The Hill (1965)

The Hill (1965)

starring Sean Connery, Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen

directed by Sidney Lumet

123 minutes 

Joe Roberts (Sean Connery), a former Sergeant Major who has been reduced in rank and sentenced to time in a British military prison in North Africa during World War 2, becomes one of the pet cases of Williams, one of the correctional officers at the prison. Roberts and four other prisoners are punished mercilessly until Stevens, one of the other four prisoners drops dead but life doesn’t get any better for Roberts and the other three prisoners as the death is ruled to be accidental.

Williams is the protégé of Regimental Sergeant Major Wilson (Harry Andrews), the senior non-commissioned officer in the prison. Williams sadism pushes way beyond what Wilson intended but Wilson stands by his man and refuses to hear anything that casts Williams in a bad light, despite knowing that Williams has gone too far. 

Harris (Ian Bannen), another correctional officer, tries unsuccessfully to get RSM Wilson to hold Williams responsible for what happened. 

Things start to unravel for Williams and Wilson after Williams, with some help from a couple other correctional officers, beats up Roberts pretty badly and the prison’s medical officer finally wakes up to what is really going on and listens to Roberts’ and Harris’ accounts of what really happened to Stevens.

Thoughts

The titular hill is always there but it figures most prominently in the first hour of the movie.

The opening shot of this movie is quite breathtaking. It starts focused in on one prisoner climbing the hill and then pulls back further. I'm not sure exactly how they did it given the state of technology in the mid 1960s.

Ossie Davis plays one of the other four prisoners who shares a cell with Joe Roberts. I have seen him in several other movies. His character in this film has quite a journey.

Wilson eventually comes to see that Williams has gone too far but he never fully accepts responsibility for his role in enabling Williams’ brutal behavior. 

This is not a perfect movie. Things start to move very fast towards the end. Sean Connery delivers a good performance but I think Harry Andrews' performance as RSM Wilson is the one I would single out in this film. 

This is not an upbeat movie. It doesn’t exactly have a happy or fully satisfying ending. It was a gripping movie. It held my attention. I didn’t foresee the ending.