THE GREAT SANTINI arrived in theaters in the fall of 1979. Given the hell-for-breakfast title character and the blast furnace incarnation of him by Robert Duvall it would be fitting to say ‘roared in’ rather than arrived, but the unfortunate reality was that it ‘trickled in’, thanks to a bungled release schedule; the $4,000,000 production only made $9,200,000, tagging a low-ball #68 at the box office. But critics liked it, two well-deserved Academy Award nominations came up and fans of Pat Conroy’s semi-autobiographical novel were pleased with the adaptation, written & directed by Lewis John Carlino.

“I am the Great Santini. I am the gift of God to the United States Marine Corps.”

Beaufort, South Carolina, 1962. Career Marine Corps fighter pilot ‘Wilbur “Bull” Meacham’ (Duvall, 48) may be between wars, but he’s never really at peace, indulging in macho pranks to burnish his self-justifying legend as a hardcase. His rowdiness veers from asinine to abusive, with his family taking the brunt of his behavior doctrine and hair-trigger temper. Wife ‘Lillian’ (Blythe Danner) and four children put up with it, coping in their individual styles. Off the base and out of a cockpit, most of Bull’s domestic focus goes into priming/goading/bullying 18-year old ‘Ben’ (Michael O’Keefe, 23) who Bull presumes/insists will join the Corps and ‘man up’; he ignores to the point of distraction gawky teenage daughter ‘Mary Anne’ (Lisa Jane Persky (23, feature debut). The younger kids (played by Julie Ann Haddock, 14, and Brian Andrews, 12) watch, obey and wonder. Lillian carries loyalty and forgiveness into resignation and docility. Mary Anne affects faux dramatic cynicism to mask her hurt. Ben,  smart, sensitive and a star athlete, bends to the breaking point, and rupture arrives when his friend ‘Toomer Smalls’ (Stan Shaw, 26) has serious trouble with local lout ‘Red Pettus’ (David Keith (24, debut); Toomer, their housekeeper’s son, is a kind soul who lives in a trailer with a pack of hounds and is afflicted by a stutter. He also happens to be black, and Red is a vicious redneck racist.

“Squirt the tears for me, Ben! You know you’re my favorite daughter!”

It’s the best film made from a Conroy novel: Conrack, from “The Water Is Wide”, was fair, The Lords Of Discipline a real letdown, and big hit The Prince Of Tides a mixed bag, with Nick Nolte superb, director/co-star Barbra Streisand overbearing, the terrific book eviscerated to showcase her ego. Lewis John Carlino was a gifted screenwriter (Seconds, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden, Resurrection); he only directed three times; The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea and Class amount to little, but he did quite well by this, and author Conroy was happy with the script, which Carlino had to condense from the book’s 536 pages into a viable running time. Conroy’s really hard-Corps father Don, who Bull was based on, later joked that thru the role he, Don, made Duvall a star. Don was…a piece of work. “Chow down on me, hogs.”

Danner evinces a quiet grace, Shaw is charming (neat ambush with those beehives, Toomer!), Persky very funny with her sarcastic (and considering her target, risky) jibes. Acting for six years, O’Keefe had logged a dozen roles on TV but just one small part in a feature (Gray Lady Down); he banged it out of the park as Ben, drawing an Oscar nomination as Supporting Actor, joining Duvall, who was nominated for Best Actor. For some reason, though it premiered (in Beaufort) during August of ’79, the nominations were on the 1980 roll. O’Keefe’s troubled son lost to another, Timothy Hutton, as one of the Ordinary People. Irony on the job, Hutton had tried out for the role in Santini and was turned down. Duvall was passed over for De Niro’s Raging Bull, a caveman who made Bull seem like Mr. Rogers. O’Keefe went on to the fun of Caddyshack and much film and TV work (we like the sleeper adventure Nate and Hayes); while many more people know him from his laid back ‘Danny’ in Caddyshack, his boy-into-man Ben is a model of decency under fire. Duvall would later walk off with an Academy statue for Tender Mercies. That movie is so low-key it almost put me into a coma: we’ll take Bull by his horns any day of the week; there’s not a false atom in his dissection of a man whose masculinity is so toxic it burns the people who should feel safe with him; you might want this guy on your side in a firefight, but having him for a father or husband would leave you with non-combat PTSD. *

MARY ANNE: “Hey Dad, why do you love me more than your other children?”  BULL: “Beat it, I’m reading the sports page.”   MARY ANNE: “Let’s have a conversation Dad. Let’s bare our souls and get to know one another.”   BULL: “I don’t want you to get to know me. I like being an enigma, like a Chink. Now scram.”    MARY ANNE: “Am I a Meechum, Dad? Can girls be real Meechums; girls without jump shots? Or am a simple form of Meechum, like in biology. Mary Anne, the one-celled Meechum.”    BULL: “Mary Anne scram, I’m starting to lose my temper; Lilian!”   MARY ANNE: [falls to the ground] “Dad, I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant by a negro Daddy. His name is Rufus, I didn’t wanna tell you but since we’re baring our souls to each other. Rufus is a pacifist; a pacifist homosexual.”   BULL: “Jesus H. Christ! Lilian, I’m going to the club. I’ll see you all at the game! I can’t stand it around here!”   MARY ANNE: “But you’ll get to like him after awhile Dad. Dwarfs are easy to like, especially when they’re bald and cross-eyed… Dad… Dad…Dad!”

If that house (built in 1853) that the Meacham’s occupy looks familiar, it’s because a few years later it would also host The Big Chill. Elmer Bernstein contributed the unobtrusive score. The Great Santini runs 115 minutes, straight & true with humor, hurt and heart. In the supporting cast are Paul Mantee, Paul Gleason, Theresa Merritt, Joe Dorsey and Michael Strong. It’s also got the most cathartic justice-by-canine pack scene this side of Game Of Thrones.

* Duty-bound—-the production suits (Orion, released thru Warner’s) blew it. Figuring audiences would think the title referred to a circus, they tried it out as Sons And Heroes, Reaching Out and The Ace, then sold it to HBO. A brief re-release attempt with the original title started to gain traction, then the HBO deal swiped that away. How that FUBAR figured with the Oscars is left to another JAG detective to solve. At any rate, 1979 did get Duvall a nomination, for Apocalypse Now, another merrily maniacal military man who probably wouldn’t be swell to share a living space with but sure as surfin’ knew victory when he smelled it.

.