The Sand Pebbles
BBB
(out of 5)
Robert Wise followed his mammothly successful The Sound Of Music with this giant war epic. Steve McQueen plays an engineer who boards a gunboat in 1920s China, rife with anger and resentment between Chinese and white sailors aboard. China itself is being torn apart by revolution, and the members of this boat have no choice but to get involved when they are required to travel up a dangerously guarded river to save a group of missionaries (one of them being an adorable and young Candice Bergen). McQueen is stalwart in the lead, while Richard Attenborough brings a lot of drama to his supporting role as a sailor who falls in love with a prostitute. It’s all very respectable stuff, but it also feels like it goes on forever.
Robert Wise Productions, Solar Productions, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
USA, 1966
Directed by Robert Wise
Screenplay by Robert Anderson, based on the novel by Richard McKenna
Cinematography by Joseph MacDonald
Produced by Robert Wise
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Production Design by Boris Leven
Costume Design by Renie
Film Editing by William Reynolds
Cast Tags: Alan Hopkins, Barney Phillips, Beulah Quo, Candice Bergen, Charles Robinson,Emmanuelle Arsan, Ford Rainey, Gavin MacLeod, Glenn R. Wilder, Gus Trikonis, James Hong,James Jeter, Joe Di Reda, Joe Turkel, Larry Gates, Loren Janes, Mako, Paul Chun, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna, Richard Loo, Shepherd Sanders, Simon Oakland, Stephen Ferry, Stephen Jahn, Steve McQueen,Ted Fish, Tom Middleton, Tommy Lee
Academy Award Nominations
Best Actor (Steve McQueen as “Jake Holman”)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Mako as “Po-Han”)
Best Art Direction (Color) (art direction: Boris Leven; set decoration: Walter M. Scott, John Sturtevant, William Kiernan)
Best Cinematography (Color) (Joseph MacDonald)
Best Film Editing (William Reynolds)
Best Music (Original Music Score) (Jerry Goldsmith)
Best Picture (Robert Wise, producer)
Best Sound (20th Century-Fox Studio Sound Department, James P. Corcoran, sound director)
Golden Globe Award
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Richard Attenborough)
Nominations
Best Performance By An Actor in a Motion Picture-Drama (Steve McQueen)
Best Motion Picture-Drama
Best Director (Robert Wise)
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Mako)
Best Screenplay (Robert Anderson)
Best Original Score-Motion Picture (Jerry Goldsmith)
Writers Guild Award Nomination
Best Written American Drama
Directors Guild Award Nomination
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Robert Wise)
