Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

gilligan1965 Despite really liking the work of Virginia McKenna and Peter Finch, I never saw, or, even knew of this movie until yesterday!?!?Filmed mainly on location in Malaya (also, the United Kingdom and Australia), this movie (story) depicts just how kind and rotten people can be towards one another during a military invasion...how desperation can bring out the best and worst in people.The movie immediately grabs your interest by forcing you to decide whether the Japanese did these women and children a favor by separating them from their men who're sent to a prison camp (history buffs know how Japanese prison camps were); or, were cruel and sadistic by giving them what seems like freedom, but, sentencing them to an endless plight of attrition where "survival of the fittest" applies all-too-well.Much like "Lord of the Flies," these women begin forming somewhat of a pecking-order where Jean Paget (Virginia McKenna) is obviously the leader of the bunch; but, how strong many of the other women are. Also, how weak one is by saving herself by becoming a collaborator.Joe Harmon (Peter Finch) is a captured Australian POW who takes a great interest in helping these women, especially Paget, and, how he risks his life to do so.There's even a sympathetic Japanese sergeant who's escorting the women and children along their trek, and, helping them. They, in turn, help him.I could write much more, but, this is as much as I feel like writing because I don't wish to ruin any details for the viewer. I choose to keep this a movie review, not a movie report.A great movie based on a true story.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 1956 by J. Arthur Rank Film Productions Ltd. New York opening at the Sutton: 21 September 1958 (sic). U.S. release through Rank Film Distributors: September 1958. U.K. release through Rank: 2 April 1956. Australian release through British Empire Films: 16 August 1956. Sydney opening at the State. 10,530 feet. 117 minutes. (Available on a very good Network DVD). SYNOPSIS: Taken prisoners by the Japanese in Malaya, a small group of women and children are sent on an aimless trek through the jungle. There is little or no plot in the half of Shute's book with which the film is concerned. It deals more with a situation. Wives and children, caught in the vanguard of war, are separated from their men-folk and faced with endless jungle wandering. For years they wander from village to village, longing for the haven of a prison camp but never allowed to rest in one. The pathetic little procession, trailing suitcases and carrying babies, winds its way through the paddy-fields and the swamps and over the mountains. Many of them die from fever and exhaustion.NOTES: Number three money-making attraction (after Reach for the Sky and Private's Progress) at the U.K. box office for 1956. B.E.F.'s top-grossing release in Australia for 1956-57. Peter Finch, Best Performance by a British Actor — British Film Academy Award. Virginia McKenna, Best Performance by a British Actress — British Film Academy Award. COMMENT: "A Town Like Alice" is an earnest, sincere but perhaps somewhat plodding movie. Cutting would help, particularly of a wholly extraneous scene in which the women wash themselves (however discreetly) in the baths of an abandoned plantation house. Despite his British Academy Award, Finch's role is actually fairly small. In fact, we actually see little of him at all because most of his scenes are filmed in semi-darkness. At the time of the film's release, much was made of the "crucifixion" sequence. Readers will be glad to know that censors have since taken notice and made some skillful cuts in this scene. This censored version is the one preserved in the British National Film Archive from which the Network DVD has been struck.Film censors certainly move in mysterious ways. I once asked A.T.L. Watkins, the British censor, why he had given a "Suitable for Universal Exhibition" certificate to the cartoon, "Animal Farm". He replied that he felt a "Suitable for Adults" certificate might damage the film's box-office prospects. "A lot of parents might be put off taking their children to the movie," Mr. Watkins said. And yet "Animal Farm" includes sequences of animals being whipped, starved, tortured and worked slowly to death.Now the censor has seen fit to pass "A Town Like Alice" as suitable for Universal Exhibition, even though the whole theme of this picture is the hardships and torture suffered by a dwindling group of English women and children in Japanese-occupied Malaya. It shows prolonged views of the forced marches they undergo, the deaths of most of the children, the beating of the heroine by soldiers and — for a climax — the crucifixion of an Australian soldier against a tree.Leaving aside this strange decision of the censor, "A Town Like Alice" is a moving if harrowing adaptation of Neville Shute's novel.Jack Lee, a young man who learnt his craft in the documentary- making Crown Film Unit, directs it with a sobriety, a conscientious approach and a documentary reticence which are really admirable.

angelofvic I thought this was an Australian film, about Australians, in Australia. Imagine my horror when it was instead about horrific treatment of Allied prisoners by the Japanese in Malaysia during WWII.The film is relentless -- brutal even -- especially as it involved women and children for the bulk of the film. It never seems to end ... until the very end, when the godawful war ends and things get a bit better -- OK, quite a bit better.Virginia McKenna gives a lovely, wonderful performance as the protagonist, and quite holds the film together. Also featuring Peter Finch, and a number of other fine performances, including the wonderful Japanese sergeant in charge of the women and children.Worth a watch. Perhaps it's best summarized as being a good tale of survival.However, the film has two flaws: One is, that the basic plot point, which the film spends 80% of its time on, never happened, even though the film announces that it is fact-based in the opening credits. The plot line the film relies on was a complete misapprehension by author Nevil Shute.The second problem the film has is that it only covers half of the book -- the horrific, unrealistic half.All in all, I'd say that if you want a realistic portrayal of Allied prisoners of war in Malaysia by the Japenese during WWII, watch King Rat (1965), a much better film.

screenman I suppose that it should be confessed at the outset that I had the hots for Ms McEnna in her youth. Nevertheless, I still think that this is an excellent movie of the 1950's war genre.Ginny and Peter Finch provide typically understated performances that are reminiscent of 'Ice Cold In Alex' and 'The Cruel Sea'. Solid, sterling, stiff-upper-lip-stuff that has no place in the spineless, simpering, metro-sexual third millennium.I have never read Shute's novel, so I cannot comment on what liberties have been taken, but viewed without prejudice as a movie outlining Japanese brutality and human endurance it is still a well-realised piece of work. Everyone gives a thoroughly believable turn, both Caucasian and Oriental alike, as Ms McEnna's character concludes 'you can't really hate anyone' in the end. Though the Japanese - like their Nazi counterparts - did their very best to merit it.Ms McKenna leads a group of unwanted western women and children, for whom no Japanese officer wants responsibility. So; they get shunted from one place to another, on foot, inadequately fed, and without medical assistance. Inevitably; they begin dying. Finch plays a captured Aussie running trucks for the Japanese. Filmed in black-&-white, in Britain and on location, it offers a very believable turn upon the miasmic swamps, crippling heat, humidity and deluging rain.Of course, it's a love story too. And here again Ginny and Peter play their parts to perfection. I defy any true romantic not to be rendered lachrymose by her realisation of his survival and their final meeting at the end. Her hasty, last-minute application of cosmetics is particularly touching and well-observed. As if he'd care a hoot one way or the other.It's a great old feel-good movie for the austerity generation. I give it nine stars and good luck to 'em all I say.