The Pride and the Passion

During the Napoleonic Wars, a British navel officer (Cary Grant) and a Spanish guerrilla (Frank Sinatra) salvage a huge cannon to use against the French.

The Pride and the Passion is spectacularly produced epic featuring hundreds of extras, beautiful Spanish scenery, and several awesome sequences: including an attempt to transport massive cannon up and down a mountain, and the climactic assault on the fortified city of Avila.

That said, the film also suffers from some of the worst miscasting in history. Cary Grant’s last period piece was 1940’s The Howards of Virginia, after which he wisely swore off the genre. Admittedly, he acquits himself far better here, but he’s still ill suited for costume dramas and it shows. Even worse is Frank Sinatra, who’s just ridiculous as a Spanish guerrilla. At least Sophia Loren is passable as object of both men’s desires.

Compounding the miscasting is the length. 132 minutes is a long time to endure Sinatra’s Spanish-by-way-of-Hoboken accent and after awhile the sheer spectacle, easily the film’s strongest suit, begins to wear thin.

Still, this is a movie worth seeing, if only once, because when the film does work, such as the sequence involving an attempt to float the cannon over a river, it’s truly awesome. Who’d have thought they would be a film that falters most whenever Cary Grant or Frank Sinatra is on the screen?

If top-notch production could trump gross miscasting, The Pride and the Passion would be spectacular, but, unfortunately for Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra, it can’t.