The Sand Pebbles

Plot synopsis:
For troubled hero Jake Holman (Steve "Lightning" McQueen), no good deed goes unpunished.Transferred in 1926 to the U.S.S. San Pablo (whose crew is nicknamed the "Sand Pebbles"), a gunboat serving on the Yangtze River Patrol in China, engineer Holman finds that Chinese coolies are actually doing most of the work on the ship. When he insists on working on the ship's engines himself, he earns the enmity of the Chinese "boss" of the engine room. Captain Collins (Richard Crenna) dismisses Holman's warnings that the machinery needs significant maintenance, and when the ship experiences inevitable engine troubles, the engine room boss is crushed to death by a giant piston when Holman lets him attempt the repair. The head coolie boss bitterly blames Holman for the accident.Told to train a replacement for the dead man, Holman chooses Po-Han (Mako), whom he also befriends, overcoming his bigoted assumptions about the intellectual abilities of the Chinese. Holman sticks up for Po-Han against a bully, and sets him up to win in a prize fight against his tormentor, crewman Stawski (Simon Oakland). Shipmate Frenchy (Richard Attenborough) uses the money to pay for the freedom of a young Chinese woman, Maily (Emmanuelle Arsan), saving her from a life of prostitution. Po-Han is later captured and tortured by a Communist mob because he works for the Americans. The captain attempts to pay ransom money to trade for Po-Han, but is ignored by the mob. Unable to save his friend, Holman shoots Po-Han to end his suffering. This further enrages the Communists, and the captain rebukes Holman for disobeying orders. The Captain informs Holman that because of his meddling, two crew workers have died and he intends on having him transferred out of the San Pablo.Frenchy eventually marries Maily in a makeshift ceremony witnessed by Holman and his love interest, Shirley Eckert (Candice Bergen), an American teacher at the China Light Mission. The Chinese form a naval blockade around the San Pablo, but Shirley is able to return to the mission accompanied on a boat with a student leader. When increasing tensions with the Chinese force the Americans to spend all winter on board under siege, Frenchy slips overboard and swims to shore to visit Maily. Made desperately ill by exposure to the cold water, Frenchy ignores Maily's pleas to return for medical care. Holman, permitted to go ashore to deliver the ship's mail to the US Consulate, visits them, but finds that Frenchy has died the night before. Holman pleads with Maily to leave with him to the China Light Mission for protection, but is interrupted by Chinese thugs. Anti-American nationalists kill Maily and her unborn child, and frame Holman for the murder. He makes it back to the ship where his fellow sailors come close to mutiny when the Captain refuses to hand over Holman to the Chinese for prosecution. Feeling that he has lost command of his ship, the captain contemplates suicide.Just as spring arrives, bringing a rise in the river water levels and the opportunity to escape the siege, news reaches the San Pablo that revolutionaries have begun open violence against Americans in Nanking. The captain ignores orders to return to the coast and goes to attempt to rescue the Americans at China Light Mission. -- Shirley Eckert and the idealistic missionary Jameson (Larry Gates). To reach the mission, the gunboat must break through a blockade of junks manned by the very same boys educated at the missionary school, including the student leader who had been protecting Jameson. Holman has to cut through a thick boom rope with an axe in order to break through the blockade. Holman kills a student leader with the axe near the end of the fighting between the sailors and junk blockaders. The captain decides to take a small group to rescue the missionaries and informs the Ensign to sail back to the coast if the rescue party cannot return in time. The captain and a few men, including Holman, reach the nearly abandoned mission compound to find Jameson and Shirley reluctant to leave. Jameson says that he is a "stateless person" and has renounced his citizenship with his submission of a document to Geneva, so the rescue attempt is not justified since he no longer considers the US to be his protector. He says that the students will protect him and Shirley. Jameson insists that the missionaries are in danger only because of the actions of the American gunboat personnel who back the warlords. The captain refuses to listen to Jameson and insists on escorting them out of the mission because of the imminent danger. Collins tries to have Jameson and Shirley forcibly removed from the mission, but Holman refuses the order to do that and informs the Captain of his desire to remain with them. As Collins and Holman are arguing, one of the student leaders arrives wounded at the mission after having been shot by troops, but after talking to Jameson, he is then subsequently shot dead by Chinese soldiers. Jameson attempts to communicate with the soldiers saying that he is not tied to the American foreigners anymore, but is also shot. When the captain is killed attempting to provide cover for the others to escape, Holman takes his place, remaining behind while the other sailors slip away with Shirley to freedom. Holman shouts out loud commands in an attempt to keep the focus of attention of the soldiers on him only. He kills several snipers from the rooftops. Holman tries to escape too, before he is shot. His dying words are, "I was home. What happened? What the hell happened?"

