It's a cleverly written story of morality in war time. Stanley Baker is the authoritarian Army captain of one of those lost patrols in Burma during the war, thirty-odd raggedy men, some wounded, slogging through the swamps. As war correspondent Leo McKern puts it, "I don't know where the enemy is and I don't know where our troops are." They stumble across a tiny Burmese village occupied by the Japanese. There is a brisk fire fight and the village is taken. Baker finds what appears to be an important map on a dead enemy colonel but he doesn't know what the lines and symbols mean. He's convinced that one of the villagers can interpret the map but when the prisoner refuses to talk Baker has two innocent villagers executed, just to show he means business. The villager reveals all. The map is the plan of a Japanese attack. So, having gotten the information he wanted, Baker has the prisoner killed.
Baker tries various ways of getting the information to his command but the radio doesn't work and the messengers he sends out are ambushed and killed. The Japanese retake the village and kill all but a handful of British soldiers. The Japanese major, Philip Ahn, is a civilized man but he wants to know if the British have discovered the plans for the Japanese attack. Ahn threatens to execute the remaining prisoners if Baker doesn't give up the information he wants. Baker sacrifices his own life, hoping to save those of his remaining men, but the men are shot and killed anyway.
It's obviously a thought-provoking movie in a middle-brow kind of way. There's nothing particularly subtle about it. It's all spelled out for us. Is it worth the possible sacrifice of thousands of fellow soldiers in order to save the lives of a few? It's like Captain Queeg going crazy in the middle of the typhoon. Do you violate every law you've promised to respect in order to save the ship? What a conundrum, and it's all dumped in Stanley Baker's authoritarian lap.
The British, of course, have signed the Geneva Conventions, which forbids the killing of innocent people or of prisoners of war. Japan never signed the Geneva Conventions but in 1942 agreed to abide by its terms. In this instance, both Baker and Ahn reject the Conventions and opt instead for moral nihilism -- the idea that there are no fixed moral rules, and that the only norm is expediency. When Baker makes a vain attempt to reach the radio and dies, Ahn looks down at the body, nods, and says, "That's exactly what I would have done." The story was a TV movie before it was made into a feature, and it shows. It could easily have been a stage play. There's no real sense of movement. The village, the jungle surrounding it, and the swamp, are all studio bound. The backdrop has palm trees painted on it. The ground is sometimes covered with machine-generated fog. There is never any wind, so smoke rises vertically. Shooting a war movie on a set isn't necessarily the kiss of death. Some combat scenes have been fairly good on sound stages, as "Bataan" was. And I think the most gripping scene of combat I've ever watched on film was in John Garfield's "The Pride of the Marines", shot at Warners.
But this movie is truly static. And the make up department was unimaginative. Everyone is bearded and shabby, their clothing soaked through with sweat, and their faces and bodies seem covered with what appears to be dirty grease. The photography is so dark that it's hard to tell night from day. The difficulties in shooting on a sound stage can be overcome to some extent but here they're not. Everyone involved, from the director to the production design just shrugged and gave up. It's the equivalent of the captured Baker telling Major Ahn, "Okay, I'll tell you whatever you want to know -- the hell with it."
Baker tries various ways of getting the information to his command but the radio doesn't work and the messengers he sends out are ambushed and killed. The Japanese retake the village and kill all but a handful of British soldiers. The Japanese major, Philip Ahn, is a civilized man but he wants to know if the British have discovered the plans for the Japanese attack. Ahn threatens to execute the remaining prisoners if Baker doesn't give up the information he wants. Baker sacrifices his own life, hoping to save those of his remaining men, but the men are shot and killed anyway.
It's obviously a thought-provoking movie in a middle-brow kind of way. There's nothing particularly subtle about it. It's all spelled out for us. Is it worth the possible sacrifice of thousands of fellow soldiers in order to save the lives of a few? It's like Captain Queeg going crazy in the middle of the typhoon. Do you violate every law you've promised to respect in order to save the ship? What a conundrum, and it's all dumped in Stanley Baker's authoritarian lap.
The British, of course, have signed the Geneva Conventions, which forbids the killing of innocent people or of prisoners of war. Japan never signed the Geneva Conventions but in 1942 agreed to abide by its terms. In this instance, both Baker and Ahn reject the Conventions and opt instead for moral nihilism -- the idea that there are no fixed moral rules, and that the only norm is expediency. When Baker makes a vain attempt to reach the radio and dies, Ahn looks down at the body, nods, and says, "That's exactly what I would have done." The story was a TV movie before it was made into a feature, and it shows. It could easily have been a stage play. There's no real sense of movement. The village, the jungle surrounding it, and the swamp, are all studio bound. The backdrop has palm trees painted on it. The ground is sometimes covered with machine-generated fog. There is never any wind, so smoke rises vertically. Shooting a war movie on a set isn't necessarily the kiss of death. Some combat scenes have been fairly good on sound stages, as "Bataan" was. And I think the most gripping scene of combat I've ever watched on film was in John Garfield's "The Pride of the Marines", shot at Warners.
But this movie is truly static. And the make up department was unimaginative. Everyone is bearded and shabby, their clothing soaked through with sweat, and their faces and bodies seem covered with what appears to be dirty grease. The photography is so dark that it's hard to tell night from day. The difficulties in shooting on a sound stage can be overcome to some extent but here they're not. Everyone involved, from the director to the production design just shrugged and gave up. It's the equivalent of the captured Baker telling Major Ahn, "Okay, I'll tell you whatever you want to know -- the hell with it."