Never So Few

The Good:

Great early look at a young Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson. Lots of big names otherwise, with Sinatra, Gina Lolabrigida, Peter Lawford, Paul Henreid and Brian Donlevy.

Underlying story idea is a good one: a semi-factual recreation of OSS operations in Burma during WW2. Would be nice to see a modern remake of this movie due to the interesting subject matter.

McQueen's first big movie role. Acquits himself well and his performance certainly helped propel him to his future starring roles.

Gina Lolabrigida can't act worth a fig, but she sure is a whole lot of woman to look at.

The Bad:

I didn't buy Sinatra in the role for a minute. The casting of this pompous lounge lizard as a charismatic special forces officer is an insult to all veterans. Sinatra reportedly pressured the producers into kicking his good buddy Sammy Davis Jr. off the picture. This is ironic, because Davis actually served in WW2, while Ol' Blue Eyes was humping every starlet he could lay his hands on.

And what was up with that Aussie-style hat Sinatra wears? The guy is living in a tent in a steamy tropical jungle mowing down scores of Japs with a machine gun and there's not a single smudge, sweat stain or wrinkle on his hat. It looks like he just picked it up off the rack in the Flamingo's tourist shop. I can just imagine the director, John Sturges, begging Frank to beat the thing on a tree stump for half an hour to make it look realistic and Sinatra refusing because the wanted a slicker look.

The Sinatra role felt like it was written for Humphrey Bogart. This is especially apparent in what is supposed to be clever Bogie/Bacall style repartee between Sinatra and Lolabrigida. The casting of Paul Henreid, who starred with Bogie in Casablanca, seems no accident.

I can imagine that Sinatra bullied his way into a role that was way, way over his head. As much as I would like to blame Sinatra entirely for this movie's failure, it should be noted that the script is the main culprit, especially the excruciating attempt at "snappy patter" between Sinatra and Lolabrigida. I don't think even Bogart could have saved this movie, but these two acting cripples have absolutely no chance.

Sturges went on to direct a fantastic film, "The Great Escape" a couple of years later, so we'll have to cut him a break on this one.

Reminds me of another star studded stinker, "The Way West", an unwatchable 1965 western that starred Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum and Richard Widmark. That also had a director, Andrew McLaglen, who went on to do much better work.

Bottom line: this is a great example of how important a script is to a movie. Here you had a panoply of big time stars and talent, a solid director, but the movie stinks anyway. Also, if your leading man is an actor of very narrow ability, you better make sure you cast him in a role that suits him.

This is a typical "Rat Pack" (minus Deano, Joey and Sammy) theatrical romp; big on action and small on fact based substance, but entertaining nonetheless.

The big surprise is Steve McQueen, appearing in one of his first major films. Up to this point, he has come to prominence in the TV series Wanted, Dead or Alive, but has yet to make the jump to film star. "Never So Few" is his springboard. A spat between Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. gets McQueen the supporting role that launches his movie career under the direction of John Sturges (who later directs The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape).

McQueen plays Corporal Bill Ringa (Why'd they pick that name...a pseudonym for "Ringer" maybe?), a self promoting "SGT. Bilko" type con man making a few fast bucks "in the rear with the gear" of the CBI. When Ringa is assigned as OSS Capt. Tom Reynold's (Frank Sinatra) jeep driver, during the latter's visit to the rear area headquarters, he impresses the officer with his unorthodox approach to selling illegal whiskey and fighting with MPs (anyone that hates MPs has got my vote). Reynolds gets Ringa transferred to his outfit and the two go about smashing the Japanese and renegade Chinese warlords.

McQueen shows the strong almost overpowering "2d in command" role he perfects in The Magnificent Seven a year later. His on-screen presence in these two films propels McQueen to leading man status thereafter.

Not a very historically accurate film, and some of the acting is overplayed, but McQueen is strong throughout and the film is fast paced and entertaining.

An allied guerrilla unit led by Capt. Tom Reynolds (Frank Sinatra) deals with the Japanese army and warlord controlled Chinese troops out in the Burma jungle.

"In the hills of North Burma, gateway to the vast prize of Asia, less than a thousand Kachin warriors, fighting under American and British leadership of the O.S.S., held back 40,000 Japanese in the critical, early years of World War II. It has been said NEVER have free men everywhere owed so much to SO FEW".

