While I didn't watch this in the most congenial of conditions (due to lethargy on my part caused by the excessive Summer heat!), it still emerged as something of a disappointment given the enormous talent at hand!! Perhaps its greatest fault is that the film is distinctly unmemorable, despite a fairly engaging plot of British troops and one American (Cliff Robertson) stranded on a Pacific island at the mercy of the Japanese.
The largely British cast looks impressive on paper - Michael Caine, Ian Bannen, Harry Andrews, Denholm Elliott - but few really get a chance to shine: Caine, for instance, seems content most of the time to take a back seat to Robertson. As for Henry Fonda's cameo at the start, he might as well have phoned in his performance! For all that, the film generates some genuine tension during the second half with its cat-and-mouse game between Robertson and Caine on one side and the Japanese major on the other.
This is no jingoistic fare, however, a fact which is borne by the script (co-written by Aldrich) and, for this reason, Joseph Biroc's cinematography is deliberately murky - which also means that Gerald Fried's rousing score is actually an ironic comment on the glorification of war!
Curiously enough, the film appears to have a different survivor at the end depending on which version (British or American) one happens to catch: since I watched it via the R2 DVD, it's Caine who makes it; I wonder if the R1 Anchor Bay disc (now out-of-print) and the more recent MGM edition are indeed different...
The largely British cast looks impressive on paper - Michael Caine, Ian Bannen, Harry Andrews, Denholm Elliott - but few really get a chance to shine: Caine, for instance, seems content most of the time to take a back seat to Robertson. As for Henry Fonda's cameo at the start, he might as well have phoned in his performance! For all that, the film generates some genuine tension during the second half with its cat-and-mouse game between Robertson and Caine on one side and the Japanese major on the other.
This is no jingoistic fare, however, a fact which is borne by the script (co-written by Aldrich) and, for this reason, Joseph Biroc's cinematography is deliberately murky - which also means that Gerald Fried's rousing score is actually an ironic comment on the glorification of war!
Curiously enough, the film appears to have a different survivor at the end depending on which version (British or American) one happens to catch: since I watched it via the R2 DVD, it's Caine who makes it; I wonder if the R1 Anchor Bay disc (now out-of-print) and the more recent MGM edition are indeed different...