The Purple Plain (1955)

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Good concept, poorly executed.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Set in Burma during World War II, this curiously titled film follows the experiences of a Canadian bomber pilot with severe emotional and psychological issues. The film opens on a strong note with a violent air raid that turns out to be just a nightmarish delusion, and the film employs sound (especially accentuated audio as the protagonist tries to sleep) very well early on. Gregory Peck's lead performance is the film's best asset though; excessively sweating and visibly distressed throughout the whole first hour, Peck offers an excellent human anchor into this tale of overcoming wartime trauma. The second half of the movie is not quite as strong with Peck settling a down a bit too much and too easily after falling in love with a young local woman. Almost the entire second half of the movie also involves Peck finding safe passage from behind enemy lines after a plane crash, which is not quite as engaging to view with Peck's psychology forced to take a backseat to his quest to survive. Never to mind, the film still ends on a strong note and Peck has several good moments towards the end interacting and arguing with co-stars Maurice Denham and Lyndon Brook, who crashed with him. The film does a solid job dispersing flashbacks to Peck's past throughout too as we gradually learn just why he is so mentally scarred. As for the significance of the title though, it is anybody's guess.

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!

**SPOILERS*** Beautifully photographed in eye popping and lush color the movie "The Purple Plain" is more of a love or a love lost and found story then a war movie with the exotic and beautiful Win Min Tan as Burmese English speaking refugee Anna giving the somewhat mentally unstable and self destructive Canadian RAF Squadron Leader Bill Forrester, Georgry Peck, not only a reason to live but help others to survive and live as well. Forrester has been trying to get himself killed since the London Bltz when his lovely wife of less then one day,Josephine Griffin, was killed in a German bombing raid while the two were on the town dancing the night away.It's now some five years later and Forrester despite trying as hard as he can to get himself killed in combat missions has in fact survived and is now a highly decorated RAF pilot. Something that he,in surviving,tried as hard as he could not to be. It's when he's sent to this mission run by English missionary Miss McNab,Brenda de Banzie, for Burmese refugees from the occupying Japanese that Forrester met and fall in love with Anna who's life he save from a Japanese bombing raid on the mission complex. Much like the German bombing raid on London five years that killed his wife. Now with a new outlook on life and having someone to came back to,Anna, after the war Forrester finds that life is in fact worth living but is soon to be tested on this belief of his to the fullest on his very next mission deep into Japaneses controlled Burma.Shot down over Japaneses controlled Burma Forrester, who once love getting killed, is now responsible not just for getting himself back safely to the British lines but also getting his co-pilot Carrington, Lyndon Brooke,and mechanic Sgt. Blore, Maurice Denham, back safe there as well. With Carrington badly burned after the plane crash things are far more difficult for Forrester to accomplish his task which was, without Carrington being injured, hard enough as it was. And to make matters ever worse Blore was anything but corporative in following Forrester's orders. That in him feeling that he's a certified nut case and wants both himself and Carrington to end up dead together along with him!***SPOILERS*** It was his new found love Anna who had Forrester rise to the occasion in not only wanting to survive but save his fellow British or RAF airmen as well. As it turned out it was Blore not Forrester who ended up cracking up in the jungle heat going bananas and heading out in the brush when he later died horribly from dehydration. Carrington who really had no say in the matter,either to stay put or fend for himself, did survive together with Forrester's help. And in the end Forrester was rewarded for his heroism and self sacrifice by coming back home and having the lovely sweet caring and sleeping beauty Anna longing for a kiss from him, her Prince Charming, to wake her up while she's waiting for him.

Purple Plain is an obscure film in Peck's long list of movie credits. I don't know if this British production got much publicity or release stateside, despite Peck's movie star celebrity. Unfortunately, it's never been a TV regular, which is too bad because this tale of renewal and survival is an unusual and gripping one, in spite of the obscurity.The film opens in the Burmese jungle during WWII. Peck is a battle fatigued flyer on the ragged edge of breakdown. He's about to be relieved because of erratic behavior, all the while he's flashing back on his wife's death in a London air-raid. These are well-done scenes causing us to sympathize with his loss. Nonetheless, he's jeopardizing his comrades with reckless manuevers because the loss has undermined his will-to-live. Thus, we're torn between sympathy and concern, just like the flight station doctor (Bernard Lee).In an interesting move, Lee overcomes Peck's agonies by reconnecting him socially, in this case with a nearby missionary community. There Peck finds the vital human relationships so importantly missing from his death-dealing combat duties. As a result, his life takes on new meaning and purpose as a result of rejoining a human community where such life-giving affirmations can emerge. On the whole these are well-done scenes, especially the chaos from the Japanese air attack. In the midst of the carnage, Peck's combat flyer finds a new role in helping to bandage up survivors. Herein lies the movie's basic message and it's an important and humane one, conveyed in fairly subtle fashion, though the turn-around occurs more quickly than I would have liked.Nonetheless, it's interesting that the script avoids the usual officially sanctioned head-doctor therapies. Note that Peck is not sent to be counseled by an air force psychiatrist, nor to join a chest-baring therapy group, nor to have his past puzzled together Freudian style. Of course, the happy solution here remains a "movie" solution where-- as we all know-- anything can be made to magically happen. Still, for a war-movie setting, the simple affirmation that mental health lies through nurturing social relations and not through government sanctioned killing remains no less suggestive because of its movie origins.The remainder of the film amounts to a survival trek through the wilds of southeast Asia. It's a well-filmed and harrowing struggle against a forbidding landscape where the crash survivors must decide between staying put or hiking out against great odds. But most importantly, it's Peck's chance to regain his humanity by facing up to the odds, not just for his own survival, but for his two comrades as well. The movie's final scene could not have been better conceived. Indeed, no words are necessary. On the whole, this is a subtly and well thought out anti-war film, no less effective because it concerns the fate of one man rather than thousands.Too bad that its humane message remains so generally unseen.