It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Burt!

When it comes to brute physicality in classic films the normal names that come to mind are Errol Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., but it seems the only man who found the perfect balance between sensitivity, masculinity and power was Burt Lancaster.
Originally a trapeze artist in the traveling circus, Burt got his first crack at Hollywood in the 1946 drama The Killers, one film out of the only two successful adaptations of the works of Hemingway, and cinema was never the same again.
What sets Burt aside from most actors working at that time, was the intensity he brought to every role. It was not only his sex appeal, of which was probably what drew most to his features, but it was his passion that illuminated the screen.
When talking about Burt Lancaster it is impossible not to mention Fred Zinnemann's 1953 masterpiece From Here To Eternity, for it is this film that showcases Burt's talents at their highest point.
Set in the first few days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor at a Hawaiiann military base, From Here to Eternity is a character study that delves into the minds of the men and women who live there. Burt plays 1st Sgt. Milton Warden, a man overqualified for his low ranking position, who has a contempt for authority and who is in love with his superior's wife. Despite the refusal of technicolor, everything is far from black & white on the island. But despite the sea of stars, among them Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed, Burt shines the brightest--especially in the scene on the beach.
In portraying Warden Burt had to employ almost every human emotion: anger, jealousy, love, happiness, pride, shame and....drunkenness. Yet in every scene he never once let's his emotions run away with him, and this restraint is what makes his performance as masterful as it is.