The Purple Plain is competently transferred to the big screen, but with a degree of amendment from the book that just takes the edge off it a little too much. Performances all round are first rate with Brenda De Banzie particularly worthy of note as the slightly manic Miss McNab. It's a good film, but it's not a great one and this really is one of those stories which deserves to be remade. Special effects, even for 1954 are pretty crude and this film is a good example of why rear projection quickly went out of fashion in colour films. Even the most sympathetic viewer will find most of the effects distract rather than enhance.
H.E Bates wrote perhaps the greatest of all WWII stories and although Eric Ambler put together some of the best WWII screenplays on film, here I think he just made some of the lead characters a little too nice and a little too cosy for the situation they find themselves in. The film is still worth watching, but to fully appreciate the depth of the story, you really need to read the book as well.
H.E Bates wrote perhaps the greatest of all WWII stories and although Eric Ambler put together some of the best WWII screenplays on film, here I think he just made some of the lead characters a little too nice and a little too cosy for the situation they find themselves in. The film is still worth watching, but to fully appreciate the depth of the story, you really need to read the book as well.