NEVER SO FEW: Blu-ray (MGM, 1959) Warner Archive
At the start of
WWII, a contingent of less than 400 Kachin soldiers near Burma, commanded by
Allied American and British officers, miraculously managed to keep at bay the
threat of an invasion from Japan, despite being outnumbered nearly ten to one.
So, the story goes in director, John Sturges’ impressively mounted Never So Few (1959); a superb
war-drama, only moderately hampered by the inclusion of a romantic subplot
between Frank Sinatra’s Capt. Tom Reynolds and ‘the other’ Italian Cinderella, Gina Lollobrigida, cast as the unlikely
Mata Hari, Carla Vesari. This shortcoming aside, Never So Few has much to recommend it; a superb cast, fronted by
Sinatra who carries the load with a strain of cynicism, outwardly careworn
heart, and, all the strength of his ‘chairman of the board’ convictions. After
a fallow period in the early fifties, Sinatra’s film career came roaring back
to life – ole blue eyes effortlessly making the transition from bobbysoxer
musical/comedy star to dramatic leading man after Fred Zinnemann cast him in
1953’s From Here to Eternity. Never So Few benefits greatly from
Sinatra’s newfound screen persona; also, his reputation in the industry as a
rough and ready action guy – his take on Reynolds, decidedly, a cut above; the
thinking man’s principled crusader for truth and justice.
As compelling as
Sinatra are his cohorts, beginning with Steve McQueen’s scene-stealing turn as Corporal
Bill Ringa (a role originally slated for Sammy Davis Jr.); a sly, if clear-eyed
profiteer cum hero-in-the-making. Richard Johnson’s monocled Capt. Danny De
Mortimer keeps the British end up with predictable sternness, leaving other
plum cameos to fellow rat packer, Peter Lawford (caustic Capt. Travis), an aged
Paul Henreid (intercontinental millionaire, Nikko Regas), Brian Donlevy (forthright,
Gen. Sloan), Dean Jones (Sergeant Jim Norby), Charles Bronson (Sergeant John
Danforth), Philip Ahn (Nautaung, leader of the Kachin), Robert Bray (Teutonic,
Col. Fred Parkson) and James Hong (a very slippery Gen. Chao). Of this troop, only McQueen would garner high
praise from the critics; the working relationship between Sturges and his
rising star so solid, the director would go on to cast McQueen in 1960’s The Magnificent Seven and 1963’s The Great Escape. Interestingly, and
likely owed his star-making performance, McQueen’s likeness was quickly added
to subsequent poster art to promote this movie; the initial artwork,
exclusively depicting Sinatra and Lollobrigida in passionate embrace, replaced
by a war-themed rendering of Sinatra and McQueen, guns blazing, set against an
orange backdrop.
The one hiccup
in the cast is Gina Lollobrigida, an undeniable slinky sex bomb, with an
interesting take on playing at belligerence; her tanned and exotic hourglass
figure poured into impossibly glamorous ensembles designed by Helen Rose, expertly
lit and photographed by the great cinematographer, William H. Daniels.
Nevertheless, Lollobrigida is an anomaly in this all-male/all-star cast; more
than anything else, filling runtime as she elegantly preens, struts and
otherwise walks in and out, then back into Capt. Reynold’s life, using her sex
appeal like a fly swatter. Far be it from me to condemn such eye candy,
although the brief scenes between the Captain and his undulant sex kitten
occasionally diffuse the mounting tensions in Millard Kaufman’s expertly
crafted screenplay (cribbing from Tom T. Chamales’ novel of the same name).
Taking full
advantage of the stiflingly humid, though as exotic landscapes of Burma,
Thailand and Ceylon, Never So Few
embarks upon a curious main title sequence, superbly underscored by Hugo
Friedhofer; title cards depicting every major player except ‘name above the
title’ stars, Sinatra – top-billed, and Lollobrigida (second). We find Captain
Tom Reynolds and his fellow officer, Danny De Mortimer leading their Kachin
forces through dense jungle terrain. By day, they patrol the region under the
watchful eye of the Chinese. By nightfall, their encampment is under siege by
the advancing Japanese. Reynolds suffers a personal loss; his trusted aid, Bye
Ya (Guy Lee) mortally wounded. Base
command is also rocked by inner turmoil as sergeants Jim Norby and John
Danforth come to blows over a racial slur. Danforth is a loose cannon. He does
not like being called Hiawatha by Norby but has no compunction referring to the
Kachin who fight alongside him as ‘gooks’. Reynold applies the appropriate
corrective measure. Besides, he has more pressing matters. The latest dumbo
drop of badly needed supplies has yet to afford him the services of a skilled
physician, nor morphine to treat the wounded – a frustration, to be sure. Kachin
leader, Nautaung (Philip Ahn) is empathetic. After all, his people are fighting
for their freedom. Reynolds is merely in it to win the war. Very reluctantly,
Reynolds elects to shoot Bye Ya as his pain and suffering will only increase
and, due to the nature of his wound, cannot be prevented. However, De Mortimer
is outraged, viewing Reynolds’ action as no less savage than that of their
enemies.
