Changi Prison, a Japanese POW camp, Singapore, 1945. The Allied prisoners endure starvation, disease, and despair under Japanese captivity. The traditional military hierarchies collapse as survival becomes the paramount concern. Unlike most, American Corporal King (George Segal) thrives. He runs a black market, trading with guards and manipulating resources. His cunning makes him both admired and despised. Lt. Peter Marlowe (James Fox), an upper-class British officer fluent in Malay, becomes King’s translator. He benefits from King’s schemes but wrestles with the moral cost of survival. Lt. Robin Grey (Tom Courtney), the camp provost, embodies rigid British discipline. He despises King’s corruption and becomes obsessed with exposing him, even as corruption among higher officers is ignored. King saves Marlowe’s arm with medicine, but it’s ambiguous whether this is genuine friendship or self-interest, since Marlowe knows where King’s profits are hidden. Liberation arrives with Japan’s defeat. The restored military hierarchy strips King of his influence, revealing the transactional nature of his power and relationships.
Adapted to the screen (from James Clavell’s 1962 novel, drawn from his own POW experiences) and directed by Bryan Forbes, this is one of the all-time great WWII prison camp films. Although James Fox’s Marlowe is not explicitly portrayed as gay, there is a strong homoerotic subtext in his relationship with Corporal King. Their friendship is unusually close compared to other POW interactions, and King saves Marlowe’s arm with medicine, stays by his bedside, and entrusts him with secrets. The novel by James Clavell hints at Marlowe’s sensitivity and ambiguous attachments, while the film leaves their bond open to interpretation: is this genuine affection, mutual self-interest, or a combination of both? Some have read Marlowe’s wistful gaze at King’s departure as coded longing.
An actor of unusual sensitivity, James Fox is an easy actor to queer-code, and he is mentioned twice in this essay and once in the next. No matter, his scenes with Segal have a beauty about them, a longing that every gay man can recognize. Segal was rising to stardom at this point. He was still a relative mystery, with undiscovered depths that were missing from his later performances. The British-American dynamic in their relationship added another layer to our fascination.
Tom Courtney shows us, yet again, what a tremendous talent he is, and there is a treasure trove of acting from such British greats as John Mills, Denholm Elliott and James Donald.
Cinematography: Burnett Guffey
Columbia Pictures
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