The Long and the Short and the Tall

A British patrol in the Burmese jungle. Their job is to make sound recordings, to be played back later to mislead the enemy. But they move out of radio range and realise the only broadcast they can hear clearly is Japanese. That means the enemy camp is very close. Then a Japanese soldier is taken prisoner, and the group cannot decide what to do. Leslie Norman's British film is adapted from Willis Hall's play. Almost all of it takes place in a single hut and rests on argument. Laurence Harvey, Richard Todd and Richard Harris are in the cast. The real subject is not the war: whether the man they have taken is an enemy or a human being is a question each of them answers for himself. The tone is against war.