Together, he and
Reynolds return to army headquarters in Calcutta where Reynolds makes several
immediate demands of Col. Fred Parkinson. Impressed with the way Corporal Bill
Ringa handles himself in a skirmish with two army officers, Reynolds requests
he be reassigned under his command. After all, his talents are being wasted as
a service driver. Before departing the city, Reynolds and De Mortimer also
elect to spend an evening at one of the swankier nightclubs where Parkson
begrudgingly introduces them to millionaire/businessman, Nikko Regas and Carla
Vesari. Reynolds is immediately smitten. Alas, Carla is not so easily wooed or
impressed. To smooth over the rougher
edges of their first ‘cute meet’, Nikko magnanimously invites Reynolds and De
Mortimer to his palatial country estate nestled in the Himalayas. While Carla
is a little more forgiving during this reunion, she has hardly warmed toward
Reynolds. The following morning, however, she and Reynolds enjoy a spirited
ride on horseback. De Mortimer catches up to them for an unofficial inspection of
the nearby villages. Suddenly taken ill,
De Mortimer is brought back to Nikko's estate post haste and attended to by
military doctor, Capt. Grey Travis. At first misdiagnosed as typhus, Reynolds
wisely deduces De Mortimer is actually plagued by a recurrence of malaria.
After several tests, Travis reluctantly concurs.
By the time
Reynolds and De Mortimer – sufficiently made well again – are prepared for
their return to the jungle, Carla and Reynolds have fallen madly in love.
Nikko’s sudden departure to China allows Carla more time to indulge her
romantic whims. But Reynolds is no fool. Nor is he the jealous type. But if
Carla desires to be his woman she will have to move out of Nikko’s posh estate
and prepare herself for a decidedly less than glamorous life as his American
wife. To Travis’ great chagrin, Reynolds’ petition for him to accompany them
back to the jungle has been granted by Parkinson. Newly returned to their
outpost, Reynolds plans to celebrate Christmas with his men. Regrettably, the
Japanese seize upon these lax conditions to ambush base camp. In the ensuing
gunfire, Reynolds is wounded. Nautaung is shamed, as one of his own men,
Billingsly (Aki Aleong) and a native Shan girl (Isabel Cooley) have betrayed
them. Nautaung’s request for the girl to be shot and Billingsly, ritually executed
in accordance with Kachin law divides Reynolds and De Mortimer’s loyalties. The latter considers both practices
barbaric. But Reynolds agrees: the
elevated dangers of jungle warfare call for the harshest measures to prove a
point.
Travis sends
Reynolds and the rest of his wounded to Calcutta to recover at the military
hospital. While there, Parkson gives Reynolds a new directive: destroy an
Ubachi airfield near the Chinese border. Their supposed Chinese allies will
assist in this assault. Before departing, Reynolds learns Carla is staying at a
luxurious hotel at Nikko's expense. Clearly, she has not forsaken the finer
things for her supposed great love of him, leaving Reynolds feeling dejected
and angry. He departs for the jungle to wage his attack, but is stunned when
the promised Chinese reinforcements fail to materialize. Going it alone,
Reynolds and his mercenaries endure great casualties, including Nautaung who
quietly dies in his arms. Seething, Reynolds orders his men to cross into
China. He finds a renegade Chinese outpost and successfully defuses their
infantry, assassinating three of their officers hold up in a hut with two Asian
concubines.
In a nearby
storage hut Reynolds and De Mortimer discover a box of American dog tags and other
memorabilia collected as souvenirs. Realizing the Chinese have been murdering
Americans under provisional orders, Reynolds is uncertain what is to be done
with the prisoners until one of the wounded officers momentary stirs, shooting
and killing De Mortimer right in front of him. Reynolds orders Ringa to round
up the captured and assassinate every last one, displaying their bodies as a
counterthreat to any further retaliation. Armed with one of the Chinese death
warrants from the Chungking government, plus the box-full of American dog tags,
Reynolds returns to Burma, promotes Ringa to Second Lieutenant and places him
in operational command of the unit. Turning himself in to the military police
and placed under house arrest for murder, Reynolds awaits his fate in Calcutta.
Carla arrives and pleads with Reynolds to reconsider his hardline stance. She
confesses to him she and Nikko are actually secret intelligence – not lovers.
There is nothing for him to fear. To spare Reynolds a court martial or worse, Carla
advises he should claim battle fatigue as an excuse for his actions. Reynolds
refuses.
