Sand Pebbles

Dated, weakened by its being stuck in its own time, this movie manages the most difficult task of all cinema: to have something to say to an audience not its contemporary. It manages to work because of good acting. Its plot sputters and stumbles, but few movies work well 4 decades on -- yet it works: its historical context makes for a compelling story: two dozen years after Sun Yat Sen's revolution of 1912, China is awakening to a nationalist resistance to imperial domination and exploitation by foreign powers, including the US. The Sand Pebbles is an American gunboat plying internal Chinese waters, making its (and the US's) presence known.

Steve McQueen, playing Jake Holman, engineer, does a very nice job, even given a silly high-school dropout accent that is superfluous to his acting. Richard Crenna does a very good job playing the most psychologically complex character of the lot, Captain Collins. Nineteen year old Candice Bergen is miscast, yet does a credible job of acting. Richard Attenborough is wholly out of place as an American sailor, his American accent often slipping into his native British speech.

A satisfying film.