Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

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.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

HotToastyRag Without Gregory Peck's wonderful acting—and handsomeness—The Purple Plain would be a pretty lousy movie. There's nothing particularly spectacular about the plot; it's a story of a shell-shocked pilot in WWII. There are a couple of tension-filled scenes where Greg and his fellow soldiers are up in their airplanes, but in general, the film felt like it didn't know what it wanted to be. Is it a romance, a war story, a survival adventure, or a racial lesson? There's a little of each element in the story, but not enough of the writing was invested to make any of them very believable. If you really love Gregory Peck, you can watch it, since he does do a very good job, putting extra nuances into his lines that other actors wouldn't. But if you're looking for a good war movie, this isn't it.DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie is not your friend. Gregory Peck has a flashback, and the camera gets a little fuzzy and shaky, so be on the lookout. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"

anordall Convincingly done, above all. We can believe the characters, they are real and moving. This movie is "British to the marrow" (thanks, Ringo Starr), and is an astonishing feat of Parrish, an American, that he has been able to so beautifully direct it so as to capture the British/colonial spirit of the story (the same for the acting of American star Gregory Peck). Only those addict to modern-day violent "action" movies will find this movie slow-paced; it goes exactly at the pace it should go. The cinematography is GREAT, so is the acting and the correctness of the technical details, only that I don't believe AT-6s were employed by the Southeast Asia Command; also, the crew of the crashed plane doesn't seem to have received a reasonable training on jungle survival. Peck is a handsome hero, but also humane and fragile; the final scene, when he lies down on the bed alongside the sleeping girl and also falls asleep is deeply touching!

Charles Stewart A really fine film and quite remarkable especially for it's time; shot on location (Ceylon standing in for Burma) in color and with an actual Burmese woman for the female romantic lead. As a war film the pacing and lack of any real 'battle scenes' might disappoint a few people. But the film is at its core is a character study of a RAF pilot (Peck) who has 'gone round the bend' suffering from what we'd call PTSD today and how his battle with it consumes him as much as the war with the Japanese.The other major character - other that the wonderful Win Min Than as the 'love interest' - is the location itself. 'Location as Charter' is something that David Lean latter became famous for but here in this film the immense expanse of jungle and plain becomes a beautiful but deadly antagonist The 'actual enemy', the Japanese Army, is tellingly, never seen. As this is a British film all the performances (except for -shockingly- the one Scotswoman in the film) are nicely understated. At one point Peck's character admits that he has been trying to get himself killed in battle ever since the death of his wife to which he drolly adds ' you think that would be pretty easy in a war....but all they kept doing was giving me medals....' WWII airplane geeks ( guilty as charged) will appreciate the shots of the De Haviland Mosquitoes in operation.

Robert J. Maxwell Peck is an emotionally unstable pilot in Burma. On his wedding night, his bride was killed in a Luftwaffe air raid in England and he's never recovered from the shock. Now, flying Mosquitoes over Japanese territory, he indulges in heroics designed to get himself killed. Survivor's guilt maybe. The problem is that his navigators occupy the same airplane and aren't in such a hurry to die. Peck so far hasn't succeeded either. "I keep trying to die and only win medals," he remarks.He's an abrasive character and is about to be booted from his squadron when one of his engines catches fire and he manages to land his airplane in the middle of the jungle with two passengers, one of them wounded and unable to walk. It's an exhausting journey through the wilderness before he and his navigator are picked up. When he returns to the airfield, he visits the Burmese girl he's become attracted to, leans over her sleeping form, and collapses onto the bed.I wish I could have gotten with the program here. There's nothing wrong with the acting. Peck is quite good in projecting a sort of buried tension. And no one can fault an actor like Bernard Miles, who is the sympathetic doctor. The Burmese love interest looks rather plain by the supernal standards of the major film companies but she has a sly and insinuating charm, and her voice is angelic. The location photography is crisp, evocative, and elegant. Special effects are of the period but effective enough.If only the movie weren't so sluggish and pedestrian. The growing affection between Peck and the girl is understated. That's fine. But the struggle through the bush is handled by the numbers. There are no surprises. And virtually no action scenes. I hate to say this but if you're going to do a character study in the rain forest of Ceylon, why not put more effort into it? Of course, not every film along those lines needs to be "The Bridge On The River Kwai." That would be asking for the moon.