Sometime later,
Parkson and Gen. Sloan confront the still recalcitrant Reynolds about his
actions. Reynolds refuses to bow to
their command. Furthermore, he fervently
reminds Sloan some things in wartime are inexcusable: producing the Chinese death
warrant and dog tags for Sloan to consider as evidence. Sloan implores Reynolds
to submit to an examination from a team of military psychiatrists who might
find him mentally incapable of standing trial. Reynolds again takes the moral
high ground. He will not pretend to be ill to escape the justice he still believes
is on his side. China’s General Chao arrives to consider the facts. Actually,
he is hoping to reduce Reynolds into a confession and apology – terms that
would satisfy China’s need to seek a more bitter revenge. After Reynolds openly
refuses, Sloan explains his terms to Chao – exposing the death warrants and collection
of service tags. Sloan further tells Chao he and his cohorts can ‘go to hell’
before revealing that the provisional government under Chiang Kai-shek has
issued a public apology for this crisis – furthermore, exonerating Reynolds of
any wrong-doing. Free to leave, Reynolds
is reunited with Carla. She promises to make him a good wife when the war is
over. The lovers embrace, with Reynolds slated to return for more fighting
alongside his Kachin army.
Never So Few’s happy ending is a complete rewrite, done in the
grand Hollywood tradition. In Chamales’ novel, Reynolds is killed in action. Chamales
had, in fact, based his novel on the real-life exploits of WWII’s OSS
Detachment 101, operating in China, Burma and India in collaboration with the
Kachin Rangers and other Allied special operations. The picture is undeniably a
star-vehicle for Sinatra. Despite his formidable presence and superb acting,
Sinatra’s top-billing is offset by Steve McQueen’s superb scene-stealing antics
and his devil-may-care way with a slick one-liner. Sinatra, who could be very
territorial about such things, had nothing but the deepest admiration for
McQueen. He was less forgiving of Peter Lawford. By the late 1950’s, Sinatra’s
affinity for his regular rat packers had decidedly cooled. It is rumored that
at his behest Sammy Davis Jr. was not cast after the two had a personal falling
out; a rumor stirred anew with Lawford a few years later, after Lawford was unsuccessful
at convincing President Kennedy to accept an invitation from the Sinatras at
their home. Whatever the reasons, and despite receiving third billing, Lawford’s
role in Never So Few is fairly diminished.
It takes almost a full half-hour for Lawford’s Dr. Travis to materialize and
thereafter, he only appears sporadically and always in support of other actors
with virtually no scenes to call his own.
Upon its
release, Never So Few was met with
mixed reviews; critics, ecstatic over the picture’s extensive location work and
exhilarating battle sequences, decidedly unimpressed with the back-storied
glam-bam of romance. Nevertheless, Never
So Few proved popular with audiences, earning a sizable $3,020,000 at home
and another $2,250,000 abroad. Too bad
it was an expensive picture to produce; the net result, Never So Few actually entered the ledgers at a considerable loss of
$1,155,000 – a negative that only further advanced MGM’s slow, sad decline into
fiscal oblivion. Viewed today, Never So
Few is one hell of a good show – entertaining, exotic and full of precisely
the sort of ambiguous, though nevertheless patriotic flag-waving every great
war picture ought to have as its prerequisite. Sinatra is in rare form and is
supported on all sides by a stellar troop of actors who convincingly convey
both the horrors and victories of war with crowd-pleasing sincerity and plenty
of heart. The picture has outlasted its frostier critiques and, removed from
all its hype, continues to find new legions of fans embracing it on its own
terms.
The Warner
Archive (WAC) have made Never So Few
available in a sparkling new 2K remastered 1080p transfer that will surely
impress. The opening credits are a bit of a muddle, as they advertise the film shot
in Cinemascope and Metrocolor, but with lenses provided by the Panavision Corp.
and an acknowledgment of Technicolor’s labs being used to strike prints.
Whatever its technical pedigree, the 2:35.1 anamorphic image is a bold
blessing, sporting rich and vibrant colors, a light smattering of film grain
looking very indigenous to its source, and pluperfect contrast, with deep,
saturated blacks and very clean whites. This is a very solid effort, marred
only during dissolves and fades, suffering from the marginal effects of ‘yellow
layer collapse’, intermittent and briefly observed – hence, hardly worth
mentioning. Flesh tones are accurate and the dense jungle foliage is precisely
rendered in vibrant shades of green. Given all the drab military colors –
greys, khakis, browns, blacks – the palette herein is subtly nuanced and
perfectly balanced. We get maximum image clarity too, with mostly razor-sharp
crispness, unencumbered by DNR or edge enhancement.
Released
theatrically in four-track magnetic stereo, WAC has remastered this one in 5.1
DTS with a startling amount of spatial clarity, especially when one considers
the movie is sixty years old! Hugo Friedhofer’s score envelopes. The battle sequences
offer a sufficiently thunderous burst of carefully nuanced noise. Those with keen eyes and ears will note the
dropout of several lines of dialogue scattered throughout – last minute over-dubbing
to blunt the words ‘goddam’ and ‘damn’ still considered curses by the Hollywood
censors in 1959. Although it has long been rumored Never So Few survives somewhere in a vault with its unaltered
soundtrack intact, WAC’s efforts here are of the ‘edited’ for profanity general
release. The one unforgivable sin WAC does commit is in the extras. Save a
theatrical trailer – badly worn – there are none! Oh well, can’t have
everything, I suppose. Bottom line: Never
So Few is a great war flick that belongs on everyone’s top shelf. Great
stuff here – both transfer and movie.
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
4.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS
0
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