We all have an idea of what must be the quintessential Sergeant Major regardless of our nation and armed forces.
There have been hundreds of military films rolled out over the decades.
Whose portrayal do you consider the best fit, and from which film?
Here are a couple of contenders for the Brits:
Richard Attenborough - RSM Lauderdale
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=u23WcWVU3lA
Nigel Green - Colour Sergeant Bourne
Not of WW2 but my fave is definitely Sam Elliot as “Sergeant Major Basil Plumley” in We Were Soldiers. Classic, gnarly performance.:evil:
Windsor Davies in “it ain’t half hot mum”.
Seriously what about James Coburn as Sgt Steiner.
I thought of mentioning him but in “Cross of Iron” (part one) he was promoted to “Feldwebel” which means only “Warrant Officer” IIRC…
Although he’s the (acting) First Sergeant and not the Sergeant Major, I think Burt Lancaster’s Milton Warden “From Here to Eternity” is one of the all time classic NCO portrayals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tku9IPqebTs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W6AGM-LxGY
And Senn Penn, quite far from his Spicole role :D, also is very good as 1SGT Welsh in the film adaption of James Jones’ other WWII novel, “The Thin Red Line.”
I always rather liked this chap from The Bridge on the River Kwai:
The Physical Training Instuctor at the training camp is Mr Idwal Edwards from the little fishing village of Ferryside, Carmarthenshire, Wales. I believe he was a serving soldier possibly still so at the time of filming. I know this because he was a friend to my late father also of Ferryside. I am sad that Mr Edward’s name does not appear in the credits, or have i missed it? He had two sons and a daughter, i went to school with his youngest son also at Ferryside. I feel he played a very important part in the film so again as previously said feel sad that he was not named in the credits. Thank you for allowing me to address this issue.
there is one chap who remains legend in the British Army. To find an actor with the presence to portray him in a film would be quite an undertaking, as is so for many real-life Senior NCO’s and Warrant Officers.
“He is the Lord up there…and I am the Lord down here!!”
RSM John Clifford ‘JC’ Lord MVO MBE of the 3rd Bn. Grenadier Guards and the 3rd Bn. Parachute Regiment.
http://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/Biog1/John_Lord_5.htm
Captured at Arnhem:
When a party of officers paid the camp its first visit on the day of liberation they found a guard which was faultlessly turned out and which “could have gone on duty at Buckingham Palace and done credit to its corps.”
Then a majestic figure appeared, the R.S.M. himself. Gleaming brass, immaculate webbing, razor-edge trouser creases, dazzling boots, a spectacular salute.
Fabulous shot of him in jump gear with Pace-stick, meeting the King. 
http://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/john_lord.htm
http://www.cthighlanders.co.za/cth/Pacestick.htm
RS might like this link - Worth scrolling down to the World Pace-Sticking Championships.
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-equip/pace-stick.htm
The origin of the pace stick is claimed by the Royal Regiment of Artillery, who used a “gunner’s stick” to measure the distance between guns in the field. It appeared more like a walking stick, with an ivory or silver knob on the end, and, unlike the modern pace stick, could only be opened a fixed distance. It was quickly adopted and adapted by the Infantry as an aid to drill.
By the way, does anyone know if Armies of non-British ancestary use any equivalent to the Pace-stick?
Agree with 32B and FTG in posts #1 and #2.
Here’s another great RSM in what should be regarded as a minor classic film: “The Hill” set in a military prison in WWII. Two RSMs are in it, Harry Andrews as SarMajor Wilson on the prison admin side and Sean Connery as a former SSM reduced to the ranks and sent to the prison for assaulting an officer.
Excellent film and portrayals RS. Considered them, but as I’d posted so much I thought I’d give someone else a chance.
Our RSM was the very model of a magnificent warrant officer.
