Where to watch From Here to Eternity (1953)

Trivia & production notes

• Author James Jones withdrew from writing the screenplay due to disagreements with Columbia studio head Harry Cohn, and his early draft is now preserved at Yale University.
• Director Fred Zinnemann deliberately cast against type by rejecting Gladys George and instead choosing Deborah Kerr for a female role, and Joan Crawford's demand to use her own cameraman led the studio to take the chance on Kerr instead.
• Kim Stanley campaigned heavily for the role of Lorene, which ultimately went to Donna Reed and earned her an Academy Award.
• The legend that Frank Sinatra got his role through Mafia connections has been dismissed by cast and crew; one account suggests his then-wife Ava Gardner persuaded Harry Cohn's wife to influence the studio head.
• The Navy banned the film from being shown to servicemen on its ships and shore installations, calling it derogatory to the armed services, though the Army and Air Force purchased it for their own screenings.
• Sinatra and Ernest Borgnine became lifelong friends despite playing rivals on screen, and later exchanged Christmas cards signed with their character names, Maggio and Fatso.
• The film held the number one position in the United States for four consecutive weeks in September 1953 and became one of the ten highest-grossing films of the 1950s.
• The songs "Re-Enlistment Blues" and "From Here to Eternity" were composed by Robert Wells and Fred Karger.
• Sinatra's performance as Maggio was praised by major critics including The New York Post, which noted his portrayal had "a kind of doomed gaiety that is both real and immensely touching."
• Producer S. Sylvan Simon proposed the film to studio head Harry Cohn and was assigned to direct, but died of a heart attack in May 1951 before he could begin preparations.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article From Here to Eternity, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.