The Sand Pebbles
Director: Robert Wise
Genre: War film, Film adaptation, Romance Film, Epic, Action, Romantic drama, Adventure, Historical Epic, Drama, Historical fiction
Year: 1966
Country: United States of America
Language: English Language, Standard Mandarin
Starring: Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna, Candice Bergen, James Hong, Simon Oakland, Gavin MacLeod, Joe Turkel, Ford Rainey, Mako, Emmanuelle Arsan, Charles Knox Robinson III, Charles Robinson, Larry Gates
The Sand Pebbles is a 1966 American period war film directed by Robert Wise. It tells the story of an independent, rebellious U.S. Navy Machinist's Mate aboard the fictional gunboat USS San Pablo in 1920s China.
The Sand Pebbles features Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna, Candice Bergen, Mako and Marayat Andriane (later known as a writer of erotic fiction under the nom de plume Emmanuelle Arsan). Robert Anderson adapted the screenplay from the 1962 novel of the same name by Richard McKenna.
In 1926, Machinist's Mate 1st Class Jake Holman (Steve McQueen) transfers from the Asiatic Fleet flagship to the Yangtze River Patrol gunboat USS San Pablo. (The ship is nicknamed the "Sand Pebble" and its sailors refer to themselves as "Sand Pebbles.") Life aboard a gunboat is very different. It has a labor system – condoned by officers – wherein coolies (manual laborers) do the work, leaving the sailors free for combat drills and idle bickering.
Because he enjoys personally taking care of ships' engines, Holman bucks the "coolie" system, and oversees the operation of the power plant himself. You can sense his "connection" with the engine when he personally introduces himself
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