Let's be realistic.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

***SPOILERS*** This'll be brief. The ONLY reason to watch this bomb is delectable Sophia. I saw it when I was twelve years old, she was hotter than any stupid old cannon that anybody wanted. I didn't understand why they didn't bump off Mr. Grant along with Mr. Sinatra; they were expendable, anyway. But Sophia? Gimmie a break, Hollywood. The lack of conscience in such an oversight is impossible to fathom, even now. A gross miscarriage of hotness. I give Sophia a 10+, and the movie a 7 - only because of her.

Here was Kramer's first chance to make a great motion picture and as a big classic-Hollywood-studio-epic-period-adventure he does a fine job: big, good looking, complicated crowd and action scenes. But...(Confidential!) The studio gave him Sinatra, who had no business being cast as a Spanish peasant and who only took the job (from a real actor) to be able to keep track of Ava Gardener while she was filming in Spain. In the meantime, Grant was distracted by heavy Sophia lust...(She says he never got any!) If you like the stars, if you like old fashioned Hollywood, if you like Napoleonic adventures, it entertains.

Where was Eli Wallach? Where was J. Carrol Naish? Where was anyone else the day Frank Sinatra was cast as a Spaniard in The Pride and the Passion? You know me, I love Frank Sinatra's acting career even more than his singing career, so if I tell you his performance was terrible, it really was. You don't have to waste two and a half hours of your time to find out if I'm right.Stanley Kramer, three years before his epic Spartacus, took on The Pride and the Passion, an epic Napoleonic war movie. Yes, there are thousands of extras, on-location filming, extensive battle scenes, and Cary Grant in a uniform. But the movie stinks. Sophia Loren, at only twenty-three-years-old, spent virtually the entire movie showing off her bosom to the audience, and despite their real-life affair, there were no sparks flying between her and Cary Grant. And given the choice between Cary Grant in a uniform and Frank Sinatra in schlumpy clothes and a laughable accent, is there really any suspense? So much for a love triangle. I can't recommend this movie, unless you really love tedious war epics.

The huge, ponderous canon is an apt metaphor for a lumbering, ponderous movie with almost nothing going for it despite a trio of 'stars' who were also accomplished actors - when they put their minds to it - spectacular scenery and, on paper, a 'bowy own paper' adventure story just made to put bums on seats. Alas, Edward and Edna Anhalt, the husband-and-wife writing team failed to add any flair to C.S. Forrester's staid novel, The Gun, least of all believably dialogue and the lack of chemistry between all three leads has to be seen to be believed, especially since the woman in question was Sophia Loren, who enjoyed a passionate off-screen romance with Grant but incredibly brought none of the fire onto the set. Sinatra more or less phoned it in and I speak as a lifelong admirer of both his singing and acting. In sum: one to miss.