The Long and the Short and the Tall – 1960 | 105 mins | War, Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Vivid and stark psychological anti-war drama set in the Far East during WWII. Richard Todd, Laurence Harvey, Richard Harris, David McCallum and Ronald Fraser lead the cast as young recruits facing a futile but perilous stand-off with Japanese forces. Leslie Norman, father of film critic Barry, directs this studio-bound adaptation of Willis Hall’s cynical West End play about military incompetence. The claustrophobic story with an ironic twist of fate is shot through with the rude, raw energy of kitchen-sink era and Hall’s ripe dialogue is heavily cut, but his seething anger still shines through.

During the Japanese invasion in 1942 a seven-strong British sonic warfare patrol beds down in a dilapidated store-hut in the Burmese jungle. Hindered by a malfunctioning radio, the men cannot guess whether or when to move on. The plot thickens when a lone Japanese scout stumbles across the hut and his fate becomes the squad’s second dilemma. Sergeant Mitchum. (Richard Todd) wants to take the prisoner back to headquarters for interrogation but as they try to decide his fate, tempers flare amid the high tension as the men begin to fall out among themselves. The incompetent Sergeant Mitchum clashes with his contemptuous second in command Corporal Johnstone (Richard Harris) and struggles to maintain discipline amongst his mutinous young charges. Chief culprit is the gruff Cockney Private Bamforth (Laurence Harvey), a man who dislikes both authority and the army but gradually becomes the conscience of the platoon.