Tags: cult, violence

Review:
Anyone who doubts what a great actor McQueen was need only watch this film, because his performance here as Jake Holman is simply as good as it gets.
`The Sand Pebbles, ` directed by Robert Wise, is the story of Holman, a sailor assigned to the U.S. Gunboat, `San Pablo,' stationed on the Yangtze River in China in 1926 (the sailors aboard are known as `sand pebbles').
A powerful drama, extremely well crafted and presented by Wise, `The Sand Pebbles' is a great and memorable film that will forever stand as the pinnacle of McQueen's successful career.
Some, like Jake Holman (Steve McQueen), demand sympathy and respect as they struggle to come to terms with their personal challenges brought to the fore by these historically significant and politically dangerous events.Inevitably there are slow and confusing passages as the political implications are expounded, but these are more than compensated for by our emotional engagement as we become involved in the stories of the people caught up in the political fall-out.
Steve McQueen gives what was probably the performance of his career (receiving his only Academy Award nomination), and he is supported by a wonderful cast including Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna, Candice Bergen (aged just 19), and especially Mako.
Steve McQueen felt an affinity for this role like few others in his career.In this compelling war drama set in China in 1926, he plays American sailor Jake Holman, a man who's bonded to machinery more than people yet is imbued with a powerful sense of right and wrong.
In 1966 it also brought him his only Academy Award nomination, for Best Actor (but won that year by Paul Scofield for "A Man For All Seasons").Scripter Robert Anderson had a tough job distilling Richard McKenna's sprawling novel of U.S. Navy gunboat 'San Pablo' (hence her sailors called themselves 'Sand Pebbles') at the start of the revolution that would tear China asunder and ultimately transform it into the post-WWII behemoth we know today.
Though it starred Steve McQueen, who did an excellent job, its strength was the ensemble acting with a very talented cast including Richard Crenna, Richard Attenborough, Mako and Candice Bergen.
RICHARD CRENNA is the Captain, uncertain of just how the U.S./Chinese friction should be solved, and CANDACE BERGEN is lovely as a missionary who has a tender romance with McQueen.The exotic locales (it was filmed mostly in Taiwan), the lush background score by Jerry Goldsmith, and the confrontation between the U.S. Navy and the Chinese authorities which supplies the necessary suspense before an action-filled climax, all serve to make THE SAND PEBBLES a fascinating look at a period in history that is seldom explored.
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.
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!.
Joseph MacDonald's cinematography is breath-taking; you could take almost any individual frame of "The Sand Pebbles" and hang it on your wall as a work of art.The second is that Wise himself (if you believe his commentary) wasn't trying to draw explicit parallels to Vietnam, where things did not begin to drastically escalate until near the end of filming for this movie.
Her often tentative body language works beautifully as a counterpoint to McQueen's assured and seemingly effortless performance, giving their doomed love affair great believability and poignancy.This is an example of 60s' epic film-making at its best..
This is truly my all time favorite film and not just because of the wonderful performances by McQueen, Crenna, Mako and the rest, but because I had an opportunity to experience the Asia culture first hand (during Viet Nam) and the depiction of the culture and the climate of the land is right on.
I also found two interesting character studies: "Jake Holman," by lead actor Steve McQueen, and "Captain Collins-," with Richard Crenna.
Also kind of like Eugene O'Neill's Yank in The Hairy Ape.But Steve McQueen as Jake Holman, probably THE rebel character he ever played in film, finds his life getting increasingly complex by America's mission in China between the two World Wars.
They find no acceptance in either society and meet a Sayonara like end.McQueen's performance was one of eight Oscar nominations The Sand Pebbles got including Best Picture, Best Director for Robert Wise, Best Supporting Actor for Make as the coolie who McQueen bonds with and who also finds no acceptance in either society.
As a result, Mr. McQueen's character is heroic but without fanfare, which to me makes this movie special.By the way, wasn't Richard Crenna a great actor?.
Consider "I Want to Live," "Odds Against Tomorrow," "Curse of the Cat People," and, most especially, "The Sand Pebbles," one of the best, most insightful films about men at war ever made.Set in China in 1926, this film gives an honest evocation of the period between the collapse of the Monarchy in 1908 and the Communist takeover 41 years leter, when whoever had the most firepower essentially ran the country.
He was deservedly Oscar-nominated for this performance, but lost, perhaps inevitably, to Paul Scofield's incomparable St. Thomas More in "A Man for All Seasons." Sir Richard Attenborough once again proves a better actor than director as Frenchy, Holman's best friend.
And Candice Bergen proves that she can act when called upon as the young missionary with whom McQueen falls in love, and whose life he dies trying to save.They don't make 'em like this anymore.
