The Hill **** (1965, Sean Connery, Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen, Ian Hendry, Alfred Lynch, Roy Kinnear, Michael Redgrave, Ossie Davis, Jack Watson) – Classic Movie Review 2114

Director Sidney Lumet’s distinguished, brutal 1965 military drama The Hill is a showcase for tour de force acting from Sean Connery as Joe Roberts, one of the five new prisoners being punished in a British military stockade in the North African Libyan desert in 1942 during World War Two.

It won one BAFTA Film Award for Best British Cinematography (Black and White) for Oswald Morris, though it had six nominations. Ray Rigby won the Best Screenplay award (tied) at the Cannes Film Festival (1965).

Joe Roberts is a former Squadron Sergeant Major from the Royal Tank Regiment, convicted of assaulting his commanding officer after he was ordered to lead his men in a senseless suicidal attack.

Alfred Lynch, Ossie Davis, Roy Kinnear and Jack Watson also give very fine performances as fellow prisoners stretched till they break by their sadistically strict regimental sergeant major R.S.M. Wilson (Harry Andrews) and nasty guard sergeant Staff Sergeant Williams (Ian Hendry) by making them run up and down the titular hill. Ian Bannen also stars as Harris, a more humane and compassionate guard.

The liberal-minded director Lumet is out to expose institutionalised corruption and malpractice in the military, and, by extension, in other authority institutions, with stark and bleak results. But, thanks to the high quality of the writing, acting, cinematography and direction, it is an extremely compelling and rewarding as well as gruelling film.

Ray Rigby’s screenplay is based on a TV play by Ray Rigby and R S Allen. The Hill is the winner at the 1966 Bafta awards for Best Black and White British Cinematography and joint winner of the 1965 Cannes Film Festival award for Best Screenplay. Rigby also won the 1966 Writers’ Guild of Great Britain award for Best British Dramatic Screenplay. 

The Hill is notable as the first of five Connery – Lumet movie collaborations.

Also in the cast are Michael Redgrave as the Medical Officer, Norman Bird as the Commanding Officer, Neil McCarthy, Howard Goorney and Tony Caunter.

Oswald Morris’s black and white cinematography is just plain masterly. Oswald Morris died on March 17 2014, aged 98. He won a Best Cinematography Oscar for Fiddler on the Roof (1971). He won three Bafta Film Awards, all for black and white movies, all in successive years – The Pumpkin Eater (1964), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and The Hill (1966)  – a dazzling hat trick.

Connery and Lynch previously starred together in On The Fiddle (1961).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2114

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