"What happened?" are Steve McQueen's last, anguished words. And so might they be mine. Why did I once think this was the greatest film ever made? I have no idea, really, except that Young Nick was beginning to take to anti-authoritarian themes; it's also refreshingly an anti-war film, set in 1926.
But there are some rather maddening plot details (it was written by Robert Anderson from Richard McKenna's novel). So brutal sailor Simon Oakland knocks Mako's cup out of his hand, and Steve McQueen decks him. So why is there then a fight between Oakland and Mako and not between McQueen and Oakland? Also what is the San Pablo doing moored up in the river for so long and why didn't they leave when the tide was right? And how did they survive through the Winter with no food?
The first half ends well with that horrible lynching of Mako and McQueen shooting him to death, which is still a harrowing and powerful scene. But part two, with its stationary boat, the plot feels like it's run aground too, before everyone starts dying - almost all the main cast. And the McQueen-Candice Bergen love story doesn't ever really work or come to life.
Great Jerry Goldsmith score, nicely photographed by Joe MacDonald, great production design by Boris Leven, edited by William Reynolds, huge scenes filmed in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where my parents recalled seeing it going on. But like most of the fifties and sixties 'epics' it's a bit flat, and for such a big production, the fight scenes are quite badly choreographed. Though I have to say, when we first meet McQueen and he's carrying his kitbag to the ship, it looks properly heavy, and that attention to detail I did like.
With Richard Crenna, Richard Attenborough, Marayat Andriane (aka Emmanuelle Arsan, yes, that one), Larry Gates, Charles Robinson.
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