A Town Like Alice

Dir: Jack Lee

1956

****

Based on the best selling novel by Nevil Shute, A Town Like Alice does not follow the whole novel, concluding at the end of Part Two and truncating or omitting a fair bit of detail. Leslie Norman expressed interest in directing an adaptation in 1952 but nothing came of it. While I think Norman would have perhaps made a better film, I’m glad he didn’t otherwise he wouldn’t have made the amazing X the Unknown which was released the same year as A Town Like Alice. The original script was written by W. P. Lipscomb, who concentrated on the first half of the novel only, leaving out the second half of the story that was set in Alice, Australia. You have to wonder why they didn’t change the title. Producer Joe Janni sent a copy of the script to director Jack Lee, who later recalled, "The script made me cry, and I knew it would make audiences cry too". Janni and Lee took the script to Rank, who agreed to finance. Lee did further work on the script with Lipscombe and then with Richard Mason. After visiting Singapore and Malaya, Lee soon realised that if he cast the film in the UK, decided on their exact clothing, and filmed their characteristic way of walking, he could find a second cast in Malaya, and, if he were careful, he could work very close to them on location. So in the end Lee shot some footage in Malaya then went back to Britain, where the majority of the film was shot at Pinewood Studios. I’d say he got away with it. Olivia de Havilland and Anna Kashfi were considered for the main role of Jean Paget but in the end Virginia McKenna got the part and it became one of the best of her career. Jack Lee had worked with Peter Finch before and cast him as the male lead, stating that he never considered anyone else for the part but the truth is that while at the 1952 premiere of Disney’s The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men,  producer Earl St. John was particularly impressed by the young man who played the Sheriff of Nottingham. The name on the program was that of Peter Finch. St John bumped into Finch on the stairs of the theatre and invited him to come and talk business at Pinewood. The following day he gave Finch what would be a pivotal role in his burgeoning career, Joe the Australian soldier in A Town Like Alice. The film begins in post-Second World War London, where Jean Paget is informed by solicitor Noel Strachan that she has a large inheritance. Asked what she wants to do, Jean decides to travel to Malaya to build a well in a small village, as a way of thanks for taking care of her during the war. Jean goes to the village and arranges for the well to be dug and she recalls her life in the village for three years of the war. The film flashes back to 1942 when Jean was working in an office in Kuala Lumpur in Malaya when the Japanese invaded. She was about to escape but decided to stay behind and help her boss and his family to escape, but in the end they were all captured and taken prisoner. As part of a group of women and children - the men having been sent away - she is the only one to speak Malay fluently, and so, she takes a leading role in the group. However, the Japanese refuse to take any responsibility for the group, marching them from one village to another. Many of them, unused to physical labour, die of exhaustion, sickness and starvation. Jean somehow keeps going and is spurred on by the fact she promised to take care of the children of her employer after his wife dies. Along their walk the group meets a young Australian soldier, Sergeant Joe Harman, also a prisoner, who is driving a truck for the Japanese. He and Jean strike up a friendship, and he tells her about the town of Alice Springs, where he grew up. Appalled at the women's treatment by the Japanese, he steals food and medicines to help them. Jean does not correct his impression that she is married. When the thefts are discovered and investigated, Harman takes the blame to save Jean and the rest of the group. He is crucified on a tree and left to die by the Japanese soldiers. The distraught women are marched away, believing that Joe is dead. To further humiliate them, the Japanese assign only one guard to the group, an elderly sergeant. They become friendly with him, although they can barely communicate. They even help to carry his pack and rifle when he is ill. When he dies of exhaustion, Jean asks the elders of a Malayan village if they may stay and work in the paddy fields, asking only for food and a place to sleep. The elders agree, and they live and work there for three years, until the war ends. The film returns to the present, and Jean discovers from the well-diggers that Joe Harman survived his punishment and returned to Australia. She decides to travel on to Australia to find him. On her travels, she visits the town of Alice Springs, where Joe lived before the war, and is much impressed with the quality of life there. She then travels to the primitive town of Willstown in the Queensland outback, where Joe has become the manager of a cattle station. Meanwhile, Joe has learnt that Jean survived the war, and that she was not married. He travels to London to find her, using money won in a lottery and arrives just as she does in Australia. It is some time before they are re-united in Alice Springs and they fall in love immediately. The last few scenes are a little clumsy if I’m being honest and much of the story’s more important parts are rushed, while other less important scenes drag. However, the last scene is about as rewarding as it gets and is a classic weepy moment. I’m a big Peter Finch fan but Virginia McKenna steals every second she is on screen. It’s a non-perfect, perfect film.