I haven't watched this film for a long time and, having just seen it on BBC2 TV, I felt that it hasn't aged well. Perhaps it was better as a stage play? Ubercommando in his review summed it up well: "I just don't believe in characters who, under such pressure to escape, would just bicker at each other when the enemy is just around the corner... Some characters don't want to shoot the Japanese prisoner because it will make too much noise and alert the enemy, but that doesn't stop them from yelling at the top of their voices!"
The only characters I felt any sympathy for were Private Smith (who seemed the most sensible of the squad) and the Japanese prisoner. Sergeant Mitchem had an impossible task, with a hostile corporal and the intractable Pte Bamforth, but he didn't come over as a likable character. As for the others, I several times thought "what a bunch of losers".
Of course, all this was what (probably) we were expected to feel, but other films portraying a small, disparate group of men up against it have done so far better.
Enough has already been written about Laurence Harvey, who was mis-cast. OK, the character may have been a brash, street-wise London wide boy before he joined the army, but his sympathy for the prisoner did not convince.
The only characters I felt any sympathy for were Private Smith (who seemed the most sensible of the squad) and the Japanese prisoner. Sergeant Mitchem had an impossible task, with a hostile corporal and the intractable Pte Bamforth, but he didn't come over as a likable character. As for the others, I several times thought "what a bunch of losers".
Of course, all this was what (probably) we were expected to feel, but other films portraying a small, disparate group of men up against it have done so far better.
Enough has already been written about Laurence Harvey, who was mis-cast. OK, the character may have been a brash, street-wise London wide boy before he joined the army, but his sympathy for the prisoner did not convince.