La canonnière du Yang-Tsé

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Trailer—The Sand Pebbles

Since Robert Wise directed one of the best musicals (Sound of Music), one of the best spook stories (The Haunting) and two of the best Sci-Fi films (Andromeda Strain and Day the Earth Stood Still), you probably wouldn't be surprised that he could comfortably make just about anything, and you'd be right! The Sand Pebbles is impressive on so many levels: acting is first rate throughout and Jerry Goldsmith's music is typically masterful. Just one thing you might not expect of a 1966 film: it can be brutal. The characters are so well drawn, that when the unflinchingly realistic violence confronts or befalls them, it can be very disturbing. Sand Pebbles does what few films can. It makes you feel like you've really experienced a different time and place.

This is just one exceptional movie. One of my all time classics. An examination of the little-known or understood tensions and political ramifications of being aboard an American gunboat, in the 1920's, in the China backwater. The atmosphere and the story are superb. Steve McQueen has never been better as Jake Holman, a hard-nosed American sailor, with his own code of right and wrong. His character absolutely dominates the movie. This is the type of character he was born to play. Richard Crenna's ship Captain was perfect: smug, self-involved, deluded about his patriotism, but a decent man caught in a confusing, thankless, possibly deadly situation. The rest of the cast in this is tremendous, especially Richard Attenborough, Candace Bergen, Simon Oakland, and Mako. An absolutely superior film!

"The Sand Pebbles" is an epic war movie set during the 1920s in China. Steve McQueen delivers one of his strongest performances as Jake Holman, the sailor responsible for the engine room of the U.S.S. San Pablo gunboat. There are uncomfortable scenes in the film. The 1920s were not a time of political correctness and the treatment of the Chinese "coolies" on board the ship, and the bargirls on shore, is shocking. Richard Attenborough plays the romantic Frenchy Burgoyne, who falls in love with the local bar's new hostess, Maily (Marayat Andriane). The beautiful soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith is memorable. 8 out of 10.