From Here to Eternity (1953), an American romantic war film, with its bold and explicit script, containing strong language, military injustice, corruption, violence and sexual content, which include prostitution and adultery, depicts the lives of three American soldiers, and the women in their lives, stationed in peacetime Hawaii, just before the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941.

The documentary-styled black and white film, based on the novel of the same name by James Jones and directed by Fred Zinnemann, precisely captured the isolation and boredom of the military personnel stationed in the Army barracks on the island of Oahu, and the drama of the personal lives of its main characters, which include a bugler, former boxer and stubborn, insubordinate soldier Robert Prewitt, played by Montgomery Clift, the rugged Sergeant Milton Warden, played by Burt Lancaster, and Angelo Maggio, the good-natured Italian friend of Robert Prewitt, portrayed by Frank Sinatra. The women in the drama film include Deborah Kerr, appearing as Karen Holmes, the neglected, frustrated, and promiscuous wife of Captain Dana Holmes, who became engaged in a torrid and forbidden love affair with Sergeant Milton Warden, and Donna Reed, appearing as Alma Burke or Lorene, a bar-girl, a hooker, and also the love interest of Robert Prewitt. Shot on location, which includes a three-week shoot in Hawaii's Schofield Barracks, it proved to be a successful film, both critically and financially, the second biggest hit of the year, which won the most Academy Awards for any picture since Gone with the Wind in 1939.

The film begins with the arrival of Robert Prewitt, a bugler, who was once a professional boxer, transferred from the Fort Shafter bugle corps to the Schofield Barracks on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, where he meets an old friend, Private Angelo Maggio.

Knowing his credibility as a talented boxer, the company commander, Captain Dana Holmes, wanted Prewitt to join the company boxing team, which he bluntly refused, as he gave up boxing after he inadvertently blinded his practicing partner. However, when Prewitt remained adamant and strongly refused to accept the proposal, despite repeated requests of the captain, he instructed the First Sergeant Milton Warden to prepare a court-martial, which was supported by others, except his friend Angelo Maggio, although Warden suggested doubling Prewitt's company punishment as an alternative.

Later, Prewitt and Maggio, along with some other soldiers, visited a social club where Prewitt met the hostess Lorne, and was attracted to her. In the meantime, Sergeant Fatso Judson unnecessarily insulted Maggio, and they almost started a fight, before intervened by Warden. Meanwhile, Maggio bunked off his guard duty and arrived the club in uniform and drunk, for which he was court martialed and was sentenced to six months in the stockade, which is overseen by Judson.

Nevertheless, after subsequent weekends, Prewitt became close and eventually fell in love with Alma, and explained the reason of his quitting boxing, as in his last practice bout one of his punches hit his friend, and ended up blinding him and sending him into a coma from which he never recovered. However, Lorne refused to accept his proposal, as she wanted a husband with a more prestigious job than career soldier. But she confessed that her real name is Alma, and she is only a streetwalker, but wished to become respectable.

On the other side of the story, one day Sergeant Galovitch, a member of Captain Dana Holmes' boxing team, picks a fight with Prewitt without any provocation, and although the regimental commander Holmes should have intervened to stop the fight, he did nothing but to observe it. However, after the unwanted incident, he was about to punish Prewitt on the ground of indiscipline, but did nothing after learning that it was Galovitch, who started the fight. On another day, Maggio, the good-natured Italian friend of Prewitt, escaped from the stockade after a brutal beating by Judson, the cruel and sadistic stockade captain of the guard and died in Prewitt's arms, which made Prewitt furious, and to take revenge, he attacked Judson in a back alley knife fight. Consequently, although Judson was killed in the combat, Prewitt was also badly injured and he took shelter in the house of Loren for recuperation, while Warden covered his absence. Nevertheless, on the basis of a report received from the inspector-general by the base commander on Captain Holmes’ attitude and unjust treatment of Prewitt, Holmes was subsequently forced to resign, and Galovitch was demoted.

In another important episode of the film, the neglected, bored, unhappy, lonely and frustrated Karen Holmes, the promiscuous wife of the base commander Captain Dana Holmes, became engaged in a torrid and forbidden love affair with the good-guy career soldier First Sergeant Milton Warden, and encourages him to become a commissioned officer so that she can divorce Holmes and marry him. Her marriage to Holmes is unhappy and distant, especially due to Holmes' addiction to alcohol and infidelity, the stillbirth of her only child and her consequent infertility. Despite being warned, Warden also risked prison and became involved in an affair with Karen. The most famous scene of the film, the erotic lovemaking scene of Karen and Warden, their bodies tightly locked in an embrace as they kissed each other in the pounding Hawaiian surf, and the white foaming waves pouring over them, has been indelibly imprinted in cinematic history. However, their relationship ended abruptly as Holmes' resignation forced Karen back to the mainland along with her husband, while Warden revealed that he has no interest in becoming an officer, but promised Karen to meet her someday somewhere in future.

On December 7, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, Warden led a heroic resistance, while Prewitt attempted to sneak back into camp to rejoin his company, despite Lorenes’ repeated request to stay with her, and was shot dead by a military police, who mistook him as an invader. In the final scene, Karen and Alma meet on the deck of an evacuation ship, departing wartime Hawaii for the mainland, leaving behind the memory of their lost and failed loves, when Alma tells Karen about her lover, falsely idealising him as a tragic and romantic hero, who was killed while defending Pearl Harbour.

Unlike the other great films like Wuthering Heights, Gone with the Wind, Roman Holiday, Rebecca and the others, From Here to Eternity (1953) is not a film depicting a round story with a pleasing fullness. It is rather a film reflecting several assorted incidents of a military camp, just before a disastrous enemy attack. Regarded as one of the most popular films of its time, it earned two Golden Globe Awards for Best Director and Best Supporting Actress Donna Reed, and was nominated for thirteen Academy Awards and won eight, which include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor Frank Sinatra, and Best Supporting Actress Donna Reed. Apart from that, the film was also selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 2002.