The Sand Pebbles
Following the success ofThe Sound of Music, director  Robert Wise chose to film Robert McKenna's prize-winning 1962 novel,The Sand Pebbles--an ambitious choice for a director at the peak  of his career. Shot in Taiwan and Hong Kong, the film combines  historical sweep and intimate human drama in several parallel stories,  all revolving around U.S. Navy machinist's mate Jake Holman (Steve  McQueen). Holman is a skillful but fiercely independent sailor who  joins the "sand pebble" crew of the U.S.S. San Pablo, a Navy gunboat  patrolling the Yangtze River on the eve of the Chinese revolution in  1926. The San Pablo's inexperienced captain (Richard Crenna)  obsessively defends the Navy's mission--however unnecessary or  unwanted--to protect American missionaries and businessmen, blind to  the more dangerous implications of American involvement with China's  opposing political factions.Holman is a defiant voice of humanity in this clash between outmoded  values and inevitable change; his final line of dialogue ("What the  hell happened?") is a tragic summation of misguided policy, expressing  the film's criticism of the Vietnam War. Rather than preach, however,  Wise lets McKenna's potent drama emerge from finely-drawn  relationships--between Holman and a young American teacher (19-year-old  Candice Bergen, in her second film); between Holman and the Chinese  "coolie" (Mako) whose heartbreaking fate transcends all issues of  racial or political difference; and between crewmate "Frenchy" Burgoyne  (Richard Attenborough) and the Chinese woman he's sworn to love and  protect at all costs. Combined with the film's colorful supporting  cast, adventurous scope, and climactic battle scenes, these personal  dynamics bring substance and spirit to a complex story of good  intentions gone awry.--Jeff Shannon