Demain ce seront des hommes

"The Strange One" is a very good film but its current score on IMDB would seem to indicate it's an average film and nothing more. Well, as for me, I loved it as the story was very compelling and it was a nice chance to see some very good actors before they became famous (such as Ben Gazzara, James Olson and Mark Richmond).

The story is set in some fictional southern military college...similar to VMI or The Citadel. The story mostly centers around Gazzara's character, an upper classman who is a sociopath who loves mistreating his underclassmen. He also is a master manipulator and all around jerk....and his latest 'prank; results in a cadet being badly beaten and framed for getting drunk....when the young man in question did nothing wrong and the alcohol was forced down his throat.

During course of the story you learn tow important things. First, he was caught tormenting underclassmen before. Second, his fellow classmates hated him...and it took this incident to bring this to the surface. And, in the end, the students come up with a great plan to deal with this jerk.

Well written, exciting and well worth your time. I found this sleeper on YouTube and hope you also give it a try.

This film is a real sleeper. It launched some brilliant careers, especially that of Ben Gazzara. But also those of Pat Hingle, George Peppard and Arthur Storch, who became a fine stage director. Look for this one to see some interesting characters and a compelling story.

An upper class man at a rigid southern military academy abuses his power in a highly conceived plot in order to orchestrate an expulsion of another cadet. We're left to wonder why he's motivated to do so, and the acting and scenes in this part of the film do seem to be too staged, but the film makes for riveting viewing as in its portrayal of the overall ambiance of the the academy, a strange hierarchy with bizarre scenes of interaction between the lower and upper class men. And a final military brand of cadet justice that unites the two classes gets born out of the incident, and reveals a lot, and ends in a chilling finale with superior night scenes.

Film takes place at a military academy. Cadet Jocko DeParis (Ben Gazzara) concocts an elaborate scheme to get another cadet thrown out of the school. He has the unwilling help of two freshman--Simmons (Arthur Storch) and Robert Marquales (George Peppard). He orders them to keep quiet--but they're not sure if they can and Jocko is a very dangerous man...

Bizarre movie. I hated it at first--it took some time for me to get used to the characters and figure out what was going on but I eventually did. It's not an ordinary Hollywood movie--it was independently made and had trouble with the censors. There's a VERY obviously gay character named Cockroach (Paul E. Richards) who has a crush on Jocko and a shower scene that is homo erotic to a strong degree. There's also a hint of sex between some of the cadets. Pretty raw for 1957.

The acting is just OK. Gazzara and Peppard made their debuts with this film so their overly mannered performances can be forgiven. The rest of the cast is pretty good and carry the film. This was not a commercial success and is rarely screened but it's so strange and different it deserves some recognition. Worth catching if you're interested in offbeat films. A 7.

An interesting look at gay themes from the 1950s. At the time this movie came pout, homosexuality was still a crime in most (maybe all) states. It had another decade and a half to go before being declassified as mental illness.

This opens with a drawing that looks like Tom of Finland. The people involved in making this may never have heard of Tom of Finland. It was the stylized gay zeitgeist. (I guess. I was not there.) Ben Gazzara plays the central character. He is a horrible, thoroughly unlivable bully. It all takes place at a military academy. A fey student who seems to worship him, despite his cruelty, is writing a novel based on his life. It's called "Nightboy." And John Rechy was still a youngster! It's a worthwhile movie. The acting is good all around. The plot is not entirely plausible. But it's exciting and consistently well done.