The Sand Pebbles

Robert Wise's The Sand Pebbles (1966) is a highly ambitious if flawed attack on colonialism, conveniently produced just as the Vietnam War was kicking into high gear. The film presents a complicated political situation - China in the grip of Nationalist Revolution circa 1926 - and with the exception of a few broad strokes does it in a nuanced, sophisticated manner one would not expect from a Hollywood epic. Only in some of its subplots does it falter - when focused on the affects of imperialism on conquerors and conquered and of men under extreme strain and durress, it's near-perfect. If nothing else, it features Steve McQueen's best performance and one of the best battle scenes ever filmed.

1926. China is in the grip of a Civil War with Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalists struggling to overthrow the corrupt government - while the Communist party waits in the wings. None of this much matters to Jake Holman (Steve McQueen), an introverted ship mechanic who has been transferred to the USS San Pablo, a US Navy gunboat patrolling the Yangtze River. Holman finds that the ship uses Chinese coolies for all tasks, including cooking, washing, and running the engine, and immediately butts heads with the lazy and bigoted crew (Simon Oakland, Ford Rainey, Joe Turkel, Gavin McLeod) and the routine-obsessed martinet Captain Collins (Richard Crenna). Holman and his crewmates find the nascent political unrest creating problems on shore leave - while Holman's pal Frenchy (Richard Attenborough) begins a doomed romance with Maily (Marayat Adriane), an articulate prostitute. An outcast among the crew and disgusted with what his uniform represents, Holman wants to desert and join pacifist missionary Jameson (Larry Gates) and his beautiful young charge Shirley (Candice Bergen) - but when the situation breaks out into all-out war, this proves impossible.

The Sand Pebbles is, first and foremost, a mediation on imperial politics. By 1926, imperialism was already a relic of an era gone by, though Britain, France and the United States still hung onto their share of far-flung possessions. The corrupt, lazy life of the American sailors, whose every menial task is taken over by the coolies onboard, represents the rotten and corrupting effect imperialism has on both occupiers and occupied, reducing the former to lazy and complacent malcontents and the latter to second-class citizens. When the coolies desert the ship, they find themselves entirely unable to function and turn on each other. The film doesn't entirely succeed in distinguishing Communists, Nationalists, and other factions among the rebellious Chinese, but the film's overall feel of the situation is wonderfully nuanced and pertinent: this is a messy situation, a bloody and confusing scrum amongst the locals, and no good can come from America (along with Britain, France, Russia and Japan) interfering. The final confrontation between Collins and Jameson exemplifies this; both men are deluded, with naively simplistic worldviews (blind militarism and naive pacifism) that end up killing both.

The movie's depiction of men-at-arms in an impossible situation, their fates and actions determined by politics they can't control or understand. Revolutionary China is a politically charged climate, and they are present as a tortured gesture: they represent imperialism but aren't able to enforce it (even when one of their servants is brutally murdered and they are pelted with garbage), and trapped in this intolerable situation they quickly go mad. Captain Collins' rigid attitude might be acceptable on a battleship at sea, but in the politically-heated climate he's in, it's completely inappropriate; his ignorance and terrible misunderstanding of the situation (sending soldiers ashore on liberty while the ship is under siege, obsessively refusing to fire on Chinese) only fan the flames of unrest, while frustrating and alienating the crew as well. In most films, when Collins threatens to fight the Chinese to the death over Holman, the crew would rally around the Captain; but in this case, the crew are so sick of these two that they'd gladly through their colleagues to the wolves. No wonder Collins throws his ship into a bloody battle without orders; after all the stress they'd been under they need to vent their frustrations in one way or another.

Perhaps the strongest aspect of the film is the characterization of its protagonist. Jake Holman pretty much exemplifies the typical draft-age American of the time, and is a wholly relatable characters. Forced into the Navy due to juvenile delinquincy, he really has no choice in what he does, but finds his one love in the engine - something he knows how to do, and to do well. Despite initial prejudice, he does make earnest attempts to connect with the Chinese, beyond the sex and servitude desired by his shipmates. His plans to escape the situation and join the missionaries come to naught; for all his cynicism, introspection, and reluctant heroism, he is simply a very small cog in a large machine, and his fate is out of his hand.

The film does stumble a bit at times. The film runs just over three hours with intermission and overture and not all of the material is strictly necessary. The most obvious is the Frenchy/Maily romance: it diverts from the main story, goes on too long, and when it ends in tragedy no one is really surprised. Similarly, the scenes in the brothel/bar tend to go on too long, and continue long after the point has petered out. Some of the political commentary is a bit obvious - several of Collins' and Jameson's speeches wreak of spelling things out for the audience, and especially Jake's constant regret of killing Chinamen in the river battle - but it's generally well-handled. In the end, though, the film can be faulted most for its cliched and dated metaphor of America as a squabbling nation united through battle (represented through some glaring symbolism in the final battle); as expressed in my Major Dundee review, such thinking may have been fine after World War II, but Vietnam would quickly make such a view an anachronism.

Wise shows a fine directorial hand; he's an old Hollywood pro whose mixture of diversity (his last two films were the hugely successful musicals West Side Story and The Sound of Music) and talent has rarely been equalled. The film's locations look beautifully authentic (the film was shot on location in Taiwan), and are well-captured by ace cameraman Joseph MacDonald. The rip-roaring final battle between the San Pablo and a boon of Chinese river junks, a bloody, rough-and-tumble hand-to-hand affair, is one of the best, most intense set-piece battles in any film I've seen. If nothing else, it's a great release for both the characters and the audience after 150 minutes of build up; so effective is it, indeed, that the protracted finale in the mission courtyard seems an unnecessary extra beat. Jerry Goldsmith provides a suitably dramatic score that balances the exotic with the emotional.

Steve McQueen gives a career-best performance. He portrays Jake as an Everyman caught in an impossible situation, successful mixing his usual rebellious persona with the brooding of a Paul Newman. If he hadn't been up against Paul Scofield's masterful turn in A Man for All Seasons, he almost certainly would have nabbed an Oscar. The supporting cast is mixed: Richard Crenna does well as Collins, but Richard Attenborough's performance is pretty obvious Oscar-baiting, and his character never becomes as sympathetic as the script wants us to find him. A very young Candice Bergen is unbelievably beautiful, but as would prove the case through most of her career, she isn't much of an actress. Mako's memorable turn as the tragic Po-Han provides some of the film's best moments. Supporting roles are generally well-played but none really stand out.

Despite its flaws, The Sand Pebbles is a fine movie that still holds up reasonably well forty-three years later. It may not be an out-and-out masterpiece, but it's one of the finest cinematic representations of Americans abroad.

Rating: 8/10 - Highly Recommended