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Never So Few
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Never So Few | |
|---|---|
 1967 re-release film poster |
|
| Directed by | John Sturges |
| Produced by | John Sturges |
| Written by | Tom T. Chamales (book) Millard Kaufman (screenplay) |
| Starring | Frank Sinatra Gina Lollobrigida Peter Lawford Steve McQueen |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | December 7, 1959 |
| Running time | 124 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Never So Few is a 1959 film directed by John Sturges starring Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lawford, and Steve McQueen. It follows Captain Tom Reynolds (Sinatra) and his love Carla Vesari (Lollobrigida) in war ravenged Burma and Reynolds fellow OSS operatives Captain Grey Travis (Lawford) and Corporal Bill Ringa (McQueen) try to train Kachin natives to fight in World War II. The script was loosely based on an actual OSS incident.
Rat Pack cohort Sammy Davis, Jr. was originally slated to play McQueen's role, but Sinatra yanked it away after Davis mildly criticized Sinatra during a radio interview. McQueen was mainly noted at the time for the television series Wanted: Dead or Alive (and the movie The Blob), and Never So Few marked his introduction to working with director John Sturges, who went on to cast him in his first breakthrough role the following year, as second lead in The Magnificent Seven, and later in the even more career-crucial classic The Great Escape (1963). By the late 1960s, McQueen was the highest paid actor in the world, in large part due to his runaway popularity in Japan and the rest of Asia.
On the original US one-sheet poster, only Frank Sinatra and Gina Lollobrigida are top billed, in the 1967 re-release of the poster, Steve McQueen is added to the top billing, undoubtedly due to his skyrocketing rise in fame.
| John Sturges | |
|---|---|
| 1940s | The Man Who Dared | Shadowed | Alias Mr. Twilight | For the Love of Rusty | Keeper of the Bees | The Sign of the Ram | Best Man Wins | The Walking Hills |
| 1950s | The Magnificent Yankee | The Capture | Mystery Street | Right Cross | Kind Lady | The People Against O'Hara | It's a Big Country (with Clarence Brown, Don Hartman, Richard Thorpe, Charles Vidor, Don Weis and William A. Wellman) | The Girl in White | Jeopardy | Fast Company | Escape from Fort Bravo | Bad Day at Black Rock | Underwater! | The Scarlet Coat | Backlash | Gunfight at the O.K. Corral | The Law and Jake Wade | The Old Man and the Sea | Last Train from Gun Hill | Never So Few |
| 1960s | The Magnificent Seven | By Love Possessed | Sergeants 3 | A Girl Named Tamiko | The Great Escape | The Satan Bug | The Hallelujah Trail | Hour of the Gun | Ice Station Zebra | Marooned |
| 1970s | Joe Kidd | Chino | McQ | The Eagle Has Landed |