Never So Few (1959)

Just perfect...

A Disappointing Continuation

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

This could have been a good, although not great flick IF its producers had resisted including the mandatory "love story" component.Sinatra was a crooner, never an actor, who was able to get by and even be entertaining with a good supporting cast. He has one here with Steve McQueen as the standout.Gina Lollobrigida was never anything more than a pair of boobs with legs.These two could never have handled a GOOD script. Their personal chemistry was zero, and the painful, stilted meanderings that pass for their love scenes are downright painful to watch.Fortunately we now have the technology to spare ourselves such things. I gleefully advance through every scene with Old Blue-Eyes and Boobs Walking.Confine your viewing to Sinatra and his Kachins and you actually have a pretty good movie.

Never So Few (1959) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Set during WWII, Captain Tom Reynolds (Frank Sinatra) is in the jungle of Burma where he must keep his men in order while making sure no sneak attacks happen. While on leave he strikes up a relationship with the beautiful Carla Vesari (Gina Lollobrigida) who might just be connected to a smuggler.NEVER SO FEW is an entertaining movie to watch but at the same time, when it's over, you can help but be somewhat upset that the film isn't much better. After all, you've got a fantastic director in John Sturges and you've got an all-star cast with a fairly interesting story. So, what went wrong? Well, it's hard to make two types of movies and smash them into one, which is what happened here.The problem with the movie is that the screenplay is incredibly uneven and I'd argue it's also out-of-focus. I say this because the film starts off on a very high note with the men in the jungle and all of this is entertaining. We then get some more entertaining stuff when we get back to civilian land and get to see Sinatra work his magic. The problem is that the love story is so forced and at times so silly that it really takes away from the war drama. A lot of war pictures are "male bonding movies" and Sturges would specialize this years later with THE GREAT ESCAPE. The problem with NEVER SO FEW is that the romance is pretty much in the center of the picture and really breaks any tension or drama in the war stuff.With that said, there's no doubt that the terrific cast helps keep the movie entertaining. Sinatra is in good form as the tough Captain who does things his own way and stands up for what he believes. There's no doubt that Lollobrigida is easy on the eyes and especially during her bath scene. The supporting cast is wonderful and a lot of fun. Bronson is very good in his role as a Navajo solder. Steve McQueen is a lot of fun and even at this stage of his career that essence of cool comes across even with his scenes with Sinatra. We also get Peter Lawford, Richard Johnson, Paul Henreid, Whit Bissell, Dean Jones and Brian Donlevy among others.NEVER SO FEW contains a lot of explosion and the action scenes are nicely directed. The court-like drama at the end isn't all that successful but the film still gives you plenty of entertaining but there's no doubt that it should have been better.

An allied guerrilla unit led by Capt. Tom Reynolds (Frank Sinatra) deals with the Japanese army and warlord controlled Chinese troops out in the Burma jungle."In the hills of North Burma, gateway to the vast prize of Asia, less than a thousand Kachin warriors, fighting under American and British leadership of the O.S.S., held back 40,000 Japanese in the critical, early years of World War II. It has been said NEVER have free men everywhere owed so much to SO FEW".Killer Warrants and The Unprecedented War.Directed by John Sturges and featuring Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Peter Lawford, Brian Donlevy, Gina Lollobrigida, Richard Johnson and Paul Henreid. Never So Few it's fair to say has a iffy reputation, originally conceived as a rat pack war film, it has some great strengths and some annoying weaknesses. The story itself is great, a part of the war that deserves to have been portrayed on the big screen, but why the makers didn't exorcise the whole romantic thread remains not just a mystery, but nearly a film killer.As lovely as Miss Lollobrigida is, her whole character arc, and the relationship with Sinatra's stoic Reynolds, is surplus to requirements. It serves absolutely no purpose to defining other characters or for narrative invention. This strand of the story carries the film to over two hours in length, without this strand it's a film of 90 minutes focusing on the brave souls who fought in the Burmese conflict. Which is what it should have been.When dealing with the conflicts, both outer and inner, the film does excite. The wily Sturges knows his way around an action scene and all the efforts here are gripping. Cast are fine and dandy, with McQueen dominating his scenes, Johnson the class act on show, while Sinatra, once he gets rid of the fake beard, shows his knack for tortured emotion to the point you just can't help but root for him even when he's being pig-headed (not a stretch for old blue eyes of course).Tech credits are mixed, the studio sets are easily spotted, but conversely so are the real and pleasing location sequences filmed in Ceylon. The Panavision photography (William H. Daniels) is beautiful, a Metrocolor treat, but Hugo Friedhofer unusually turns in a lifeless musical score. All told it's not hard to see why it's a film that divides opinions, it's very episodic and that romance drags it something terrible. But still strong merits exist and it at least gets the core of the real story out in the public domain. 6/10

There are three well done battle scenes in this movie. The scenery is fabulous. Gina Lollobrigida is gorgeous. All the secondary characters are well acted, including Dean Jones, Charles Bronson and Steve McQueen.The bad news is that the script and lead actors (Sinatra and Lollobrigida) are terrible. The movie mixes an absurd and unbelievable romance with a series of clichéd and unbelievable war situations.This may not be Sinatra's worst acting job, but of the ten or so movies I've seen him in, he has never been so wooden and dull. It seems as if he walked onto the set, did his lines in one take and went out to the nightclubs.Sinatra fans will probably enjoy the movie. Everybody else, not so much.