SAND PEBBLES, THE 265
that I must fall to my knees to worship a maniac [Mussolini] who has made of my
country a concentration camp, who has made of my people slaves?... As for your
Hitler, it’s because of a man like him that God—my God— created hell!” Fi nally,
the siege of the well at Bir Acroma conjures all the heroic but hopeless defensive
battles of history, from Thermopylae to Wake Island. Unlike its historical pre ce -
dents, Sahara delivers, deus ex machina, a miraculous albeit preposterous victory.
Sand Pebbles, The (1966)
Synopsis
The Sand Pebbles is an American adventure epic/war film directed and produced
by Robert Wise. Based on the 1962 novel of the same title by Richard McKenna,
the film tells the story of a U.S. Navy machinist’s mate (played by Steve McQueen)
aboard the fictional gunboat USS San Pablo in 1920s China: a country in the throes
of anti- Western fervor and civil strife.
Background
In 1953, following a 22- year career in the U.S. Navy as a chief machinist mate, Rich-
ard McKenna (1913–1964) undertook a second career as a writer. After dabbling in
science fiction, McKenna wrote his only novel: The Sand Pebbles, a 597- page epic
about the travails of an American gunboat on China’s Yangtze River in 1926
(McKenna had served on such a gunboat, but a de cade later, in 1936). The book
proved to be a huge hit: a condensed version was serialized in three issues of the
Saturday Eve ning Post in November 1962; it won the $10,000 1963 Harper Prize
Novel, was chosen as a Book- of- the- Month Club se lection, and became a national
bestseller. Furthermore, McKenna sold the movie rights to United Artists (UA) for
$300,000 ($2.4 million in 2017 dollars). Shortly thereafter 20th Century Fox
acquired the rights from UA and studio head Darryl F. Zanuck greenlit the proj ect
for producer- director Robert Wise in September 1962. The search for suitable film-
ing locations in Asia, script writing, and other pre- production work would keep
the proj ect on hold for another three years. Paul Newman was tapped for the lead
role of Jake Holman but turned it down. Teen crooner Pat Boone lobbied hard for
it but it fi nally went to Steve McQueen (who was paid $650,000), after he achieved
true stardom in John Sturges’ The Great Escape (1963). A former Marine with a rebel-
lious streak and lover of all things mechanical, McQueen was perfectly suited to
play a feisty Navy machinist mate. When Julie Christie turned down the role of
Shirley Eckert, it went to Candice Bergen (who was just 19). Richard Attenborough
(an En glishman playing an American who had appeared with McQueen in The
Great Escape), Mako (a Japa nese American actor playing a Chinese man), and Rich-
ard Crenna (in his first major film role) filled out the rest of the main cast. Pre-
production work on The Sand Pebbles included the construction of the movie’s most
impor tant and expensive prop: the San Pablo, a 150- foot, steel- hulled gunboat
closely modeled on the USS Villalobos (PG-42), an 1898 gunboat captured from
Spain during the Spanish- American War and used on Yangtze River patrol from