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Set during the Burma Campaign, Gregory Peck stars as a pilot whose life has been shattered by the loss of his wife during an air raid on London. Shot down after a dogfight with a Japanese fighter, he finds himself marooned in the hellish Burmese jungle. Bernard Lee and Maurice Denham co-star.
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Set during the Burma Campaign, Peck stars as a pilot whose life has already been shattered by the loss of his wife during an air raid on London. Shot down after a dogfight with a Japanese fighter, he finds himself marooned in the Burmese jungle with a badly-injured navigator and a traumatised passenger. How will they make it to safety?
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This film based on the classic war story by H E Bates is is a rather atmospheric oddity. It is a movie of intense visuals and rather offbeat casting. The male lead was Gregory Peck playing Squadron Leader Bill Forrester a Canadian air ace, and the female lead was taken by the never to be heard of again Win Min Than. The rest of the cast is padded out by old British stalwarts. The film marks another foray by Peck into British films. He also came over in the fifties to make "The million pound note" and "Captain Horatio Hornblower".
The film is set in the exotic second world war theatre of Burma where allied troops were fighting a bitter campaign against a fanatical Japanese enemy. An unusual setting for a war movie which more often centred on Europe or the Pacific. Peck's character comes with a history. He has been flying increasingly suicidal missions and has a reputation amongst his peers as not being of sound mind. We later find that Forrester's wife was killed on a bombing raid on their wedding night. Enough to tip anyone over the edge. Queue a friendly doctor in the shape of Bernard Miles who invites him to relax at a party where he meets a very attractive Eurasian girl. Suddenly our hero finds a very good reason remain on this earth.
Shortly after this meeting he is shot down over enemy territory and in particularly inhospitable terrain. This film was one of the first shot down over enemy territory films and was a precursor to films like "Rescue Dawn". His navigator and passenger who survive the landing with him doubt his will to survive. But in the event he shows true resolve and bitter determination to try and bring them all home safely. That he fails is not through lack of effort on his part.
The film is a success on many counts. After I have long forgotten many other war films this one sticks in my mind. Peck was very good as our angst ridden hero. "Twelve o clock High" was an excellent apprenticeship for this role. The visual scenes of the scorched landscape are exceptional. The films preoccupation with character development rather than action is a plus. All these things make it last in the memory and stand out above many other movies from that genre. It is well worth watching.
The film is set in the exotic second world war theatre of Burma where allied troops were fighting a bitter campaign against a fanatical Japanese enemy. An unusual setting for a war movie which more often centred on Europe or the Pacific. Peck's character comes with a history. He has been flying increasingly suicidal missions and has a reputation amongst his peers as not being of sound mind. We later find that Forrester's wife was killed on a bombing raid on their wedding night. Enough to tip anyone over the edge. Queue a friendly doctor in the shape of Bernard Miles who invites him to relax at a party where he meets a very attractive Eurasian girl. Suddenly our hero finds a very good reason remain on this earth.
Shortly after this meeting he is shot down over enemy territory and in particularly inhospitable terrain. This film was one of the first shot down over enemy territory films and was a precursor to films like "Rescue Dawn". His navigator and passenger who survive the landing with him doubt his will to survive. But in the event he shows true resolve and bitter determination to try and bring them all home safely. That he fails is not through lack of effort on his part.
The film is a success on many counts. After I have long forgotten many other war films this one sticks in my mind. Peck was very good as our angst ridden hero. "Twelve o clock High" was an excellent apprenticeship for this role. The visual scenes of the scorched landscape are exceptional. The films preoccupation with character development rather than action is a plus. All these things make it last in the memory and stand out above many other movies from that genre. It is well worth watching.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
"I wanted to die but I got medals instead." This is squadron leader Bill Forrester (Gregory Peck), a mosquito fighter-bomber pilot stationed at a makeshift airbase in Burma during WWII. Forrester had met a young woman in London, they'd fallen in love and married, and on the evening of their marriage she was killed in a German air raid. Now he impassively takes enormous risks, sometimes endangering others. He really does want to die. Forrester meets a young Burmese woman, Anna (Win Min Than), and gradually begins to realize that death isn't the best future he can imagine. He's assigned to fly to another base carrying a passenger, but the mosquito crashes and he, his navigator and the passenger are stranded in Japanese territory in the middle of the Burmese desert, a desolate place of sun-burnt rock and scrub, with almost no water. His navigator is seriously injured and the passenger slowly just gives up and shoots himself. Forrester finds himself determined to carry the navigator thirty miles to the nearest river where they have a chance of rescue.
It's hard to give a sense of this movie. The story line is relatively simple and can be described by what it is not. It's not a war story. It's not a simple romance. It's not just the story of a man who finds his way back from tragedy. The atmosphere of the movie -- at times a kind of dreamy quality, drenched with color and filmed in some unreal and spectacular scenery -- keeps the story both engrossing and understated. The end of the movie, when Forrester finds his way back to Anna, is one of the most delicately filmed scenes of emotional commitment I've ever seen.
This is an unusual and first-class movie. Evidently, it was the only movie Win Min Than ever made. She is such a combination of beauty and shyness that Forrester's awakening is entirely believable. The secondary characters are handled exceptionally well. The Scots missionary with whom Anna and many refugee children live is played by Brenda De Banzie, an outstanding British actress. If you have a chance, watch her in Hobson's Choice. The doctor who befriends Forrester is played by Bernard Lee, another accomplished Briton
It's hard to give a sense of this movie. The story line is relatively simple and can be described by what it is not. It's not a war story. It's not a simple romance. It's not just the story of a man who finds his way back from tragedy. The atmosphere of the movie -- at times a kind of dreamy quality, drenched with color and filmed in some unreal and spectacular scenery -- keeps the story both engrossing and understated. The end of the movie, when Forrester finds his way back to Anna, is one of the most delicately filmed scenes of emotional commitment I've ever seen.
This is an unusual and first-class movie. Evidently, it was the only movie Win Min Than ever made. She is such a combination of beauty and shyness that Forrester's awakening is entirely believable. The secondary characters are handled exceptionally well. The Scots missionary with whom Anna and many refugee children live is played by Brenda De Banzie, an outstanding British actress. If you have a chance, watch her in Hobson's Choice. The doctor who befriends Forrester is played by Bernard Lee, another accomplished Briton
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
The Purple Plain is a winner, a handsomely mounted WW2 drama set in Burma where the Japanese are never seen: the enemy is the hostile landscape and the memories that cripple its hero. Gregory Peck's damaged pilot is still suffering from a bad case of 12 O'Clock High after the death of his wife in an air raid on their wedding night until he falls for Burmese girl Win Min Tan. (This being 1954, they may share an inter-racial romance, but they never actually kiss.) Naturally, as soon as he rediscovers a reason for living he's shot down behind enemy lines and has to make it back with not one but two crippled comrades.
It's not much of a plot, true, but it's handled extremely well thanks to Robert Parrish's direction, which is surprisingly strong, direct and imaginative when called for, but still knows when to be unobtrusive as well. Great last shot too. DD's UK DVD offers a good transfer but no extras.
It's not much of a plot, true, but it's handled extremely well thanks to Robert Parrish's direction, which is surprisingly strong, direct and imaginative when called for, but still knows when to be unobtrusive as well. Great last shot too. DD's UK DVD offers a good transfer but no extras.
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