Customer Reviews

The Strange One

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4 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ben Gazzara is a perfect bully in a military academy. He uses his position of authority to settle his own accounts with one cadet, the son of the major of the academy, and the major himself. He terrorizes and crushes the freshmen cadets in all possible ways to achieve his own end which is pure domination. The interest of the film is the unanimous rebellion among the cadets and their final treatment of the bully they exclude from the academy after making him sign a confession of his « crimes ». The best part in the role is the fact that the bully always assumes an aristocratic stand and not a purely violent attitude. He dominates like a feudal squire or baron of old and he always manages to enwrap other people in his own acts so that he can blackmail them into lying and silence. But the final treatment reveals him to be nothing but a coward, afraid of suffering and frightened by the perspective of losing his power just as if his power was the only thing he could hold on, he needed to be anything, to respect himself. Power corrupts, it's true, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

I first saw this movie when it came out in the 1950s and was much taken with it, so taken that I read the novel on which it was based, "End as a Man," by Calder Willingham. Some 50 years later, I watched this DVD and was glad that my youthful impression of the movie was unchanged. My taste has changed much over time, but not in this case.

Ben Gazarra is the title character, a sadistic bully at a Southern military academy. How he meets his comeuppance is the entire plot. The characters, plot and ambience are all fine. Beyond that I'll say nothing so that the unsuspecting viewer can see this afresh.

On the disk is a recent interview with Gazarra, telling how he came to play the role (his first in the movies) and interesting details about the filming. Don't miss this. It adds enormously.

This would be one of the best movies of this era I have seen, Ben Gazzara is as hilariously evil as ever. I hate to think how many times I have watched this movie.

Do mind the spoilers.

"The Strange One" came out in 1957, attracting precious little attention then- do you know anyone who saw it that year?- or now. Every now and then, a perfectly good movie comes out and just about nobody watches it. This is an ideal example of that kind of movie.

Set at the fictional Southern Military College, "The Strange One" sees us enter into the time of day when platoon sergeant Jocko DeParis is at his most powerful- after taps. He appears in the room of two freshmen, and switches between hazing them and playing games with their heads. Inviting a fellow senior into the room- knowing full well he gets mean when he's drunk- Jocko ensures this senior loses badly at a game of cards while drinking, making noise and becoming irritable. The son of a prominent staff member arrives to investigate the disturbance, and Jocko immediately shuts off the lights and directs his drunk classmate to attack the other cadet. The next day, the son of Major Avery is found on the quadrangle, beaten up and apparently drunk. He is soon expelled. It is soon revealed that Avery was involved in a situation that caused DeParis to be fired as a platoon commander the previous year.

DeParis is a study in what one individual can do when he has enough power in his hands and the will to use all of it. He lies, manipulates, bullies and degrades, all that and so much more. Simply because he can. He's not against anyone in particular- he's against everybody. That someone could be so harsh, so dismissive of everyone around him- it's not as impossible as you might think. Look around you, through enough history books- human cruelty can be quite bottomless. But, while Jocko lives quite successfully on Himmler's concept of being feared rather than loved, being hated starts to catch up to him. It starts with a freshman standing up to him. It continues with some other freshmen, plus Jocko's roommate, joining him. Pretty soon the regimental commander and over a dozen other cadets are involved. They corner Jocko at a cafe in town, with the regimental commander holding up a piece of paper, listing Jocko's numerous sins, evidence against him, and a line for his signed confession. The reason for all this, even though Jocko's roommate and the two freshmen will be kicked out as well? They've all had enough. Jocko's been walking all over them for years and they've just had enough.

A hallmark of people like Jocko DeParis, so far as I have seen, is that beneath their arrogant manner, their professed superiority, is a coward, never quite sure he's as good as he says. When cornered alone- and they have a distinct tendency to run short on friends at such times- they do not stand fast. They fold. That's what we see Jocko do here. He's thrown onto a train and shipped out of town, and as soon as he realizes he's not to be run over by the train, Jocko becomes defiant again, yelling from the rearmost car that he'll be back.

"The Strange One" is filmed in black and white, runs one hour and forty minutes, and was filmed in Florida. It can be distinguished, if one recognizes enough details, that the Southern Military College is based off The Citadel in South Carolina. This movie hardly portrays life at such a college in a positive light, but from what I know of what military schools and colleges were like in the fifties, it's entirely possible a Jocko DeParis could've existed. One shouldn't lose respect for such schools because of this, though. It's been a while since 1957, and even then we see Jocko being run out of the school. The acting in "The Strange One" is excellent, as is the soundtrack that Keynon Hopkins devised for it. Overall, the movie is consistently interesting from start to finish, and Jack Garfein knew what he was doing as the director. But one thought lingered for me, long after the credits finished- "The Strange One" told us many times that Jocko's roommate and the two freshmen would be kicked out for cooperating with Jocko, but it forgot to tell us why. The 1983 film adaptation of "The Lords of Discipline" sees G.D. Spradlin as General Bentley Durrell, sternly informing the corps- "A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do. There are no second chances here."

