THE CINCINNATI KID & THE SAND PEBBLES

THE SAND PEBBLES

Week #2 of the 5-Week "Virtual Film Festival" on "Friday Movie Suggestion Night" is my tribute to Steve McQueen (1930-1980). What is so personally rewarding about this for me, is the amount of time and thought I've put into this "Virtual Film Festival"---even if just 4 people in the entire world follow it; that doesn't matter. It's a wonderful project and we are moving chronologically over a 20-year span I've carved out with just 5 of a total 30 films that showcase the soul of this fine actor. Let's move ahead:

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It's 1965 and Steve's next project as a driven actor who is only 36 months away from becoming the reputed "best known actor in the world" is a 5-card stud Poker game period piece called "THE CINCINNATI KID". Steve is among another First-Rate group of stars. Edward G. Robinson (in one of his final movies) plays ruthless gambler Lancey Howard, nicknamed "The Man". Not ready to retire, he's the old pro who has wiped out the best in Miami, Chicago and New York. McQueen is up and coming stud poker player Eric Stoner "The Kid" who is clever, but can't resist a "winner take all" game in New Orleans at the Hotel LaFayette arranged by Karl Malden, with his sexy wife played by Ann Margret. Ann Margret is delicious eye candy who cheats at everything and is desperate not to waste her years with Malden. "The Kid's" girlfriend played by the lovely Tuesday Weld, is a country girl looking for love. The card trick sequence when Steve is taken to Weld's parents home for their approval is not to be missed! Joan Blondell (the National Board of Review's Best Supporting Actress) is "Lady Fingers", a dealer whose only ambition left is to see "The Man" taken down and Cab Calloway lends authenticity to the movie's dimly lit back room staging for a very tense film. During the filming, Robinson did not like the way McQueen looked at the floor then looked back up at him while delivering his lines. Here you have this great actor in his twilight years who knew four languages pitted against McQueen, armed with street smarts and life's hard knocks who plays his role from within. As Halliwell's Film and Video Guide" says: "This is to poker what The Hustler was to pool, a fascinating study of experts at work". Norman Jewison directs. The Theme song is sung by Ray Charles. This one is intense. So have a towel ready to mop sweat from your foreheads!

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Our next film for the weekend duo is "THE SAND PEBBLES" from 1966, nominated for 8 Academy Awards (c) and the winner of 9 Golden Globes (c). Sadly, Steve McQueen got his only Academy Award (Best Actor) for this film. Director Robert Wise was working simultaneously on "The Sound of Music" with Julie Andrews at the time. Wise's first choice for the role of "Jake Holman" was Paul Newman. Co-stars include Richard Crenna, Lord Richard Attenborough, a 19-year old Candice Bergen (who had not yet decided if she wanted to become an actress or a photographer) with music by Jerry Goldsmith. Writer Robert Anderson became so fed up with McQueen that he quit the project. Director Wise was so proud of this film, that for years after it was made he held annual parties with surviving cast members to celebrate it. Note: This was the first film that Twentieth Century-Fox shot using Panavision amamorphic lenses (which replaced Cinemascope). There is so much in this film that you never see anymore. Each character is introduced on film in a unique way. McQueen carries his Navy bunk bag over his shoulder, hesitates atop a dock as he surveys the U.S. Navy gunboat San Pablo (an embarrassing left over relic of the Spanish American War), pauses and makes his way down the gang-plank--pure McQueen. Richard Crenna is the boat's Commanding Officer Lieutenant Collins. The scene is China in the 1920's. Not to be missed: Where maverick loner McQueen, whose only love is engines, climbs down into the Engine Room and in a touching scene introduces himself aloud to the idle engine. As part of America's foreign policy, the boat patrols the Yangtze River, "showing the flag" to protect American missionaries and businessmen from bandits and warlords. There is an "Intermission" (a practice Hollywood did away with by the late 1960's in America). Along comes The Chinese Revolution and each individual on the boat is faced with baring naked--revelations about themselves and the agonizing decisions that follow. Few people knew that the book that author Richard McKenna wrote in 1962 spent 28 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List and was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post. McKenna began writing in his 40's in Mountain Home, Idaho after many years in the Navy; he died of a heart attack in 1964. He was only 51 years old. I hope each of you who watch these epics will end up saying, "Now THAT is acting!"

ENJOY!