The Strange One is a 1957 film about a military academy in the South (of the United States). The film is based on a novel and stage play by Calder Willingham called End as a Man, and the film is sometimes called by that name.
The cast includes Ben Gazzara, George Peppard, Pat Hingle, Geoffrey Horne, James Olson, and Larry Gates. The film was produced by Sam Spiegel, directed by Herb Gardner and Jack Garfein and is noteworthy due to the entire acting and technical staff being from the Actors Studio of New York City.
The film focuses on the dehumanization and bullying associated with the tradition of hazing within the academy, and is noteworthy for its portrayal of homoerotic themes and, at least one homosexual character, at a time when the Hayes Code prohibited such expression.
Length: 100 minutes. Format: Black and White. Filmed in USA.
Jocko De Paris (Ben Gazzara), cadet leader in a Southern military academy, so manipulates events that George Avery, Jr. (Geoffrey Horne), son of the school's executive officer, is found drunk and expelled. Through various pressures, Jocko silences such involuntary accomplices as his roommate Harold Koble (Pat Hingle), football star Roger Gatt (James Olson)and freshmen Robert Marquales (George Peppard) and Maynard Simmons (Arthur Storch), a girl-fearing cadet whom Jocko terrorizes into dating Rosebud (Julie Wilson), a town girl. Written by Les Adams
