The Sergeant

Master Sergeant Albert Callan is a decorated soldier who gives no quarter and who brings a badly run base into order. Composed as he appears from outside, he has to conceal his desire for men inside an institution that would punish it. He becomes fixed on Tom Swanson, the young clerk under his command, and goes so far as to break up the young man’s relationship with his French girlfriend. When Swanson does not respond, the tension between the two men grows. The film takes the matter together with the power that rank confers; there is more to pressing a subordinate than being refused. The account was built within the limits of 1968. Rod Steiger and John Phillip Law appear in John Flynn’s hundred and eight minute American film, completed in 1968.