The Sand Pebbles (1966)

Sick Product of a Sick System

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Having grown up with both the awkward, squeaky voiced Walter Denton of "Our Miss Brooks" and Luke McCoy of "The Real McCoys" what astounded me most about this very impressive film was the huge professional leap that Richard Crenna took in only a few, short years as a very complex and complicated Captain Collins. I can't remember any actor who made such a significant transformation in such a short period of time. Even Sally Field didn't jump from being the "Flying Nun" to "Norma Rae" until nearly ten years later when Hollywood declared that they "really, really liked her" by granting her an Oscar. After only a few years from being the amiable Luke McCoy, Crenna's remarkable performance here was most definitely Oscar worthy, and remember that "Wait Until Dark", another stellar effort by Crenna as the thug who was slowly falling in love with his beautiful, disabled victim, Audrey Hepburn, didn't appear on the screen until a year after this.Crenna's troubled (and very troubling!) character was only part of the film's ability to remain so watchable during its long three hours. The rest of the cast, led by a very magnetic Steve McQueen and a very talented Richard Attenborough, was outstanding. The story and the setting of political unrest in China during 1926 was very compelling, and Jerry Goldsmith's stirring musical score was the icing on the cake. For some reason, I never realize how much of a Steve McQueen fan I am until I start watching his films. This ranks as one of his very best.As to the film's very disturbing ending, I think that viewers will interpret it in accordance with their already established political philosophies, if they have any. Whether Captain Collins was actually ordered to rescue the missionaries at China Light remained unclear to me. What was clear to me was that these same missionaries did not want to be rescued in spite of the very real and obvious danger to their very lives, which transcended their specific political convictions. In the end, I felt much more emotionally drawn to Frenchy's Maily than to Jake's Shirley Eckert. I'm not sure if this was due to Bergen's acting ability or to the character itself. While Maily was an involuntary victim of circumstance, Shirley not only voluntarily chose to be in a very dangerous place but apparently resisted leaving in spite of the very real danger that surrounded her and the risk that her presence imposed upon the American sailors. For me, this difference made all the difference.

"The Sand Pebbles" is the film that cemented Steve McQueen's status as a leading man in Hollywood, one in which his character is the embodiment of a loner, a rebel at odds with himself and his environment. His portrayal is so effective because it's grounded in his own upbringing. Abandoned by a self absorbed father at the age of four months, and with an alcoholic mother who had little time for him, McQueen was raised by a succession of relatives and eventually wound up in a reform school. His early bitterness with the world is reflected in his performance as Jake Holman, more at home with inanimate objects than with human beings. He finds comfort in the machine room of the San Pablo, a naval gunboat patrolling the Yangtze River in 1926 China.There's a telling moment in the movie that's quite bittersweet; it's when Holman buys a caged bird from a street vendor for missionary Shirley Eckert (Candice Bergen). Holman explains that the bird is meant to be freed from it's cage. As Miss Eckert opens the door of the cage releasing the bird, it's gone in an instant, and the viewer is visually confronted with the notion of freedom and what it might mean to the population of 1920's China, a country of factions in a period of upheaval trying to find a way to unite.Through it all, the mission of the San Pablo is to remain neutral under the supervision of Captain Collins (Richard Crenna), a no nonsense commander who takes his duty seriously, and experiences a moment of personal crisis after he faces down both his own men and Chinese nationalists who demand that he turn Holman over to them following an incident on the mainland. It's at this point in the film that motivations and actions of the crew become a bit muddled to my thinking, as the crew of the San Pablo in turn defy the Captain, and then completely submit to his authority without further consequence. This was a confusing aspect of the story for me.Shot entirely in Taiwan, the making of the film was plagued with problems related to weather and equipment loss, extending the original eighty day filming schedule to seven months. The re-creation of the San Pablo into a 1920's era gunboat cost two hundred fifty thousand dollars, and what's fascinating to me was the way it was made to look as a worn out, dilapidated rust bucket. "The Sand Pebbles" went on to garner a fist full of Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Actor for McQueen, who lost out to Paul Scofield in "A Man For All Seasons". It's one of those pictures that when viewed today in relation to it's peers of the day, it becomes apparent that the major Academy Awards for that year went to the wrong movies.

