Review of Sand Pebbles, The

Introduction

The Sand Pebbles is an acclaimed war movie, set in China in 1926, which earned eight Oscar nominations, but failed to win any. The cast includes Steve McQueen, Richard Crenna, Richard Attenborough and Candice Bergen, and the film tells the story of life aboard the U.S.S. San Pablo, a gun boat patrolling the Yangtze river. As the film progresses, Chinese hostility to the gunboat increases, reaching a dramatic climax.

Video

The video is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, and the film starts with an overture - a two minute piece of music with a grainy static image of the gunboat - which is followed by the titles, which again are a little grainy. Some four and a half-minutes have elapsed by the time you get to see any live action - and it`s not too bad at all considering the 36 year vintage - the image is relatively free from dirt and grain (with the exception of some dark scenes and several long shots, some of which are quite grainy), with crisp edges and reasonable detail.

The film is set in China in 1926, and the film was Oscar nominated for its cinematography and art direction - and it looks every bit as good as these accolades suggest - with busy, authentic looking sets, and panoramic scenery.

Audio

The soundtrack comes in Dolby Digital 4.0 - a rarely seen format, which provides a Dolby Pro-Logic format sound (stereo, centre and mono rear) in discrete format rather than embedded into a stereo signal.

The sound itself is focussed on the front channels. The movie also received Oscar nominations for both sound and music - and these are both adequately reproduced. The dialogue is always clear and understandable.

Features

Extras consist of two radio documentaries (the first runs for thirteen and a half minutes, the second for nine and a half minutes), both of which are quite interesting; the trailer; three short radio spots and a commentary track from the director Robert Wise and the stars Candice Bergen and Mako - which gives the usual snippets of information, technical detail and trivia.

The menus are static and easy to navigate.

Conclusion

The Sand Pebbles earned eight Oscar nominations in 1967, and was a highly regarded movie. Twenty fives years later, I found that it really couldn`t justify this acclaim, primarily because it is about an hour too long. There are far too many slow panned shots and too much boring dialogue that adds nothing other than unnecessary length to the film. This results in long periods of the movie where nothing of interest happens, and consequently, the 174 minute running time makes for painful viewing at times.

The first half of the film is spent slowly building up the plot and characters, and when the one minute intermission arrives after ninety minutes, I wasn`t too enamoured with the prospect of watching another 90 minutes of tedium, however the second half of the film is far better, and moves at a much more acceptable pace ending in the dramatic conclusion.

The movie is very well made, and features a number of good performances, notably from Steve McQueen and Mako, who both received Oscar nominations for Best Actor.

Overall, whilst the film has a number of qualities, these are outweighed by the excessive length, which makes the film too tedious in places to earn my recommendation.