Never So Few (1959)

Interesting facts

• Based on: Never So Few
• Filmed in: Culver City, Sri Lanka, India, and Myanmar

Never So Few is a 1959 CinemaScope Metrocolor war film directed by John Sturges and starring Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lawford, Steve McQueen, Richard Johnson, Paul Henreid, Brian Donlevy, Dean Jones, Charles Bronson and Philip Ahn, and featuring uncredited roles by renowned Asian actors Mako, George Takei and James Hong. The script is loosely based on an actual OSS Detachment 101 incident recorded in a 1957 novel by Tom T. Chamales. Sinatra's character of Captain Tom Reynolds is based on a real OSS officer and, later, sheriff of Sangamon County, Illinois, U.S. Navy Lt. Meredith Rhule.

Production

Rat Pack cohort Sammy Davis Jr. was originally slated to play McQueen's role, but Sinatra replaced him after Davis criticized Sinatra during a radio interview. (In a similar move, Sinatra later recast the role of Rat Pack colleague Peter Lawford after Lawford failed to deliver his brother-in-law, President John F.

McQueen was known at the time primarily for the television series Wanted Dead or Alive and the horror movie The Blob. Never So Few marked his introduction to working with director John Sturges, who went on to cast McQueen in his breakout movie role the following year as second lead in The Magnificent Seven, and later as the motorcycle-jumping lead in the classic, The Great Escape.

Richard Johnson had been put under contract by MGM.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.