Never So Few

Never So Few is a frustratingly uneven film that should have been better.

The story, set in World War II Burma, sees Frank Sinatra as an American Army Captain leading a small band of natives determined to hold off the much larger Japanese force.

The film starts out stumbling. Sinatra looks ridiculous with a goatee and the dark jungle scenes feel stagy. The film waffles between action and melodrama, never really committing to either, until Steve McQueen makes his entrance.

Things then pick up briefly as McQueen works his charm, but soon stumble once again as the film tries to work in an awkward love story. Finally, in the film’s final quarter, Never So Few finds its stride. The striking cinematography as Sinatra and company come across a battalion of slaughtered soldiers is excellent, and at long last gives some real sense of the jungle. Further, the script tightens up considerably, as the characters finally have something to do, but unfortunately, it’s too little too late.

In many ways,_ Never So Few_ was doomed from the start. Sinatra is wrong for the lead, a role that ideally would have gone to Robert Mitchum, Gina Lollobrigida barely registers in a part that shouldn’t exist, Charles Bronson is criminally underused, and director John Sturges needed to deliver a stronger sense of atmosphere, as far to much of the film feels stagy and artificial.