The war in the East is nearing its conclusion but to the prisoners-of-war in Changi Gaol, Singapore, the end seems as far away as ever.
10,000 men, prisoners of the Japanese, are subsisting on four ounces of rice a day and trying to stay alive long enough until the allied forces storming through Burma can liberate them. They are all in pitiful physical condition – all, that is, except one…
George Segal gives a razor-sharp portrayal of Corporal King, the biggest scrounger in the camp, who eats fried eggs for breakfast while the others starve. But the best performance in the film comes from James Fox as a pretty-boy RAF officer who becomes King’s confidant and his fellow dealer-with-the-devil.
Tom Courtenay is the holier-than-thou young officer full of disciplinary zeal who bears a particular hatred for King.
Corporal King
George Segal
Lieutenant Grey
Tom Courtenay
Flight Lieutenant Marlowe
James Fox
Smedley-Taylor
John Mills
Lt. Col. G.D. Larkin
Denholm Elliott
Max
Patrick O’Neal
Padre
Hamilton Dyce
Dr Kennedy
James Donald
Tex
Todd Armstrong
Jones
Gerald Sim
McCoy
Leonard Rossiter
Daven
John Standing
Brant
Alan Webb
Hawkins
John Ronane
Kurt
Sam Reese
Stevens
Michael Lees
Brough
Wright King
Dino
Joe Turkel
Foster
John Merivale
Vexley
Geoffrey Bayldon
Tinker Bell
Reg Lye
Blakeley
Arthur Malet
Dr Prudhomme
Hedley Mattingly
Yoshima
Dale Ishimoto
Myner
John Levingston
Japanese General
Teru Shimada
Weaver
Richard Dawson
Miller
Michael Stroka
Steinmetz
William Fawcett
Peterson
Roy Duane
Gurble
John Orchard
Townsend
Larry Conroy
Commandant
John Warburton
Masters
David Haviland
Pop
Dick Johnson
Spence
John Barclay
Prouty
Edward Ashley
Cox
David Frankham
Torusumi
Louis Neervort
Director
Bryan Forbes
