The Sand Pebbles

A film set aboard an American river gunboat in China in 1926. Jake Holman is posted as an engineer to a ship called the San Pablo. It patrols the Yangtze and its task is to protect American interests. Arriving, Holman finds an arrangement: Chinese workers run the engine room while the American sailors supervise. He will not accept it and wants to work the engine with his own hands. That attitude unsettles both the crew and the local workers. At the same time the nationalist movement is rising in the country and anger against foreign ships is growing. The ship falls into an ever tighter position: intervening is a problem and withdrawing is a problem. What the film is interested in is a man's place inside an institution and what an army is doing in another country. The narrative vindicates nobody. Steve McQueen plays Holman and was Oscar-nominated; Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna and Candice Bergen are in the cast. Robert Wise directed. It runs close to three hours; it was shot in Taiwan and Hong Kong and the ship was built for the film. A comprehensive production for anyone who likes war and period films. For a viewer who wants something short, the film is long and the pace is heavy.