This interesting and epic film is often mistakenly described as being intended as an allegory for the Vietnam War and the political climate of American imperialism . A three-hour action/drama picture , set in China 50 years ago ; this film's opening prologue states: "CHINA 1926 . Ravaged from within by corrupt warlords ,oppressed from without by the great world powers who had beaten China to her knees a century before ; China, a country of factions trying to unite to become a nation through revolution . Engineer Jake Holman (Steve McQueen , though first choice to play him was Paul Newman) , arrives aboard the gunboat U.S.S. San Pablo, he is a ¨loner¨ seaman who is a newcomer to the crew assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China when Chinese communists take on nationalists and subsequent attacks to foreign people . He become aware of the violent climate , tension and threats over crew and missionaries . As revolutionaries have begun open violence against Americans in Nanking. There he falls in love with a missionary teacher (a newcomer actress Candice Bergen) and finds himself at odds with his command structure , captain (Richard Crenna) and seamen . Frenchy Burgoyne (Richard Attenborough) is the only member of the crew with whom Jake forms any real attachment . This is a story of men who disturbed the sleeping dragon of China as the world watched in terror.This exciting as well as epic film blends noisy action , romance , spectacular sea battles , fights and results to pretty entertaining , though overlong . It has its moments combining sensitive scenes with breathtaking warlike frames . The treatment of this tale can be seen as commentary on the situation in Vietnam at the time of the movie's release . However , Richard McKenna, the author of the best-selling novel on which the film was based, served on U.S. Navy gunboats in China during the 1930's and based the book on his own experiences . The Vietnam War allegory, perhaps inevitably, was ascribed to the film by the press on it's release in 1966, although not the original intention of the author, screenwriter, or director . Very good acting by Steve McQueen as a sailor of an old gunboat now doing duty on the Yangtze river . Considered to be one of McQueen's best performance , he got his only nomination for an Academy Award , Best Actor, for this film . Also featured are Candice Bergen as an American woman who has arrived in China at a mission along with Larry Gates , Richard Crenna as a doubtful commandant and a motley plethora of secondaries as American actors : Charles Robinson , Simon Oakland , Joe Turkel , Gus Trikonis , Gavin MacLeod of Love Boat, as Chinese players : Mako , James Hong and Richard Loo . Special mention to Richard Attenborough as a seaman who falls in love for a new prostitute , Emmanuelle Arsan writer of erotic Emmanuel series and originates tense as well as sensitive moments . Richard deservedly won Golden Globe 67 support cast . Rousing score by maestro Jerry Goldsmith , when original composer Alex North fell ill, 20th Century Fox exercised their right to pull their contract composer Jerry Goldsmith from another studio's assignment- MGM's Grand Prix . Colorful as well as evocative cinematography by Joseph MacDonald , this Twentieth Century Fox release marked their switch from their own Cinemascope process to Panavisión . The motion picture was compellingly directed by Robert Wise . He was a successful director of all kind genres as musical as ¨West side story¨, ¨The sound of music¨ , Sci-fi as ¨The day the earth stood still¨, ¨Star Trek : the motion picture ¨, ¨The Andromeda strain¨ , Terror as ¨The body snatchers¨ , ¨ Curse of the cat people¨, ¨Audrey Rose¨ , ¨The haunting¨ , Western as ¨Blood on the moon¨, ¨Tribute to a bad man¨, Epic or colossal as ¨Elen of Troy¨ and wartime as ¨The desert rats¨. ¨Run silent , run deep¨ , ¨Hinderburg¨ and this ¨The sand pebbles¨.

I can't claim to know anything about the history of the Sand Pebbles, and I only know a bit about the actual historical period it took place in, but I would imagine that this story made some people unhappy. It's set in a time in history where America was someplace it probably didn't belong, but of course, that didn't make the American soldiers in China villains.Set during the time of Western occupation of China in the early 20th century, the movie does its best to portray its subjects fairly, with nasty and kind Americans and cowardly, duplicitous, and noble Chinese. Nevertheless, it's hard to come away from this movie without seeing the racist mindset from which it comes. I don't mean this as an insult, necessarily, as a piece of film history it can only be judged by the standards of its time. As a piece of entertainment, however, its moral discoveries that "the Chinese are perfectly capable of learning how American technology works!" and "they're just trying to get ahead, look how reasonable they are when they can speak English well!" are basically the stuff of children's cartoons these days.These flaws and the awkwardly antisocial nature of Steve McQueen's character make the first two-thirds of the movie drag in parts, no matter how good the production values are (they're very good). That still isn't quite enough to drag down a very strong ending, however, where the path the movie takes manages to keep you guessing until the very end.