One of Cary Grant’s worst movies, The Pride and the Passion is a Napoleonic-era war film in Technicolor, poorly directed by Stanley Kramer, and co-starring Frank Sinatra and Sophia Loren.
Grade: C- (* out of *****)
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A significant hstorical event is reduced to a silly romantic triangle, in which all three leads are miscast, caught in a senselessly plodding plot, which, in the hands of Kramer, moves sluggishly to its predictable ending.
The tale concerns a British Royal Navy artillery officer who has orders to retrieve a huge siege cannon from Spain and transport it by ship to British forces. First, however, the leader of the Spanish guerrillas wants to transport the weapon 1,000 km (620 mi) across Spain to help in the recapture of the city of Ávila from the occupying French before he releases it to the British.
Most of the film–essentially variations of one idea–deals with the hardships of transporting the large cannon to Ávila across rivers and over mountains, while also evading the occupying French forces that have been ordered to find it. A sub-plot concerns the struggle for the love of the Spanish woman Juana (Loren) by the two male protagonists.
The film story and screenplay by Edna Anhalt and Edward Anhalt are loosely based on the 1933 novel “The Gun” by C. S. Forester. Earl Felton contributed an uncredited screenplay re-write, George Antheil composed the music score, and Saul Bass designed the opening title sequence.
The film’s music score was the last important work by George Antheil, once famous as the “bad boy of music” in the 1920s. It is the only one of Antheil’s many film scores to have been preserved on a commercial soundtrack recording.
During the Peninsular War, Napoleon’s armies overrun Spain. An enormous siege cannon, belonging to the Spanish army, is abandoned when it slows down the army’s retreat. French cavalrymen are dispatched to find it.
Britain, Spain’s ally, sends a Royal Navy ordnance officer, Captain Anthony Trumbull, to find the huge cannon and see that it is handed over to British forces before it can be retrieved by the French. However, when Trumbull arrives at the Spanish headquarters, he finds that it has been evacuated and is now occupied by a guerrilla band led by the French-hating Miguel. Miguel shows Trumbull the abandoned cannon’s location at the bottom of a steep ravine. He says he will only help move the huge gun if it is first used against the fortified walls of Ávila, which Miguel is obsessed with capturing. During their association, the two men grow to dislike each other. One cause of their enmity is Miguel’s mistress, Juana, who falls in love with Trumbull.
General Jouvet, the sadistic commander of the French forces in Ávila, orders the execution of 10 Spanish hostages daily until information on the cannon’s whereabouts is surrendered. The recovered cannon undergoes an arduous journey across Spain toward Ávila.
The guerrilla band almost lose the cannon when General Jouvet deploys artillery at a mountain pass that they must use to get to Ávila. With help from the local populace, the band gets the cannon through, despite heavy losses, although it rolls down a long hillside and is damaged, becoming partially dismounted from its transport carriage.
The cannon is moved and hidden inside a cathedral while it is repaired. Afterwards, it is disguised as an ornamental processional platform during a Catholic Holy Week religious procession in order to move it past the occupying French. French officers, however, are informed of the cannon’s cathedral location, but by the time they arrive, it has been repaired and moved, leaving no trace that it was ever there.
When the cannon finally arrives at the guerrillas’ camp outside Ávila, Trumbull and Miguel prepare to attack the city. However, Ávila is defended by strong walls, eighty cannon and a garrison of French troops. Trumbull explains to the assembled guerilla force that half their number will be killed by French artillery. Later, he tries to convince Juana not to participate in the battle, but, having come so far, the next day she decides to go with the men.
Trumbull repeatedly fires the huge siege cannon, its large shot demolishing one section of Ávila’s high walls. Despite suffering heavy losses, the guerrillas pour through the city’s breached wall and overwhelm the French forces.
General Jouvet is killed, and the last French troops are overrun in the town square. After the battle, Trumbull bids farewell to a dying Juana and then places Miguel’s dead body on the statue of Ávila’s patron saint Saint Teresa.
After securing the huge cannon for its long journey to England, Trumbull leaves Ávila with troubled memories of his adventures.
The unfolding melodramas of two troubed marriages off screen was far more interesting than anything seen on screen. The film was shot on location in Spain amid rumors that Sinatra took his part only to be near wife Ava Gardner, in a troubled marriage.. Gardner was away from Sinatra making The Sun Also Rises (1957), shot in various locales around Europe, including Spain. Sesning a possible reconciliation, Sinatra hurriedly left the production, asking Kramer to condense his scenes into a shorter schedule, to which. Kramer obliged.
Meanwhile, Cary Grant was pleased to be away from his troubled marriage to Betsy Drake and pursued a romance with co-star Sophia Loren, but Loren went on to marry her mentor and agent Carlo Ponti later that year.
The title credits by Saul Bass are based on Francisco de Goya’s print series The Disasters of War, such as this What Courage!.
The color of Captain Turnbull’s naval uniform appears more intended to show off Technicolor than to depict any historical British Navy Blue, which is much darker.
Opening to mixed reviews on July 10, 1957, The Pride and The Passion was moderately successful due to the popularity of the leading actors. With US rentals of $3.5 million, from a gross of $8.75 million, and worldwide rentals of $6.7 million, it was one of 1957’s twenty highest-grossing films of 1957. However, high production costs caused the film to declare a loss f $2.5 million.
End Note
On March 14, 2011, BBC Radio 4’s Afternoon Play broadcast Mike Walker’s “The Gun Goes to Hollywood,” which imagined the behind-the-scenes drama, including Sinatra leaving the production early and Grant falling in love with co-star Loren. The text was staged from the viewpoint of script doctor Earl Felton, who had been drafted to save the day. Directed by Kate McAll, it included Steven Weber as Earl Felton, Gregory Itzin as Cary Grant, Kate Steele as Sophia Loren, Jonathan Silverman as Frank Sinatra and Jonathan Getz as Stanley Kramer.
Cast
Cary Grant as Capt. Anthony Trumbull
Frank Sinatra as Miguel
Sophia Loren as Juana
Theodore Bikel as General Henri Jouvet
John Wengraf as Sermaine
Jay Novello as Ballinger
Jose Nieto as Carlos
Carlos Larranaga as Jose
Philip Van Zandt as Vidal
Paco el Laberinto as Manolo
Credits:
Directed, produced by Stanley Kramer
Screenplay by Edna Anhalt and Edward Anhalt, based on the novel The Gun by C.S. Forester
Music by George Antheil
Cinematography Franz Planer
Edited by Frederic Knudtson
Ellsworth Hoagland
Production company: Stanley Kramer Pictures
Distributed by United Artists
Release date: July 10, 1957 (U.S.)
Running time: 132 min.
Budget $3.7 million
Box office $3.5 million (rentals)