Various decorations up to MM from Korea to Vietnam; crisp in every respect; shaved to 1/16" below the skin from eye socket to collar bone; and, as it was an armoured unit, the possessor of the most impressive ebony pace stick with chrome or maybe silver fittings.
When he marched onto the parade ground with that gleaming pace stick under his arm and perfectly parallel with the ground, he just inspired everyone to stand a bit straighter and taller by the way his bearing expressed his pride in his office and unit. A bloke who led by some mystical example and rarely needed to shout, and if he did he’d just as likely take you aside later on and explain how you’d stuffed up and how not to do it again.
Not bad for a bloke who’d had one of his balls blown off by a land mine in Vietnam a few years earlier.
There’s someone like Harry Andrews or Stanley Baker floating around in my mind as an RSM in a film based in ?Burma where a British ?fire or ?patrol ?base is just out of range of Japanese MG or rifle fire, but blokes have to go out at times. There’s a scene in it where a bloke goes out to retrieve a canister or something similar from a parachute drop and is being cheered on by the blokes at base as he makes a heroic run to the object and ?almost makes it back when he’s shot.
Ring any bells?
I wonder if it’s A Hill in Korea? I saw this film years ago and have barely any recollection of it. I believe it was the first film in which Michael Caine played a role.
Then, there’s Richard Todd with ‘The Long And The Short And The Tall’
Richard Todd (nacknamed ‘Sweeney’) was a Para, landed at the Orne River on D-Day. Saw him once relate a story of meeting up with a fellow Lieutenant in the Paras, named Sweeney, nicknamed ‘Todd’ - very British.
No, I think it was WWII, Asian jungle, so it’s probably Burma as it’s British.
A title something like “The Line” perhaps, but I googled that and nothing relevant came up.
Will have to dig into the old grey archives on that one.
Meanwhile:
this classic British war film features a host of star names including George Baker, Stanley Baker, Harry Andrews, Michael Medwin and Robert Shaw - and introducing Michael Caine in his first film role.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hill-Korea-George-Baker/dp/B000065UG7
By the way. 32B is poorly today and not at work. 
Not an RSM, but still a good senior NCO character was Lee Marvin as the platoon sergeant in Big Red One.
This is a film which, while burdened with some of the usual Hollywood war film stereotypes, manages to rise above the trite and examines some of the complexities of war and soldiers’ conduct in it.
Marvin has added authority as, unlike some Hollywood actors who played heroic military roles, he served and was wounded (unglamorously, as he liked to point out, in the arse, :D, although it was actually quite a serious wound which could have crippled him for life) in the Pacific as a Marine.
Harry Andrews continued to play most officer types including the platoon sergeant Payne in A Hill in Korea (1956):
You’d like my job better. I only go in on the days I’m crook, because I have better things to do than work when I’m firing on all cylinders. 
Anyway, let me be the first of your many mates here to extend our sympathy to you, courageously struggling to your keyboard to remain in contact with your cyber mates as the pall of death lingers over you on your bed of pain. [pretend sympathy emoticon inserted here as I can’t find a suitable emoticon]
On a less sympathetic note, has it occurred to you that if you didn’t go plunging naked around the Brecon Beacons or whatever form of pointless masochism you engage in in your spare time, you wouldn’t have caught a cold? 
I’ve never had a cold from immersing myself in recreational pursuits, unless, of course, it’s been on account of exchanging oral fluids (and perhaps some nasal, but who cares when one is throbbing with pure sexual energy) with some sweet thing.
I wouldn’t know from personal experience, but I believe that some of the best todger stiffeners are in nasal spray form. Beats me how a sniff makes you stiff, but that’s modern science for you.
[No, I will not countenance the obvious retort about a sniff making you stiff. People of delicate sensibilities, like PK, might still be up past their bedtime. :D]
Just a whiff usually does it for me.
[No, I will not countenance the obvious retort about a sniff making you stiff. People of delicate sensibilities, like PK, might still be up past their bedtime. :D]
You believe PK does get it up, then? :shock: