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LUNKHEADED Though Robert Wise’s The Sand Pebbles had nothing to do with Vietnam, there was obvious association because American military involvement in that country was heating up in 1966, the year of the movie’s release. But roadshows weren’t designed to showcase gunboat diplomacy; nevertheless, on the strength of the director’s previous little hits Westside Story and The Sound of Music, Fox gave him big bucks and foreign locales to go off and make something audiences craved—a downer. Not an altogether bad movie, it’s just not a good one. Maybe what’s offensive about it, aside from the Yankee politics without redemption, is its damned apathy. I don’t think anyone willing to pay hardticket prices would have objected to a serious movie about a serious subject, yet even with its racially tinged heaviness The Sand Pebbles is really a feigner. Based on Richard McKenna’s best seller (28 weeks on the N.Y. Time’s list), which is more or less about his own experiences aboard the USS Gold Star for two years while patrolling the Yangtze in the 30s, the movie gives the impression of being serious-minded. We’re just never quite sure over what. Ostensibly it’s the story of a US ship sent to China to protect American “interests”—merchants, teachers and missionaries—from the very people they were sent there to serve. (That is, the consequences of serving up Yankee Capitalist/Christian propaganda helping ferment the Boxer Rebellion and the less than impressive national revolution led by Sun Yat-sen.) The movie’s drawing card is Steve McQueen as a loner ship engineer. Okay, he attempts a sort of semi-convincing dumb-dumb accent; what seems to please the audience more is his swank in those form-fitting Navy uniforms. With Mako as 1966’s Best Supporting Masochist, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna, Candice Bergen, Larry Gates and those dependable lunkheads Simon Oakland, Ford Rainey, Barney Phillips and Joe Turkel. Filmed in Panavision, with 70mm blowup. (Opening 7/11/1967 at the Cinestage, running 15 weeks.) Oscar nominations for best picture, best actor (McQueen), supporting actor (Mako), color cinematography (Joseph MacDonald), color art direction, sound, original score (Jerry Fielding) and film editing.
CONSUMER BEWARE: Before the Blu-ray edition, Fox released two versions of the movie in one package: the theatrical presentation and the uncut roadshow. The former, at 183 minutes, is passable; the latter, at 196 minutes and badly faded, just about unwatchable.
ROLL OVER IMAGES
Text COPYRIGHT © 2001 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved. |