Killer Warrants and The Unprecedented War.

Directed by John Sturges and featuring Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Peter Lawford, Brian Donlevy, Gina Lollobrigida, Richard Johnson and Paul Henreid. Never So Few it's fair to say has a iffy reputation, originally conceived as a rat pack war film, it has some great strengths and some annoying weaknesses. The story itself is great, a part of the war that deserves to have been portrayed on the big screen, but why the makers didn't exorcise the whole romantic thread remains not just a mystery, but nearly a film killer.

As lovely as Miss Lollobrigida is, her whole character arc, and the relationship with Sinatra's stoic Reynolds, is surplus to requirements. It serves absolutely no purpose to defining other characters or for narrative invention. This strand of the story carries the film to over two hours in length, without this strand it's a film of 90 minutes focusing on the brave souls who fought in the Burmese conflict. Which is what it should have been.

When dealing with the conflicts, both outer and inner, the film does excite. The wily Sturges knows his way around an action scene and all the efforts here are gripping. Cast are fine and dandy, with McQueen dominating his scenes, Johnson the class act on show, while Sinatra, once he gets rid of the fake beard, shows his knack for tortured emotion to the point you just can't help but root for him even when he's being pig-headed (not a stretch for old blue eyes of course).

Tech credits are mixed, the studio sets are easily spotted, but conversely so are the real and pleasing location sequences filmed in Ceylon. The Panavision photography (William H. Daniels) is beautiful, a Metrocolor treat, but Hugo Friedhofer unusually turns in a lifeless musical score. All told it's not hard to see why it's a film that divides opinions, it's very episodic and that romance drags it something terrible. But still strong merits exist and it at least gets the core of the real story out in the public domain. 6/10

Skip it – This was supposed to be a starring vehicle for Frank Sinatra. But this is romance, not war. There's some combat in the beginning and in the middle, but a lot of nothing the rest of the way. Sinatra's got a different rat pack in this one, made up of youngsters Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson. McQueen steals the show in one of his earliest roles. But he's not in enough scenes, and the only action scenes are the one's he's in. The title of the film insinuates that never before has so much been owed to so few. That's funny, because never before have so few of my expectations for a good action movie been met. 3.5 out of 5 action rating

Never So Few finds Frank Sinatra as co-commander with Britisher Richard Johnson of a behind the lines detachment of Kachin native tribesmen, conducting harassing actions against the Japanese in the China-Burma- India Theater of World War II. Sinatra is working out of the Office of Strategic Services which in this case is run by General Brian Donlevy playing William J. Donovan in all, but name.

Sinatra keeps the hipster persona down to a minimum and delivers a good performance as the rather unorthodox commander of native troops. Of course he's confronted with a rather unorthodox situation when warlords with warrants from the Chinese Nationalist government in Chungking massacre Americans and Kachins for their supplies. Purportedly these were our allies.

In all of this Sinatra finds time to romance Gina Lollabrigida the kept woman of Paul Henreid a most mysterious person of influence and nurse Kipp Hamilton. Gina is a most entertaining diversion, but the real story is about the Chinese actions in World War II.

During the Fifties Chiang Kai-Shek was a godlike creature, a noble exile from Communism on Taiwan running the government we still recognized. Never So Few was a daring film for its time, fresh from the McCarthy years for daring to suggest the Nationalist Chinese were less than noble.

Actually what is described in Never So Few, independent warlords making deals with both sides is old business in the Orient. It was something our culture couldn't grasp, still can't in many ways.

Never So Few boosted the careers of three men in Sinatra's and Johnson's command. Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen, and Dean Jones all of whom went on to substantial careers. For McQueen it was his first role of substance in a major motion picture.

I recall reading years ago that Hedda Hopper who always boosted Steve McQueen's career when she could in her column, claiming that while this was a good career move, he should avoid dependence on Frank Sinatra for his employment. McQueen being an independent sort of fellow anyway, probably would have come to that same conclusion on his own. Nevertheless he certainly did carve his own legend out in film history.

Never So Few is a decent war film of a little known theater of war for Americans and should be seen.