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The Sergeant

  • 1968
  • R
  • 1h 48m
IMDb RATING
6.6/10
744
YOUR RATING
The Sergeant (1968)
Drama

A story of a brilliant master sergeant with a great career behind him and transferred to yet another post, his attraction to a younger man eventually overrides him, to a point where his late... Read allA story of a brilliant master sergeant with a great career behind him and transferred to yet another post, his attraction to a younger man eventually overrides him, to a point where his latent homosexuality, finally emerges.A story of a brilliant master sergeant with a great career behind him and transferred to yet another post, his attraction to a younger man eventually overrides him, to a point where his latent homosexuality, finally emerges.

  • Director
    • John Flynn
  • Writer
    • Dennis Murphy
  • Stars
    • Rod Steiger
    • John Phillip Law
    • Ludmila Mikaël
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.6/10
    744
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • John Flynn
    • Writer
      • Dennis Murphy
    • Stars
      • Rod Steiger
      • John Phillip Law
      • Ludmila Mikaël
    • 22User reviews
    • 10Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win total

    Photos14

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    Top cast12

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    Rod Steiger
    Rod Steiger
    • MSgt. Albert Callan
    John Phillip Law
    John Phillip Law
    • Pfc. Tom Swanson
    Ludmila Mikaël
    Ludmila Mikaël
    • Solange Gérard
    Frank Latimore
    Frank Latimore
    • Capt. Loring
    Elliott Sullivan
    • Pop Henneken
    Ronald Rubin
    • Cpl. Cowley
    Philip Roye
    • Aldous Brown
    Jerry Brouer
    • Sgt. Komski
    Memphis Slim
    • Night Club Singer
    Nadine Alari
    Nadine Alari
    • Mrs. Gérard, Solange's Mother
    • (uncredited)
    Gabriel Gascon
    Gabriel Gascon
    • Paul - Solange's Brother-in-Law
    • (uncredited)
    Dan Gregory
    Dan Gregory
    • Young Soldier
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • John Flynn
    • Writer
      • Dennis Murphy
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews22

    6.6744
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    Featured reviews

    8xreslr

    A simmering study of repressed homosexuality.

    A real tour de force for Steiger, whose riveting portrayal of an Army sergeant wrestling with his own repressed desires is both realistic and compelling. Another top-notch Steiger character study.
    johns_malebox

    Brilliant film!!

    I believe this is one of the most sensitive films about hiding your gayness in the military. Even though it takes place many years prior to the 'don't ask don't tell' motto, it speaks of the difficulties a gay man must cope with.

    Now that the industry has lost one of its more brilliant character actors, I hope this movie will find its way to DVD, along with "The Loved One" which has been on moritorium for some time.
    6jgepperson

    Good film; slightly confusing

    After wanting to see this film for a long time, I finally tracked down a VHS copy taped off TV in Philadelphia (I found the copy in California). The performances are very good. And it's well made, until it gets close to THE BIG MOMENT, and then the editing goes awry, as if studio executives had gotten nervous about the subject matter and deleted whole sections, so that the time line of the behavior of the title character - played by Rod Steiger - is all off. One minute he's telling John Philip Law to get lost; the next minute he wants him near. I know people change their minds, and LOSE them when they're obsessive, but it feels choppy here, and glaring. And between THE BIG MOMENT and the denouement there is an odd black and white montage that seems to be some kind of memory device (could the copy I saw be missing something?), so that seemed like another obvious studio error. Still, the movie is worthing seeing and should be on a double bill with "Reflections In A Golden Eye," another well made, failed film from around the same time and on the same subject (repressed, lonely, older, closeted military man fascinated by a handsome younger guy).
    9bkoganbing

    The Lonely Closet

    With the current debate over gays and lesbians serving in the military this 1968 film The Sergeant has a relevance undreamed of by the people who made this film a year before the Stonewall Rebellion.

    Rod Steiger gives a brilliant performance as the tortured, self loathing, latently gay non-commissioned officer with whom the psychological bubble finally bursts. Steiger is a master sergeant assigned to a construction battalion in France. He's a professional soldier through and through and does take a rather lax company and whips into some kind of shape. Still there's an uneasiness to him that the men can't figure out. It isn't even on their radar screens, a gay man in the military just didn't compute back then.

    It computes least of all to Private John Philip Law whose company Steiger seems to crave incessantly. The fact that Law is seeing local French girl Ludmila Mikael doesn't make any difference, Steiger intrudes on their relationship even more as it gets more serious between Law and Mikael.

    It all breaks out in a devastating and dramatic climax where Steiger bursts forth from the latent closet. I assure you that you will not forget it once you've Steiger's self destruction.

    In the time Steiger was brought up being gay was the most loathsome thing there was. Brokeback Mountain covered the same things and Steiger did not even have an idyllic summer to look forward to as did Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Another military film that covered latent homosexuality was Reflections In A Golden Eye where Marlon Brando as an officer was crushing out on a private in his company played by Robert Forster. That however was only one of many issues covered in that film, whereas this is the central and only theme of The Sergeant.

    For those interested in gays in the military I would commend you reading Nigel Hamilton's book on the life of Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery. Although it's a small part of the story, Hamilton attributes Monty's well known prickly personality to the fact that he was latently gay and never came to terms with it. Rod Steiger's character would have known exactly what Montgomery was feeling.

    This is one of Rod Steiger's best screen roles, but the timeliness of the topic means this film could use a remake. Try casting this film with some of today's players. I could see Al Pacino or Robert DeNiro in the part of The Sergeant with maybe some teen heartthrob like Zac Efron as the recruit.

    Still it would be extraordinary if it topped this one.
    tarmcgator

    A dated but eyeopening film

    I haven't seen "The Sergeant" since its first release more than 30 years ago, and I've been disappointed that it hasn't been made available on VHS or recycled on cable TV. The ending of the movie is a cliche, and an unfortunate one, that likely would anger certain gay interest groups today. Yet I recall this film as one that opened the mind of a young heterosexual male who, until then, had been extremely homophobic. Rod Steiger's performance, as a supermacho soldier who is horrified of his own feelings of attraction to another man, is riveting. The outcome of the film, while dated, reflects the conflict and repression that gay men and women often experienced in our society prior to the advent of enlightenment in the 1970s (and, in the case of gay people in today's U.S. armed forces, still do). For my teenaged mind, it aroused the prospect that ALL human beings have the capacity to be sexually attracted to another person of the same sex, and that such attraction should be accepted and understood, rather than dreaded or shunned. Nothing in my subsequent experience has altered that perception. Despite the cliched ending, this is a film that displays empathy for its tormented lead character and demands that he be understood. It deserves revival.

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    Related interests

    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama

    Storyline

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    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Simon Oakland campaigned hard to play the lead role and even told director John Flynn that he would do it for no salary. However, Rod Steiger was ultimately cast instead because he was a bigger name at the time.
    • Goofs
      The story takes place in 1952, but all the women's fashions and hair styles are strictly 1967-1968.
    • Connections
      Featured in Homo Promo (1991)

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    FAQ15

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • December 25, 1968 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Der Sergeant
    • Filming locations
      • France
    • Production company
      • Robert Wise Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 48m(108 min)
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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