By Nicholas Stix
Thursday night, my chief of research and I saw The Sand Pebbles (1966) on TCM. It’s a masterpiece set in China in 1926, based on the eponymous, 1962 novel by Richard McKenna (1913-1964), an old “China sailor,” who had served for 22 years in the navy, and retired as a chief machinist’s mate.
The story revolves around chief machinist’s mate Jake Holman (Steve McQueen), who has just transferred to the U.S.S. San Pablo, an old U.S. Navy gunboat we’d taken from the Spaniards in the 1898 Spanish-American War.
The men of the San Pablo (the "sand pebbles") get enmeshed in China’s civil war pitting the nationalist Kuomintang party, led by Chiang Kai-shek, against the Mao Tse-Tung-led Communists (referred to in the story as “Bolsheviks”).
Well, you can imagine my shock, when I read the following description at Google:
The Sand Pebbles
PG-13
1966 ‧ Film adaptation/Drama ‧ 3h 16m
Play trailer on YouTube
7.7/10IMDb93%Rotten Tomatoes
86% liked this movie
Google users
In 1926, the USS San Pablo patrols the Yangtze River during the clashes between Chiang Kai-shek's communists and Chinese warlords. Eight-year veteran machinist Jake Holman (Steve McQueen), new to the self-named "sand pebbles" crew, immediately draws deep suspicion due to his independent streak. Orde… MORE
Initial release: December 20, 1966
Director: Robert Wise
Nominations: Academy Award for Best Picture, MORE
Screenplay: Richard McKenna, Robert Anderson
Awards: Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
From what I remember reading,a great soundtrack album too.
--GRA
Schools today do not teach much history--except that whites were horrible people who killed the Indians, enslaved the blacks, and made life unpleasant for lesbians. Ask youngsters--they don't know about D-Day, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, or even which countries we fought in WWII. Of course they never heard of patriots like Nathan Hale. I once helped a Korean girl to improve her English. I found that her school did not teach the classic literature which we learned--it was more important to read black lesbians. The schools failed to teach about Greek and Roman mythology--making the students unable to understand Western art and literature. Of course they don't know who Chiang Kai-shek fought and worse, I bet they don't know how socialism reduced Venezuela from prosperity to starvation--something they need to know before they vote for Bernie and his Hispanic twit sidekick.
There's an Internet news site that I generally like and would prefer not to name. Within the last month or so, an author at that site published an article about combat during the American Revolution. Accompanying the article was a Civil War illustration of the Yanks fighting the Rebs. I think the author knew his subject, but the person who chose the illustration sure didn't.
Post a Comment