A Town Like Alice

 

Filmed obviously in 1956 ( continuity forgot to period dress the cast) this little remembered movie of the famous Shute novel proved to be a little hidden gem this morning. Set in Malaya during the war it centres around the plight of a group of English women and children forced to March across the country in search of a prisoner of war camp which will house them.

Marie Lohr as Mrs Dudley Frost

Renee Houston as Ebbey

Virginia McKenna plays the groups pragmatic leader is supported ably by a whole gaggle of British character actors such as Jean Anderson, Marie Lohr, Renee Houston and Nora Nicholson.who play the typical cross section of colonial types later poached by the the series Tenko.

It’s a cracking movie, which steals only part of the novel which really concentrates on the love affair between McKenna’s character and a bravura Australian squaddie Peter Finch who is eventually crucified by a sadistic Japanese Captain Yanyata.

I really enjoyed it and was kind of sad when it finished before midday.

Since then , I’ve just mooched. The dogs are listless and bored in the heat and there are jobs that need doing but I don’t feel like starting anything

I’m making a list of them 

Salad with pomegranate seeds and mango for tea

Choir later