The Pride and the Passion

Director Stanley Kramer's 1957 epic, made for a then-astronomical $6 million, possibly had some African Queen aspirations, being both another adaptation of a C.S. Forrester novel—The Gun (1933)—and a period war drama about getting a strategic weapon across arduous terrain amidst romantic squabbles and danger. Unfortunately, there is no Hepburn-Bogart chemistry or witty dialogue in this unwieldy Napoleonic Wars spectacle, set in 1810 Spain. The film stars a miscast (or disinterested) Frank Sinatra as peasant leader Miguel, who is clashing with an upper-class British officer named Anthony (a stolid Cary Grant) over possession of a gigantic abandoned cannon that is crucial in their mutual war against the occupying French. The men also compete for the sensuous fallen woman Juana (Sophia Loren), prominent among the army of freedom fighters who assist in hauling the cannon across miles of countryside in order to vanquish a fort. The big prop turns in the best performance (with Loren's physique earning an honorable mention), while one can't help but be impressed with the thousands of extras provided by shooting on location in Francisco Franco's very Hollywood-friendly Spain. Optional. (C. Cassady)