--- title: "The Sand Pebbles" year: 1966 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-sand-pebbles" fi1m_score: 66 critics_score: 48 critics_reviews: 4 published: "2026-09-20T04:41:37.433964+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T04:41:47.452716+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Sand Pebbles (1966) Directed by Robert Wise · 3h 16m · MPA PG-13 · Drama, War **Fi1m score: 66** · Critics 48 (early) from 4 reviews *In a sentence:* Steve McQueen would rather talk to an engine than to anyone on the boat, and after three hours we understood him > Robert Wise’s 196-minute gunboat picture is slow, solemn and about half an hour too long, and Steve McQueen is quietly the best thing in it. Worth an evening if you can give it a long one; the engine room is where it lives. ## Synopsis China, 1926. Machinist’s mate Jake Holman (Steve McQueen) is posted to the U.S.S. San Pablo, a gunboat patrolling the Yangtze while warlords and Nationalists fight over the country. He wants one thing: to run the engine himself. On the San Pablo the sailors do almost nothing, Chinese labourers do the work, and the crew, who call themselves the Sand Pebbles, want it kept that way. Captain Collins (Richard Crenna) wants his ship to stand for American power. Frenchy Burgoyne (Richard Attenborough) is the one man aboard who takes to Holman. On the steamer upriver Holman meets Shirley Eckert (Candice Bergen), a teacher bound for a mission run by Jameson (Larry Gates), who wants no gunboats near it. Holman takes Po-han (Mako) into the engine room and starts to teach him. ## Review Robert Wise directs and produces a 196-minute film from Richard McKenna’s novel, with a screenplay by Robert Anderson, about an American gunboat on the Yangtze in 1926 and the machinist’s mate who would rather be left alone with its engine. It is long, it knows it is long, and it moves at the speed of the river. We think it is better than that length, but we would not argue with anyone who checks the runtime and puts the kettle on first. Steve McQueen plays Jake Holman with his hands. He wipes down a piston, feels a bearing for heat, puts his ear to a cylinder and listens as if the thing were breathing. He barely raises his voice in three hours, and the film is at its best when it trusts that. When Holman takes Po-han (Mako) down into the engine room and teaches him, part by part, what each valve does, we were moved more than we had expected, and the reason is plain: it is the only stretch of the film in which anybody on that boat treats a Chinese man as a person, and both actors know it. Mako plays Po-han with pride and appetite and none of the grinning servility the period usually asked for. Richard Attenborough’s Frenchy is gentle and soft-hearted, a sailor who spends his pay on kindness, and Attenborough never plays him as a fool. Richard Crenna has the harder part and the better writing: Captain Collins believes the flag is a religion and preaches it to a crew who would rather have their beer. Candice Bergen is given less than she deserves; Anderson writes Shirley Eckert as a conscience, and a conscience is thin company for three hours. Larry Gates’s Jameson, the missionary who wants the navy gone, gets the film’s best argument and about three scenes to make it in. Joseph MacDonald shoots the river wide and grey-green, all mist and junks, and the town at night by lantern so the crowds seem to come out of the dark. Boris Leven’s San Pablo is a cramped, rusting, believable ship, and its engine room, a cave of brass and steam pipes, is where the film lives. Renié’s whites are sweat-stained by the second reel and stay that way. Jerry Goldsmith’s score is the other great performance here: a main theme in a minor key that never once tells us to feel brave, and a slow, sad march that follows the boat downriver. We would put it among the best things he wrote. What is wrong is pace and nerve. William H. Reynolds cuts patiently, and the patience becomes a fault; scenes end a beat after they should, and the second hour, most of it ashore, is where we began to fidget and then to resent the fidgeting. The politics are the larger trouble. Anderson’s script wants to say the Americans have no business on that river, and says it, through Jameson, more than once; then it cuts back to Collins on deck, lit like a saint, and lets his speeches stand. The film has doubts about the gunboat and still photographs the gunboat as a hero. The battle late on is cleanly staged, and we will describe none of it. Wise made [*The Sound of Music*](https://film.one/film/the-sound-of-music) the year before, and this is the film that credit bought him: a big studio picture with something on its mind. The reviews so far lean against it, two of the four we have read finding it long, slow and solemn, and they are right about the length and the solemnity and wrong about what those add up to. A slow film in which McQueen, Mako and Goldsmith are working at this level is a slow film worth sitting through. See it at home, in one sitting, on the longest evening you have. It does not split well: the first half sets things up and the second pays them off, and the slow patches are Wise’s choice, not an accident. The 12 certificate is about right. Do not start it after ten. *Fi1m score 66, published 20 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (4) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (70/100, inferred): The critic praises the handsome production and strong performances, especially from Steve McQueen, Richard Crenna, and Candice Bergen, while noting the film's sensitive drama set against historical gunboat diplomacy. [Read](https://variety.com/1965/film/reviews/the-sand-pebbles-1200420976/) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (60/100, inferred): The critic examines the film's portrayal of American naval presence in China and its lessons on foreign ventures, highlighting the epic scope and performances while assessing its dramatic impact. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1966/12/21/archives/screen-the-sand-pebbles-begins-its-run-at-rivolipicture-offers.html) - **The New Yorker**, Brendan Gill (30/100, inferred): The review describes the film as a very long story about a gunboat in 1920s China, commending Steve McQueen's effort within a limited role but criticizing the solemn screenplay and slow, molasses-like direction by Robert Wise. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/12/31/ways-of-winning) - **Time Out**, TM (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the camerawork splendid but otherwise calls the film a three-hour plod through the bestseller. It notes the story's timid criticism of imperialist attitudes set against 1926 China, with well-staged battles and romances for the lead actors. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-sand-pebbles) ## Details - **Director:** Robert Wise - **Director:** Robert Wise - **Screenplay:** Robert Anderson - **Novel:** Richard McKenna - **Cinematography:** Joseph MacDonald - **Editor:** William H. Reynolds - **Music:** Jerry Goldsmith - **Production design:** Boris Leven - **Costume design:** Renié - **Producer:** Robert Wise - **Cast:** Steve McQueen as Jake Holman; Richard Attenborough as Frenchy Burgoyne; Richard Crenna as Captain Collins; Candice Bergen as Shirley Eckert; Mako as Po-han; Larry Gates as Jameson; Charles Knox Robinson as Ensign Bordelles; Simon Oakland as Stawski - **Runtime:** 3h 16m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13 - **Release (the US):** 20 December 1966 - **Genres:** Drama, War - **Budget:** $12 million - **Box office:** $20 million ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AT, AU, BE, CA, DE, ES, FI, FR, GB, IE, IT, NL, NZ, PL, PT, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1967: Best Actor (nominated); Best Art Direction, Color (nominated); Best Cinematography, Color (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Original Score (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Sound (nominated); Best Supporting Actor (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World* (2003), Fi1m 86: A ship, a crew and a captain’s faith; Weir lets the wood creak. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/master-and-commander-the-far-side-of-the-world.md) - *Das Boot* (1981), Fi1m 89: Another metal box full of men, this one underwater and far more frightened. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/das-boot.md) - *Empire of the Sun* (1987), Fi1m 81: Foreigners in China as the ground gives way, seen through a boy’s eyes. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/empire-of-the-sun.md) - *Lawrence of Arabia* (1962), Fi1m 90: The other long 1960s film about a foreigner who should not be there. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/lawrence-of-arabia.md) - *Spring in a Small Town* (1948): China filmed by China, quiet and small, a corrective to the gunboat view. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-sand-pebbles