Themes: Fathers and Sons, Military Life, Fathers and Daughters
Main Cast: Robert Duvall, Blythe Danner, Michael O'Keefe, Lisa Jane Persky, Julie Anne Haddock
Release Year: 1979
Country: US
Run Time: 118 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Bull Meechum (Robert Duvall) loves fighting almost as much as he loves the Marine Corps. Profane, cocky, and arrogant, he's a great fighter pilot -- and he knows it. His boss hates his guts, but knows that if he's going to straighten out his lagging squadron, Meechum is the man to do it. The story and irony of The Great Santini is in Meechum's total intolerance of family life and fatherhood. Meechum has a lovely, supportive wife, Lillian (Blythe Danner), an earnest, likeable son, Ben (Michael O'Keefe), three smaller children, and a good home, but Meechum finds the pastoral nature of peacetime totally incompatible with his gung-ho nature. So he begins to drink. He drills his family unmercifully, like recruits. He hammers his son relentlessly until, in a basketball game, his son fights back, and the family cheers Ben's efforts. Tension builds in the household until, during one drunken night, Meechum breaks down. Based on a best-selling novel by Pat Conroy, The Great Santini earned critical raves but fared poorly at the box office. Duvall's performance as Meechum is generally regarded as one of his greatest. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide
Review
Lewis John Carlino brings Pat Conroy's novel about a top Marine pilot who terrorizes his family vibrantly to life. Robert Duvall stars as the tyrannical Bull Meechum, a cocky fighter pilot who has trouble adjusting to a desk job and domestic life. He runs the family with the same military precision he has always brought to his job, and is unable to express his love for them in any normal way. While making the negative effects of the pilot's behavior on the entire family clear, the film concentrates on his competitive relationship with his sensitive teenaged son, Ben (Michael O'Keefe). The two play an ongoing sequence of emotion-laden games of one-on-one basketball, which reach an ugly climax when the boy defeats the father for the first time, a rite of passage. The film later tries to back away from Bull's near-psychotic reaction to this experience, and his attempt to humiliate his son, couching his behavior in good-old-boy clichés which are now difficult to swallow, and it simply trails off into a series of vignettes and sentimentality.Duvall resists all attempts to make this character attractive in one of the best outings of his career. Blythe Danner as his wife and O'Keefe are also superb. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
Brian Andrews - Matthew Meechum; Theresa Merritt - Arrabelle Smalls; Stan Shaw - Toomer Smalls; David Keith - Red Pettus; Paul Mantee - Col. Virgil Hedgepath; Nancy Black - Cheerleader; Joe Dorsey - Coach Spinks; David Frankham - Captain Weber; Al Garcia - Pedro; Paul Gleason - Lieutenant Sammy; Lew Horn - Captain Brookout; Bill Nelson - 1st Cousin; Michael Rougas - Colonel Muillnax; Michael Strong - Colonel Varney; Ronnie Cross - Honor Guard Sergeant; Bennett Liss - Corporal Atcherly; Jan Stratton - Mrs. Weber; Lisa Collins - Cheerleader; David Simmons - Basketball Player
Credit
Edward D. Markley - First Assistant Director, Lewis John Carlino - Director, Houseley Stevenson, Jr. - Editor, Elmer Bernstein - Composer (Music Score), John S. Poplin - Production Designer, Jack Poplin - Production Designer, Ralph A. Woolsey - Cinematographer, Charles A. Pratt - Producer, Jeff Haley - Set Designer, Don Sullivan - Set Designer, Lee Alexander - Sound/Sound Designer, Lewis John Carlino - Screenwriter, Herman Raucher - Screenwriter, Pat Conroy - Book Author
The script was adapted by Lewis John Carlino from the novel by Pat Conroy, with assistance from an un-credited Herman Raucher. Carlino directed the film. The title character, Lt. Col. Wilbur "Bull" Meechum, aka "The Great Santini," was based on Conroy's father.
The story, for the most part, follows the book. As with most movies based on books, there is some material left out. The movie's major divergence is the absence of Sammy, Ben Meechum's Jewish best friend. The spelling of the family's name is also changed from Meecham to Meechum.
Warner Bros. released this film in 1979 for a brief time under an alternate title, The Ace.
