Steiger's 'Sergeant' Homosexual Study

By EMERSON BATDORFF

Until now the screen's treatment of male homosexuality has been largely limited to snickering at men who walk with a mince.

"The Sergeant" doesn't see the situation in this light. It hits the problem as melodrama. Whether it is good melodrama or not is another question, one that is related only in part to the subject matter.

The movie is a character study of, to put it bluntly, a queer. He never minces, he has no limp wrist, he doesn't lisp. Instead he is a soldier who won the Distinguished Service Cross in the infantry.

But from a few moments after he shows up you can sense that there is something wrong. I got the feel-

"The Sergeant'

A straightforward story of male homosexuality that calls forth forth perhaps too much effort from Rod Steiger. Done with all the taste that its subject mater permits. Adult. 107 min-

utes.

ing, so exquisitely sharp was the acting here, that the sergeant only recently was thus directed and didn't know quite what to make of

t f it himself.

5 The artistry of Rod Stei7ger was never more appartent

ent as he conveys this ; through some secret mechanism that he must possess, a mechanism that is denied {ordinary mortals and most actors.

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True, he later sees the role slightly too broadly for my taste although being Rod Steiger he never lapses into stereotype.

THE SCENE is in a camp in France after the end of World War II. The job of the soldiers, a dreary one, is to store and issue gasoline and oil. They have grown sloppy in their military habits.

Onto a scene marred by trash outside the hutments and dirt in the orderly room strides Steiger, the new first sergeant.

He takes command. The captain in charge is a weakling and the sergeant rides the soldiers as is the manner of all true first sergeants who find trash piled in the company area. But there is a fantaticism to the > joy with which he sets about the work.

Here is it a pleasure to watch Steiger and hate him yet pity him, glorying the while that it is only a movie and you aren't under his control in some far-flung Army post.

But there is obviously something wrong with him. What? His initial pursuit of John Phillip Law, one of the soldier straw bosses over the French civilians who help pile up the gas cans, is devoid of obvious ulterior motive. But still there is a peculiar glint to

situation.

the

Law has a girl friend and

is not interested at all in men, let alone a hateful first sergeant. But the serof wits between the two. geant persists in a fine play (Law, portraying a stolid but likable clod, comes through in this picture better than ever before.)

Obviously here is an explosive situation, a homosexual in virtual charge of men who have no recourse and furthermore can't prove anything.

The idea that the sergeant lusts after one of his men develops only gradually. Finally all doubt is removed. The sergeant grabs the man and kisses him full on the mouth.

There is a later crisis of course, fairly routine in its approach to a solution. It seemed to me that the story by now was concerning itself only with the fact that male homosexuality exists about it. without really saying much

I found it hard to relate to anyone, neither the sergeant nor the poor clod of a soldier. From time to time

Steiger seemed to be hamming a little toward the end, although truly the story seemed to offer him no choice.

Anyhow, I lost interest, as much as I ever can lose interest in a Steiger performance. It's a character study of someone I never met.

Directed by John Flynn, screenplay by Dennis Murphy from his novel. Produced by Robert Goldstone. Warner-7 Arts.

M/Sgt. Callan...................Rod Steiger Pfc. Swanson.... ....John Phillip Low Solange. Ludmilla Mikael Capt. Loring. .Frank Latimore Pop Elliott Sullivan

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