The Sergeant - Strangest Army Buddy Film Ever Made! Friday nite!

This week, cats and chicks, the Trash Palace unearths another forgotten gem from one of the screen's biggest icons.

Rod Steiger is one of those actors that means different things to different people. He was an Oscar winner (for In The Heat of the Night in 1967) and he was in several classic films like On the Waterfront and The Pawnbroker.

He was also in movies that have become cult favourites over the years like The Big Knife with Jack Palance, and the Sergio Leone spaghetti western Duck You Sucker.

He's even done crazy genre pictures like The Amityville Horror, The Illustrated Man (which saw him covered head to toe in tattoos) and Mars Attacks!

He's played Napoleon (Waterloo 1970), Pontius Pilate (Jesus of Nazareth 1977), WC Fields (WC Fields and Me 1976) and Benito Mussolini (The Last Four Days 1974).

Well, all that pales in comparison to The Sergeant.

Looking at Steiger's resume of work, it's obvious that he liked taking roles that would challenge him. The Sergeant certainly falls into that category. Basically, he plays a troubled homosexual sergeant who is in love with a private in his group. The entire film builds around Steiger trying to seduce this young man. And that's all I'm going to tell you.

This is an amazing little film that slipped through the cracks at the time because a lot of the viewing public and critics alike weren't ready for this kind of portrayal. Sure, it suffers from some stereotyping and an ending that seems to have been the norm for this kind of thing back then, but it's still one hell of a riveting movie.

Perhaps one of the reasons it didn't do so well was the way the studio presented it in this somewhat freakish trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSg93iamz8M&feature=related

Can your heart stand it? One more weakness, indeed.

So come on down to the Trash Palace this Friday night, October 7, and check out one of Rod Steiger's most dynamic performances as the crazed and often liquored up Sergeant Albert Callan.

Can Private Swanson (John Philip Law) resist The Sergeant? What about his beautiful French girlfriend Solange (Ludmila Mikael)? You have to be there to find out!!!

Oh, and as a special bonus, you get to see blues great Memphis Slim on piano in one of the club scenes!!

Be there, so says The Mouth!

Doors 8:30 pm, films 9:30 pm

Pay at the door - 89-B Niagara Street, two blocks south of King at Bathurst!