That's the one line loose end this film left somewhere out there in the cosmos. It forgot to tell us the one law that rules any good military school- the honor code. But compared to the catastrophic list of mistakes that some films, with far greater publicity and a much bigger budget, have managed to make, the one unsolved mystery this film needlessly leaves us with is quiet easy to overlook. This is a much better film, with much better acting, than many in theaters today.

Power-house performances here. One can't imagine better ensemble acting. This was Peppard's first film. Not only is he extremely easy on the eyes (you read between the lines), he could also act in an effortless sort of way. Gazzara was never better. The homoerotic subtext holds up well today. Great cinematography and music by the under-appreciated Kenyon Hopkins.

Due for a Blu-ray upgrade.

an excellent movie, long out of circulation. This restored version - from the previously cut release- makes more sense of the story and is in more in depth and satisfying.

I first saw this years ago and was stunned at how unusual and brilliant it was. Ben Gazzara is incredible, has total command and plays Jocko de Paris perfectly, no other actor could have done this. George Pappard, in his debut, is fantastic; Pat Hingle and Mark Richman are excellent as well as is the entire supporting cast. What strikes me the most is Gazzara's complete mastery of not only his own part but the whole film as well. He portrays Jocko de Paris, a consummate bully in a Southern military college and as Peppard comments, flourished in this atmosphere "like a toadstool in a swamp." The homosexual overtones caused a bit of trouble for this film which is a shame, but thank God due to its overall excellence, it survived and after being a play on Broadway, achieved immortality on film and now DVD.
It is a fascinating and very unusual glimpse into the lives of men in a Southern military college in the 1950s, focusing on one incident that de Paris planned and carried out and the ramifications it caused for the lives of all these men.
Gazzara discusses the film and his role as a bonus, and mentions how James Dean tried to steal the role, which would have been a disaster and doomed this film into permanent obscurity. Not to take anything away from Dean, but this role requires a subtlety, finesse and intelligence way beyond Dean's capabilities.
Gazzara owns this part.

One of the few pictures directed by Jack Garfein. Gazzara is fine as the sadistic cadet Jocko DeParis. Pat Hingle and George Peppard(debut) play cadets.

Larry Gates plays the not so happy headmaster of this mayhem. Now, what is that three wheeled vehicle that Gazzra gets out of with that girl?

Music by Kenyon Hopkins.( The Hustler)

Originally advertised as the first picture filmed entirely by a cast and technicians from the Actor's Studio, this tale of power play amongst the cadets of a Southern military academy, only comes alive when it features the material that the Production Code of the 1950's demanded be cut. Based on the autobiographical novel and play End as a Man by Calder Willingham, director Jack Garfein uses the music of Kenyon Hopkins noticably in the scenes between Ben Gazzarra as an upperclass man and Paul E Richards as a presumably gay cadet Gazzarra nicknames Cockroach, who wears a shower cap when the other cadets don't. Richards is a "creative writer" who names the Gazzarra character in his novel "nightboy". Their best scene together is where Richards reads to Gazzarra, who plays with his sword! Clearly Gazzarra is not adverse to Richard's attention, and their farewell handshake is more a sensual than manly experience. Gazzarra's relationship with Richards is also echoed in his friendship with football jock James Olson, where Gazzarra reacts to being casually touched. I also like idea of Gazzara's cigarette holder, though his kissing his own wrist at one point is a little too self-consciously Method. But whilst it is interesting to observe these subversive (for the period) elements, the narrative ultimately disappoints in the treatment of Gazzara as the academy's resident sadist. The Actors Studio adaptation needs to create an ensemble, as opposed to allowing Gazzara to star, which dissipates the tension and reduces his threat. Whilst it may be more psychologically truthful for him to underplay his psychotic nature, with the addition of Freudian insight which makes him more intellectual than physically violent, this doesn't help the drama, which is even more obvious when the far more satisfying climax uses mob intimidation and a physical act of revenge. The worst of the Actors Studio excess is in the presentation of victim Arthur Storch who is said to be schizophrenic and thus an easy target. Storch has coke-bottle spectacles, buck teeth, cartoon at attention posture, ambition to become a priest, is a mommy's boy, afraid of women, and anti-alcoholic. Gazzara's interest in Storch is inexplicable, even if he does hold him down while Olson spanks him with a broom, but as a good part of the film has us trapped in one room (the stage origins show here) while we're supposed to observe how bad Gazzara is, proceedings crawl into tedium. Or perhaps this kind of s/m power play just doesn't hold that much interest for me. The academy rooms have cell-like iron gates in front of the doors, and even though they aren't locked, the film opens with a guard hitting each as he passes, doing a role call. Watch for Gazzara's sci-fi buggy car, which has room in the back for a passenger.

The movie was much less than I expected. I found the
movie to be more boring than something that would catch
and hold a viewer's interest.