The Purple Plain
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Movie Reviews of The Purple Plain
Movie Review: Very good
Summary: 5 Stars
On time and as discribed.
I saw the first half of this many years ago on the late show. Something went wrong and never saw the end. Well, now I have.
Movie Review: One of the all time best
Summary: 5 Stars
I love this film. Peck was never better. The sense of someone finally finding one's self is real. War is presented in a different light. Highly recommendedMovie Review: The Purple Plain
Summary: 5 Stars
I am delighted to have this hard-to-find film! It played like a charm! Thanks for the fine service.Movie Review: A Beautifully Filmed, Exceptional Movie
Summary: 4 Stars
"I wanted to die but I got medals instead." This is squadron leader Bill Forrester (Gregory Peck), a mosquito fighter-bomber pilot stationed at a makeshift airbase in Burma during WWII. Forrester had met a young woman in London, they'd fallen in love and married, and on the evening of their marriage she was killed in a German air raid. Now he impassively takes enormous risks, sometimes endangering others. He really does want to die. Forrester meets a young Burmese woman, Anna (Win Min Than), and gradually begins to realize that death isn't the best future he can imagine. He's assigned to fly to another base carrying a passenger, but the mosquito crashes and he, his navigator and the passenger are stranded in Japanese territory in the middle of the Burmese desert, a desolate place of sun-burnt rock and scrub, with almost no water. His navigator is seriously injured and the passenger slowly just gives up and shoots himself. Forrester finds himself determined to carry the navigator thirty miles to the nearest river where they have a chance of rescue.
It's hard to give a sense of this movie. The story line is relatively simple and can be described by what it is not. It's not a war story. It's not a simple romance. It's not just the story of a man who finds his way back from tragedy. The atmosphere of the movie -- at times a kind of dreamy quality, drenched with color and filmed in some unreal and spectacular scenery -- keeps the story both engrossing and understated. The end of the movie, when Forrester finds his way back to Anna, is one of the most delicately filmed scenes of emotional commitment I've ever seen.
This is an unusual and first-class movie. According to IMDB, this is the only movie Win Min Than ever made. She is a combination of beauty and shyness that makes Forrester's awakening entirely believable. The secondary characters are handled exceptionally well. The Scots missionary with whom Anna and many refugee children live is played by Brenda De Banzie, an outstanding British actress. If you have a chance, watch her in Hobson's Choice. The doctor who befriends Forrester is played by Bernard Lee, another accomplished Brit. The DVD Technicolor transfer is outstanding.
Movie Review: 'Per Ardua Ad Astra'
Summary: 4 Stars
In this enjoyable wartime yarn (set in WWII Burma) the Royal Canadian Air Force would have been proud of Gregory Peck as the angry, deeply troubled pilot who literally battles 'through adversity to reach the stars' (or in this case star - the enchanting Anna played by actress Win Min Than). Peck as Forrester is haunted by the loss of his wife killed during a German bombing raid on London. Through a series of nighmares, flashbacks and some atmospheric use of sound while Peck lays soaked with perspiration in his tiny tent, Director Robert Parrish brings the H E Bates novel and Eric Ambler's screenplay to life.
Memorable performances from British screen stalwarts Maurice Denham (Blore), Bernard Lee (Dr Harris)and Lyndon Brook (Carrington)together with Ambler's racey pacey script keeps audiences guessing to the end. Brenda De Banzie's wonderful performance as missionary 'Miss McNab' and Win Min Than as the beautiful, gentle 'Anna' are just what the doctor ordered for the brooding Forrester as he battles behind Japanese lines when his Mosiquito fighter-bomber crashes on a routine mission.
Released in 1954, when the British War movie genre was in full flow, Parrish manages moments of Hitchcock in a taut psychological drama of Peck against the elements driven by duty, personal pride and the beautiful Anna who waits anxiously in a Burmese village. It might not be a classic (whatever that might be) but The Purple Plain nevertheless captivates and entertains through tragedy, love and action-packed drama. Well done Greg! And well done cast, crew and writers! Chocks away chaps!