It tells of crewmen Frenchy {Richard Attenborough} & Jake Holman {Steve McQueen} from the U.S.S. San Pablo, two men whose lives are to be severely altered here on the banks of the Yangtze River.
Steve McQueen was made to play loner Jake Holman who finds true love and a sense of purpose in 1920's China.
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 .
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 .
Among the number of interesting books on China I've read was Richard McKenna's "The Sand Pebbles." From first to last, the story within described a young seaman named Jake Holman.
Time and again we are lead to believe this will be some uplifting tale of the underdogs triumphing and interracial harmony – for example Steve McQueen and Mako's working friendship or Richard Attenborough's romance with Marayat Andrienne – only to see the story take another shockingly dark turn and have all hopes dashed.This was a pet project for producer-director Robert Wise, one he had worked hard to get off the ground and would later look back on as one of his proudest achievements.
For one thing he isn't right for the uniform – he looks like a little boy in a sailor suit – and for another he isn't right for the American accent, unless he was doing it as some kind of cultural revenge for Dick van Dyke's appalling attempt at being a cockney in Mary Poppins.The Sand Pebbles is undoubtedly one of bleakest war movies ever made, but what is so different about it is not its anti-imperialist stance or even its downbeat mood.
I saw the movie when I was a child and I remember that I fell in love with Candice Bergen ,only 19 and thoroughly inexperienced,which made her a very credible schoolteacher.A schoolteacher I would have loved to have.The movie was not as big a blockbuster as such previous Wise's works like "west side story" and "sound of music" (I must confess I do not go much for the latter,but I love the former),and not as ambitious as films noirs such as "the set up" and "odds against tomorrow" and his Gothic horror film extraordinaire "the haunting".Some people saw a connection between the situation depicted in "sand pebbles" and the Vietnam war.And everybody disagreed:some were saying that the film denounced the sixties war ,some that it approved of it.What remains today is a good film,a bit overlong, but endearing ,with strong characters ,mainly Attenborough's and Crenna's.McQueen is efficient too ,as a soldier lost in a world he does not really understand and whose life has no sense.That's why Bergen's character ,with her naiveté and her compassion which pass for blandness to some people, is so important on Jake's road.Like Frenchie before him,he has found a reason to believe .This is not a racist movie ,as an user has mooted.Frenchie's and his Chinese girl's love affair is given a much better treatment than the Japanese/American lovers in Logan's tear-jerker "Sayonara" .And a noble man,like M.Attenborough,who would later film a memorable "Gandhi" (where Miss Bergen played a small part),how could he have agreed to be part of such a film?.
Asian actor Mako as always gives a great performance.The accuracy of the life in China during those years and the Navy lifestyle and uniforms of the time period all help to make this an epic film that gets better with age..
You honestly don't care for these characters, and I can imagine after the first half, which concludes without really any suspense, many people walking out figuring they've seen enough.Steve Mcqueen truly is wasted, Mako and Richard Attenborough pull themselves off all right, and RIchard Crenna probably is the best actor of all four.
This movie simply has it all; a great cast, superb direction, a very true to life and exciting story, and some of the best action sequences in the history of film (for both military combat and personal brawls).
I also think that this movie brought out the best performances in almost the entire cast including Steve McQueen, Richard Creena, Richard Attenborough, and Mako.
The cast is tremendous - Steve McQueen the reluctant hero, an authoritarian Richard Crenna, Mako who's more than a downtrodden coolie, a sympathetic but doomed Richard Attenborough, a youthful Candace Bergen, and all those supporting actors whose faces made '60s film and television.
My point is, you can watch a variety of colorful movies this way.The main reason I checked out "The Sand Pebbles" was to see Mako's only Academy Award nominated performance.
In pre-revolution China an American gunboat (The San Pablo) is sent down the Yangzi river to protect American interests in the area.One of those films that can viewed in two different ways: As a message picture (mixed race relationships, being on the sharp end of gesture politics, trying to help people that don't want to be helped) or as a simple adventure yarn.
The fact that Vietnam was at its height at the time of its release cannot be ignored, but only director Robert Wise can tell us how much it influenced the project.Steve McQueen puts in his only Oscar-nominated performance as a stoker with a troubled past.
All Jake Holman wants out of life is a running engine, but his goals run afoul of reality circa 1926 when the U.S. Navy gunboat he serves on finds itself a pawn in a political tug of wills between the American government and the emerging nationalist and communist forces of China."Mobs, that's all I see," says a British inhabitant of the then-subjugated Chinese nation.
It cover's Jake's childhood a bit.Kudos to Simon Oakland, Richard Crenna & Mako, Candice Bergen and of course to the king- Steve McQueen.To Robert Wise for keeping the ending pure..
