Ben Gazzara is Jocko de Paris, a senior cadet at a military school and a real sadistic rat. His fellow students include some familiar names including Pat Hingle and George Peppard. This is one of those military schools in which senior cadets constantly rag the plebes, making them do and say foolish things, within reason. The problem is that Gazzara doesn't seem to recognize the limits of the permissable. At the very beginning, he sets up a phony poker game to cheat a rather dull football-playing senior, James Olson, out of ninety-some dollars -- after they get Olson drunk.
So far, so good. But then we are sort of blindsided by a shift in the plot. The bilking of Olson is shunted aside as Gazzara pounds on the wall in a deliberate attempt to arouse the cadet, Geoffrey Horne, sleeping in the next room -- knowing all the while that Horne, the son of the commanding officer, is bound to report the noisy and illegal goings on. Horne duly reports the ruckus but when the guards investigate, all seems to have been restored to normal.
Then some important events occur but are elided from the narrative. At the next morning's roll call, Horne is absent but is found bloody and drunk elsewhere on the campus. Subsequent dialog, which is a little fuzzy, indicates that Jocko de Paris beat Horne unconscious, then shoved a tube down into his belly and poured whiskey into it from a douche bag. Peppard, Hingle, Richards, and Olson were also involved somehow, but it's not clear how. "The room was so dark Ah didn't know whut was happenin'," explains Hingle.
Anyhow, Horne is convicted of enough offenses to get him expelled, which happens apace, though it breaks his father's heart (Larry Gates, not the only 50s utility player with no discernible talent).
Does Gazzara feel any remorse? Like heck. Then why did he do it, having nothing against Geoffrey Horne to begin with? He did it because he enjoys seeing people in pain, a statement that reminds me a little of my marriage, so better to say Gazzara did it for reasons similar to those of the two dudes who first climbed Mount Everest. Or maybe Rhoda in "The Bad Seed." Not only does Gazzara get another cadet kicked out, but when Hingle questions him about the ethics of the deed, Gazzara tells him that he, Hingle, will be held responsible as the ringleader. "I used to think you was a card, Jocko, and you are. You the ace of spades, boy." Well, very briefly, the other cadets involved have a crisis of conscience, and confess to the cadets' honor society. They kidnap Gazzara after making him sign a confession, blindfold him, tote him around while he threatens them and screams with fear, and dump him on a train that departs the town. The end.
It's an interesting film for a number of reasons, if not an especially important one. The problems dealt with seem rather minor in some ways. We don't get to know Goeffrey Horne's victim at all, so his victimization is drained of some of its dramatic potential. And although we want to see Jocko punished for his misdeeds, it would be nicer if the system itself handed out justice. Instead we have to rely on a couple of dozen cadets who take matters into their own hands, coercing a confession out of Gazzara and then committing crimes in the course of getting rid of him. Gazzara aptly compares them to the Ku Kux Klan. The plot also isn't true to itself. Throughout, Gazzara has displayed cunning and self discipline, yet at the end is shrieking with horror, whining not to be hurt, babbling beggarly pleas. The climax would have been more effective had Gazzara faced his punishment bravely, if not necessarily with dignity.
What's interesting about it is seeing so many familiar faces so near the beginnings of their careers. Can you imagine Pat Hingle as a young military cadet? Or James Olson with a full head of hair? Gazzara gives what is probably his best performance as the sinister, sadistic Jocko, although his outrageous hamminess as Al Capone later in his career, an imitation Marlon Brando, his cheeks stuffed with what appear to be rolls of toilet paper, is much funnier. There are also intimations of homosexuality on the part of two of the cadets. (One is not very covert.) There were to be a number of films in the two decades to follow that were set among the cadet community at The Citadel or somewhere, splashier than this one, but this was an original by Calder Willingham. The one I enjoy most, actually, is an episode in the TV series "Colombo," called "Dawn's Early Light." The heavy is Patrick McGoohan and in his acting he outshines anyone else in any of the military cadet movies.
So far, so good. But then we are sort of blindsided by a shift in the plot. The bilking of Olson is shunted aside as Gazzara pounds on the wall in a deliberate attempt to arouse the cadet, Geoffrey Horne, sleeping in the next room -- knowing all the while that Horne, the son of the commanding officer, is bound to report the noisy and illegal goings on. Horne duly reports the ruckus but when the guards investigate, all seems to have been restored to normal.
Then some important events occur but are elided from the narrative. At the next morning's roll call, Horne is absent but is found bloody and drunk elsewhere on the campus. Subsequent dialog, which is a little fuzzy, indicates that Jocko de Paris beat Horne unconscious, then shoved a tube down into his belly and poured whiskey into it from a douche bag. Peppard, Hingle, Richards, and Olson were also involved somehow, but it's not clear how. "The room was so dark Ah didn't know whut was happenin'," explains Hingle.
Anyhow, Horne is convicted of enough offenses to get him expelled, which happens apace, though it breaks his father's heart (Larry Gates, not the only 50s utility player with no discernible talent).
Does Gazzara feel any remorse? Like heck. Then why did he do it, having nothing against Geoffrey Horne to begin with? He did it because he enjoys seeing people in pain, a statement that reminds me a little of my marriage, so better to say Gazzara did it for reasons similar to those of the two dudes who first climbed Mount Everest. Or maybe Rhoda in "The Bad Seed." Not only does Gazzara get another cadet kicked out, but when Hingle questions him about the ethics of the deed, Gazzara tells him that he, Hingle, will be held responsible as the ringleader. "I used to think you was a card, Jocko, and you are. You the ace of spades, boy." Well, very briefly, the other cadets involved have a crisis of conscience, and confess to the cadets' honor society. They kidnap Gazzara after making him sign a confession, blindfold him, tote him around while he threatens them and screams with fear, and dump him on a train that departs the town. The end.
It's an interesting film for a number of reasons, if not an especially important one. The problems dealt with seem rather minor in some ways. We don't get to know Goeffrey Horne's victim at all, so his victimization is drained of some of its dramatic potential. And although we want to see Jocko punished for his misdeeds, it would be nicer if the system itself handed out justice. Instead we have to rely on a couple of dozen cadets who take matters into their own hands, coercing a confession out of Gazzara and then committing crimes in the course of getting rid of him. Gazzara aptly compares them to the Ku Kux Klan. The plot also isn't true to itself. Throughout, Gazzara has displayed cunning and self discipline, yet at the end is shrieking with horror, whining not to be hurt, babbling beggarly pleas. The climax would have been more effective had Gazzara faced his punishment bravely, if not necessarily with dignity.
What's interesting about it is seeing so many familiar faces so near the beginnings of their careers. Can you imagine Pat Hingle as a young military cadet? Or James Olson with a full head of hair? Gazzara gives what is probably his best performance as the sinister, sadistic Jocko, although his outrageous hamminess as Al Capone later in his career, an imitation Marlon Brando, his cheeks stuffed with what appear to be rolls of toilet paper, is much funnier. There are also intimations of homosexuality on the part of two of the cadets. (One is not very covert.) There were to be a number of films in the two decades to follow that were set among the cadet community at The Citadel or somewhere, splashier than this one, but this was an original by Calder Willingham. The one I enjoy most, actually, is an episode in the TV series "Colombo," called "Dawn's Early Light." The heavy is Patrick McGoohan and in his acting he outshines anyone else in any of the military cadet movies.