A Town like Alice (1956)
Country: GB
Technical: bw 117m
Director: Jack Lee
Cast: Virginia McKenna, Peter Finch, Kenji Takaki
Synopsis:
Caught up in the Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1942, a British Malay-speaking secretary finds herself leading a group of women as they are forced to march from town to town in search of a camp that will take responsibility for them. They are helped by an Australian prisoner mechanic, with whom she falls in love.
Review:
The film of Nevil Shute's novel omits the final part, tracing how Jean turns Willstown into 'a town like Alice', but it didn't much matter that the title is never explained: the film was a great success for Rank, and proved a key stepping stone for Finch. The trek for hundreds of miles, sometimes through jungle, was apparently based on a misunderstanding: the Dutch women in Sumatra on whose experience the novel was based were in fact transported from pillar to post by rail. Inevitably some of the realities of such a misadventure are airbrushed for a 1950s film (the stout lady who insists on carrying her luggage), but nevertheless it does not flinch from certain harsh and sobering details; even where it cannot show them, there are times when averting the camera can prove just as effective. The location footage is very well matched with that shot at Pinewood, and the results are exceedingly well lit by Geoffrey Unsworth, but the film stands or falls on the performance of whoever plays Jean, and McKenna delivers a career-best interpretation, moving us to tears with her intensity of feeling and ability to communicate everything in a look.
Country: GB
Technical: bw 117m
Director: Jack Lee
Cast: Virginia McKenna, Peter Finch, Kenji Takaki
Synopsis:
Caught up in the Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1942, a British Malay-speaking secretary finds herself leading a group of women as they are forced to march from town to town in search of a camp that will take responsibility for them. They are helped by an Australian prisoner mechanic, with whom she falls in love.
Review:
The film of Nevil Shute's novel omits the final part, tracing how Jean turns Willstown into 'a town like Alice', but it didn't much matter that the title is never explained: the film was a great success for Rank, and proved a key stepping stone for Finch. The trek for hundreds of miles, sometimes through jungle, was apparently based on a misunderstanding: the Dutch women in Sumatra on whose experience the novel was based were in fact transported from pillar to post by rail. Inevitably some of the realities of such a misadventure are airbrushed for a 1950s film (the stout lady who insists on carrying her luggage), but nevertheless it does not flinch from certain harsh and sobering details; even where it cannot show them, there are times when averting the camera can prove just as effective. The location footage is very well matched with that shot at Pinewood, and the results are exceedingly well lit by Geoffrey Unsworth, but the film stands or falls on the performance of whoever plays Jean, and McKenna delivers a career-best interpretation, moving us to tears with her intensity of feeling and ability to communicate everything in a look.
Country: GB
Technical: bw 117m
Director: Jack Lee
Cast: Virginia McKenna, Peter Finch, Kenji Takaki
Synopsis:
Caught up in the Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1942, a British Malay-speaking secretary finds herself leading a group of women as they are forced to march from town to town in search of a camp that will take responsibility for them. They are helped by an Australian prisoner mechanic, with whom she falls in love.
Review:
The film of Nevil Shute's novel omits the final part, tracing how Jean turns Willstown into 'a town like Alice', but it didn't much matter that the title is never explained: the film was a great success for Rank, and proved a key stepping stone for Finch. The trek for hundreds of miles, sometimes through jungle, was apparently based on a misunderstanding: the Dutch women in Sumatra on whose experience the novel was based were in fact transported from pillar to post by rail. Inevitably some of the realities of such a misadventure are airbrushed for a 1950s film (the stout lady who insists on carrying her luggage), but nevertheless it does not flinch from certain harsh and sobering details; even where it cannot show them, there are times when averting the camera can prove just as effective. The location footage is very well matched with that shot at Pinewood, and the results are exceedingly well lit by Geoffrey Unsworth, but the film stands or falls on the performance of whoever plays Jean, and McKenna delivers a career-best interpretation, moving us to tears with her intensity of feeling and ability to communicate everything in a look.