The Pride and the Passion (1957)

Here was Kramer's first chance to make a great motion picture and as a big classic-Hollywood-studio-epic-period-adventure he does a fine job: big, good looking, complicated crowd and action scenes. But...(Confidential!) The studio gave him Sinatra, who had no business being cast as a Spanish peasant and who only took the job (from a real actor) to be able to keep track of Ava Gardener while she was filming in Spain. In the meantime, Grant was distracted by heavy Sophia lust...(She says he never got any!) If you like the stars, if you like old fashioned Hollywood, if you like Napoleonic adventures, it entertains.

Where was Eli Wallach? Where was J. Carrol Naish? Where was anyone else the day Frank Sinatra was cast as a Spaniard in The Pride and the Passion? You know me, I love Frank Sinatra's acting career even more than his singing career, so if I tell you his performance was terrible, it really was. You don't have to waste two and a half hours of your time to find out if I'm right.Stanley Kramer, three years before his epic Spartacus, took on The Pride and the Passion, an epic Napoleonic war movie. Yes, there are thousands of extras, on-location filming, extensive battle scenes, and Cary Grant in a uniform. But the movie stinks. Sophia Loren, at only twenty-three-years-old, spent virtually the entire movie showing off her bosom to the audience, and despite their real-life affair, there were no sparks flying between her and Cary Grant. And given the choice between Cary Grant in a uniform and Frank Sinatra in schlumpy clothes and a laughable accent, is there really any suspense? So much for a love triangle. I can't recommend this movie, unless you really love tedious war epics.

The Pride and the Passion has some of the worst acting I've seen in a major movie. The only one substantially worse was El Cid. The two movies have something in common. Both movies include Sophia Loren, who has done some excellent acting in Italian films. Both movies have wonderful scores. This movie has excellent music by American wild man of music, George Antheil. El Cid has one of the great scores of Miklos Rozsa. Both movies are wonderful on the ears and eyes, but terrible acting. JB

There are two big reasons to watch this film. The giant cannon which is the real star of the movie and Miss Loren's bosoms. No make that three reasons. Cary Grant, after his dreadful performance in The Howard's of Virginia seventeen years earlier, had vowed never to make another costume drama but was lured back to the genre perhaps because of the proximity of Sophia. Unfortunately his role in TP&TP was just about as ludicrous. Cary prances around Spain in a costume that made him look like Gainsborough's Blue Boy. Sinatra was woefully miscast as a Spanish revolutionary and he is laughable in the role. The movie should be watched, not purchased, for the laughs and Miss Loren's considerable physical attributes.