The Sand Pebbles. Jerry Goldsmith

Gunboat San Pablo has no clear mission and has fallen into a state of ease with Chinese locals doing all the work. Lazily patrolling a Chinese backwater amid a civil war, the gunboat gets a new engineer, Jake Holman (Steve McQueen). Jake has been a rebel and has a history of numerous transfers. He is despised by almost all the crew mates except by Frenchy Burgoyne (Richard Attenborough). Holman is implicated in an incident which could cause the start of an all out war, and as such places him in a bad position with his shipmates. Amidst all of this turmoil, two romances occur, the first between Holman's colleague, good-hearted Frenchy Burgoyne and a slave girl named Maily (Emmanuelle Arsan), and the second between Holman and missionary schoolteacher, Shirley Eckert (Candice Bergen). Both romances face major obstacles.

The “Main Title”, which plays as a threnody at the opening credits roll, is a masterpiece cue, one of the most compelling openings in film score history. Goldsmith establishes a truly dark and portentous ambiance by opening to a repeating triplet of violins tragico with a temple bell counter. He then introduces the tragic four-note Bird-call Motif on ruan. A gamelan bridge returns us to the repeating triplet with the temple bell replaced with a powerful resonating bass chord and the ten-note rhythmic wood block Chinese Motif. A plaintive solo oboe with kindred woodwinds establishes the melodic line as the deep bass chords and wood block percussion continue. When violins assume the theme the music swells and conveys a painful pathos that is just heart wrenching. We come to a diminuendo closure upon woodwinds adorned with a sparkling crotales flourish.