Some would argue it is too long, and maybe some scenes are, but that helps to develop the characters very well.Looking at the film today, what really stands out for me today is that one could argue that Richard Crenna(Captain Collins) deserved an Oscar for best supporting actor, as his performance came close to upstaging Steve Mc Queen, who was of course outstanding.I bought the two disc special edition recently(highly recommended), and loaned the film to a couple of my friends and colleagues at the university where I work, and they both liked it.
We realize very quickly what we are about to watch: the last gasps of the old world powers to try to control China, but to no avail.Intertwined with these great events are the touching personal stories of the little people caught up in the turmoil: Jake, Frenchy, Shirley, Maily, and the captain & crew of the U.S.S. San Pablo.
Steve McQueen, known by many as the coolest cat who ever lived, won his only Academy Award nomination of his long acting career in this movie, playing Jake Holman, an engineer in the U.S. Navy.
One of Steve McQueen's best performances and all-round good film, with fine support from especially Mako (supp.
Excellent film from Robert Wise about a cynical sailor, played marvelously by superstar McQueen, in an Oscar nominated role.
Steve McQueen and a 19 year old Candice Bergen (The future Murphy Brown) are superb in this story of war and sort-of romance between an American gunboat Sailor and a missionary's daughter in 1926 China.The Oriental actors are excellent as well, especially Mako, whom I have enjoyed in countless films.
This is the last line of the movie, and presumably it is Holman (Steve McQueen) still trying to create the impression the crew is with him, but movies being movies no doubt there is more to it.Well, a revolution happened but also I was thinking before he spoke those words that he became the metaphorical captain of the boat.In the '00s the line might be considered a realisation that the USA underestimated China.Or maybe that is a conclusion I've come to only after hearing one of the Anglo-centric audio documentaries on the DVD about filming in Taiwan.
There is a well-done combat scene late in the movie when the gunboat, the San Pablo - hence Sand Pebbles - is forced to fight it's way through a line of Chinese junks blocking the river with a thick hemp cable.
"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.
It's an epic movie and extraordinary adventure starring one of my favorite movie 'tough-guy' heroes, Steve McQueen.The movie also stars the legendary Richard Attenborough (Director of "Gandhi" and "A Bridge Too Far," and, star of "Jurassic Park" and other greats).Richard Crenna ("First Blood") also stars; as does Candice Bergen ("Gandhi"); Simon Oakland ("Psycho;" "Bullit;" "West Side Story"); Mako ("Seven Years In Tibet;" "Pearl Harbor"); Joe Turkel ("The Shining"); Gavin McLeod ("Kelly's Heroes"), making it a star-studded movie that no one should miss!"The Sand Pebbles" has everything - great actors; a great script; a great soundtrack (by Jerry Goldsmith); great settings; action; intrigue; and, even a love story; and, even another 'almost' love story.
Steve McQueen gives one of his finest performances as Jake Holman, a sailor at odds with the rest of the crew on a tiny gunboat stationed off the China coast in the 1920s.
Seaman engineer Jake Holman (Steve McQueen) transfers to gunboat USS San Pablo patrolling the Yangtze River in 1926 revolutionary China.
The Sand Pebbles (1966) Is Another Of Robert Wise's Masterful films that feature's Steve McQueen, And The Great Escape's Co-Star Richard Attenborrough, Steve McQueen, Star's as Jake Holman,a sailor in the navy in turbulent china 1926, Mcqueen is a loner whose passion is boat engine's and is assigned to the 'San Pablo's Engine room, The sailors refer this ship as the 'Sand Pebble's'(Hence The title, Mcqueen and company are assigned to rescue the missionaries who are stationed there.
Mcqueen falls for the lovely Shirley Eckhart( Candice Bergen in her debut role) At it's time of production, It's a clever allegory of the soon to be raging Vietnam war at the time, Richard Crenna,also star's As the Stoic Captain of the vessel, American Japanese, star Mako, put's in a great role he almost steals the film he plays an eager to please, 'Coolie' whom Mcqueen, look's out for and shows him the ropes.
"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.
In 1926, in a troubled China, the efficient navy engineer Jake Holman (Steve McQueen) meets the American teacher Shirley Eckert (Candice Bergen), while traveling to take his new position in the gunboat 'U.S.S. San Pablo'.
That project - The Sand Pebbles - is a passable epic set in 1926 China which, while technically well done and colourfully performed, is decidedly on the long side and hampered by irrelevant allegorical links with the Vietnam War. On the plus side, the film features arguably the best performance ever given by Steve McQueen, and expensively recreates a convincing view of its period and locale despite being shot forty years after the incidents on screen.
It is about the things that leads up to war.The Sand Pebbles is the story of the gunboat San Pablo and her crew, on their mission in China in the 1920s.
We get to follow the engineer Jake Holman, played by Steve McQueen, who is transferred to the San Pablo.