Never So Few 1959 123movies

Watch: Never So Few 1959 123movies, Full Movie Online – Captain Tom Reynolds and his band of skilled OSS operatives are in WWII Burma to arm and train the Kachin natives. But jungle combat, particularly against a Japanese army as familiar with the terrain as the Kachin, is hazardous. Some respite is found during leaves in the arms of beautiful gold digger Carla, but after Chinese raiders cross the border to loot and murder American soldiers, Reynolds abandons all notions of “military protocol” and seeks requital..
Plot: A U.S. military troop takes command of a band of Burmese guerillas during World War II.
Smart Tags: #year_1943 #1940s #jungle #u.s._military #world_war_two #based_on_novel #burma #tropics #sweating #hot_weather #sweaty_face #military_uniform #myanmar #southeast_asia #asia #office_of_strategic_services #oss #intelligence_agency #intelligence_agent #japanese_occupation_of_burma #japan

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Ratings:

	5.9/10 Votes: 3,143
	40% | RottenTomatoes
	N/A | MetaCritic
	N/A Votes: 49 Popularity: 7.99 | TMDB

Reviews:

Nothing in this war makes sense. Why you expect it to make sense now?

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

This was Steve McQueen’s breakout role and I can see why. He does not have that much screen time, but he makes the most of every scene he is in. The jungle parts are okay, but they could have lost the whole Frankie and Gina romance thing and no would miss it. There was just no chemistry there. Actually the Burmese girl was more his type, except for the whole spy thing. Then there is Peter Lawford. Kind of disappointing. He seemed to be just collecting a paycheck. The rest is okay. It was worth 2 hours to see McQueen’s first staring role, but I would not pay to see it again.

So Few, so bad.
Frank Sinatra looks like an outdoors department store mannequin most of the time and the usually reliable action director John Sturgis (The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape) is at a loss to get things moving in this World War Two drama that claims to have been shot in Burma and Thailand (exposition shots perhaps) but is dominated by exterior scenes shot on indoor stages.

Sinatra is Captain Tom Reynolds commander of an elite force sent to Burma to train and support locals against the Japanese. He’s there to get a job done by any means possible and his methods causes rifts within the unit as he bends the rules. In between helping liberate the Burmese people and committing atrocities he spends his r&r in clinches with English challenged, futuristic looking Gina Lollibridgida.

Sturgis is hard pressed from the outset to build suspense and urgency into his film with Sinatra’s casual acting style in the pivotal role. He’s all Vegas cool and insolence and it’s a bad fit to lead the likes of characters played by real rough and tumbles Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson who shine amid a lack lustre cast. It’s a passionless performance (even in his clinches with Gina) as he downs a fair amount of scotch and sleepwalks through his role.

Sturgis for his part has a hard time trimming and putting scenes together to give the film any life or power. The dialog is cliché ridden and the acting flat most of the time which Sturgis attempts to remedy by punctuating with action and sneak attacks that are themselves poorly staged and edited.

Legendary B&W cinematographer William Daniels never did grasp color in the same way and he glaringly displays it here with distracting compositions that look artificial and lit like football stadiums. Hugo Friedhofer’s score attempts to convey the gravity of the situation but instead heightens the overall mawkishness.

In similar more successful treatments you have Errol Flynn’s inspirational leadership in Warner’s suspenseful Objective Burma before and Lee Marvin’s tough, no nonsense commander in The Dirty Dozen following raising the question is Never So Few worth a watch? The first word of the title says it all.

Sammy and Dean get mislaid,the Chairman soldiers on………..
This is really a Poverty Row movie,they must have spent the budget on Miss Lollobrigida’s ludicrous outfits straight from Hardy Amies and Christian Dior and bearing absolutely no relationship to the period in which it was set.In her every scene I expected dear Cecil Beaton to pop up with his Rolleiflex.I suspect he would have made a more convincing soldier than Mr Sinatra who looks as if he had forgotten everything his acting coach had taught him.He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, he keeps on touching his hair(perhaps to make sure it’s staying on),appears to be looking down at his mark a lot of the time and has trouble avoiding the furniture in several interior shots.His wooing of the immaculately groomed ,elegantly coiffured and tightly sheathed Miss Lollobrigida is perfunctory to say the least.He seems to prefer the company of the adoring Steve Mcqueen who is clearly overwhelmed by the presence of the Chairman of the Board.Perhaps a place as a junior member of the Rat Pack was at stake. Peter Lawford whose early talent as a song and dance man was exceeded by his talent for pimping girls for the President of the United States who,conveniently happened to be his brother-in-law and another close chum of the Chairman(at least up until he got elected) is the other Clansman present in body if not in spirit. Richard Johnson is right up there with the top contenders for the title of best performance by an English actor with a moustache,a monocle and dyed black hair in an American war movie in 1959.His death scene only bettered by Olivier’s in “Brideshead Revisited”.His monocle is gently removed by a grieving Chairman – for me the highpoint of the movie. My one regret about the casting is that Sammy and Dean didn’t get to make the gig.The Chairman doesn’t get to call anyone “Clyde” – which is a pity really…. That nice Mr Sulu from “Star Trek” gets some early exposure and the Chairman rather insensitively tells some of his injured soldiers to get back in the jungle where they came from – but it’s easy to be picky, generally speaking “Never so few” is a sheer delight for lovers of terrible movies. The battle scenes are hilarious.With Steve driving what looks suspiciously like a Land Rover through lines of Chinese warplanes whilst the Chairman throws endless cans of petrol overboard (about 30 kilos a can – he must be stronger than he looks) with unerring aim. They emerge from this cauldron of heat without so much as a smudge on their faces,the Chairman’s hat staying resolutely in place throughout. The great Brian Donlevy tries hard to appear interested but eventually gives up the ghost and sits with a fixed grin and a glassy stare whilst the Chairman gives his big speech defending the American Way,which of course is His Way. Not until “Von Ryan’s Express” six years later did he surpass this silliness.Sammy and Dean missed that one too but played the numbers game with “Ocean’s Eleven”,”Sergeants Three”,”Four for Texas” and “Robin and the seven Hoods”,reassuringly light – hearted stuff that nobody,least of all themselves took remotely seriously. There is nothing intentionally funny about “Never so few” but it made me laugh Morie than all the other Clan movies put together.

Other Information:

Original Language en
Runtime 2 hr 5 min (125 min)
Budget 0
Revenue 0
Status Released
Rated Approved
Genre Drama, War
Director John Sturges
Writer Millard Kaufman, Tom T. Chamales
Actors Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lawford
Country United States
Awards N/A
Production Company N/A
Website N/A

Technical Information:

Sound Mix 4-Track Stereo (Westrex Recording System)
Aspect Ratio 2.35 : 1
Camera Panavision Lenses
Laboratory Metrocolor, Culver City (CA), USA
Film Length (14 reels), 3,302 m (Netherlands)
Negative Format 35 mm
Cinematographic Process CinemaScope (anamorphic)
Printed Film Format 35 mm