt make him almost likeable, but it is difficult to breach what this man’s true motivations are. Prewitt is also a fascinating character, mostly because of the angst that Montgomery Clift brings to his stubborn loner. Prewitt wants love, but he can’t seem to understand how to respect women, as he (like Lancaster) alternates between kindness and crassness with the “club girl” Donna Reed.
I guess one of the main themes of this film is the struggle to define oneself when you are in the army. Is your country more important or your personal life? Prewitt is put in a position where he is told that by not fighting on his troops’ boxing team, he is letting down the army. But, fighting goes against his own personal code. He doesn’t want to do it. But he has no power in the army. He can refuse, but he is belittled and forced into awful assignments as punishment for not fulfilling the wishes of his superiors. And, in the end, as both women leave Hawaii by boat, we are left with a disquieting theme of love being unsustainable for men in the army. That to give oneself to the armed forces is to relinquish your rights to a happy personal life. Perhaps this wasn’t the intent of the film, but I wasn’t quite sure what it was getting at. That the army is tough? We are continually shown how brutal it can be to people (especially poor Maggio, played brilliantly by Frank Sinatra). Sinatra shines here, as he imbues Maggio with all the right amounts of humor, confidence, and fragility, so that he seems like a real personal with real human failings. Sinatra’s performance is worthy of the Oscar it received but I have a hard time saying the same thing about Donna Reed. She was fine, but I never felt anything for her standard tough, independent gal with a heart. Same goes for Kerr. I thought this film was about romance and relationships, but love didn’t seem to emanate from the script nor screen. Instead, this was more about male relationships, and how these men relation to each other and to the army. Sure, the romances were important for the story, but they aren’t played very well for emotional impact, and I don’t think that the famous beach “love-making” sequence has the same effect now was it might have when first seen. Its a fine movie, but not nearly as classic as all of its Oscars would have you believe.
burning retina 