King & Country
Dir: Joseph Losey
1964
*****
Joseph Losey's 1964 King & Country is a devastating piece of theatre. Adapted from the play Hamp written by John Wilson, director Joseph Losey keeps the story as a piece of theatre and sets the scene behind the characters, rather than sets the characters within the scene or scenario. A young solder is overcome during fighting in the trenches during WW1 and finds himself walking North. He is soon captured and tried for desertion. After 3 years of solid fighting and trench conditions, far longer than any of his superiors, and at the moment of reading a letter from his wife at home informing him that she had left him, Private Hemp (Tom Courtenay in his best role to date) decides the only thing to do was to 'go for a little walk'. Dirk Bogarde plays his martinet officer given the task of defending him in a rag-tag court. Private Hemp's long suffering friends hold a mock court outside, and try a Rat they've found in the corpse of a dead Horse of nibbling the solders ear and general pestilence. The madness is shown in the nerves of the solders and in the decisions of those in charge. King & Country is every bit as good as Paths of Glory and it's about time it received it's due credit as one of the best War films of all time.