If you look at the first scene where the sergeants confront Prewitt around the pool table, Galovitch is speaking like a moron. Incomplete sentences. Is he supposed to be an immigrant or something? What does the book say about him?
I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
I don't remember if the book depicts him as a first-generation immigrant, but he's dumb and uneducated. The point is that Captain Holmes promotes men to authority positions based on their athletic ability, not because they're good leaders.
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You got your mind right, Luke?
The book refers to him as Slavic, but also as American and he has the same kind of speech patterns as in the movie. It wouldn't be all that unusual for an American-born of immigrant parents to grow up speaking English as a second language (and not very well).
I am reminded of another James Jones novel set in same background as From Here to Eternity, a much shorter novel titled The Pistol. A plot point is that the protagonist is the only enlisted man in the company who graduated high school.
In the book Galovitch was an old Russian sergeant and there was a big Jewish private named Bloom who was a heavyweight amateur boxer.
In the film they combined the two. To me it did not make sense.
A lot of the book's characters and plot had to be cut out or the movie would have been too long.
I don't see Galovitch and Bloom's characters as beng combined. Since Bloom wasn't in the film, the long fight scene with Prewitt was switched from Bloom to Galovitch. In the book, Prewitt and Galovitch had a short fight, whch led to Prewitt's going to the stockade (which was also cut from the film). In the film, the insulting remark Bloom makes about a picture of Maggio's sister was said by "Fatso" Judson instead.
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Choocheechoo choocheechoo choocheechoo ya ya pow!
He's a moron.
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