Review of King Rat (1965) by Allan C — 01 Mar 2014

Not as classic of a WWII POW film as "Stalag 17," "The Great Escape" or "The Bridge on the River Kwai" but a smart film that's well worth watching. Though the story does suffer from rampant POW film cliches, the film, written by director Bryan Forbes and James Clavell, based upon his novel, has some terrific character dynamics involving George Segal as a lowly corporal who becomes the de facto leader go the prisoners at a Japanese prison camp.

While the rest of the camp suffers from sickness and starvation, Corporal King thrives through conniving and black market activities. There's a strong cast that includes Tom Courtenay, James Fox, Denholm Elliott, John Mills, Joe Turkel and Richard Dawson, along with a fine score by John Barry.

It's interesting to note that this film did not do well when it first came out, likely due to the often unsavory and unheroic behavior by allied prisoners, but that's what makes this film interesting and stand out from other POW films.

Even William Holden's similarly opportunistic POW in "Stalag 17" redeems himself with heroism in the end, as opposed to the Corporal King who, SPOILER, who at the end of the film when their camp is liberated when the war ends, provides the most interesting part of the film, where he gains his freedom from the Japanese camp, but is again reduced to being a lowly corporal and is suddenly subservient to all of the officers and higher ranking soldiers who that had previously cowed to him.

The film felt like it was it was made to simply build to this one moment, but it's a doozy that's worth the trip.