A TOWN LIKE ALICE
UK, 1956, 110 minutes, Black and White.
Virginia Mc Kenna, Peter Finch, Marie Lohr, Renee Houston, Jean Anderson, Maureen Swanson, Geoffrey Keen.
Directed by Jack Lee.
A Town Like Alice was one of the successful films of 1956. Virginia Mc Kenna was a very popular English actress at the time - The Cruel Sea; Simba, Carve Her Name With Pride - and Peter Finch was beginning to make his mark in international films. They both won British Academy awards for their roles.
The film was based on Neville Shute's story and tells a very worthwhile and moving story of war, survival, humiliation and courage that makes the film fairly popular for most audiences.
1. This film was made ten years after the end of World War II. Does it still have relevance today?
2. How effective was the flashback structure of the film?
3. How did the film create its atmosphere of Singapore and the war? Did it communicate the terror of war for ordinary people - fear, uncertainty?
4. How heroic a woman was Jean? Did she have a great deal of commonsense and pluck? Would anyone have done what she initially did?
5. What did the film offer on the theme of women's courage and endurance? Consider the cross-section of types and their response to the challenge of their imprisonment - Jean, the young mother, the teacher, the arrogant woman, the beefy Britisher, the pill-taking hypochondriac, the young woman who wanted comfort? Why did some survive and others not? What were the most important events for them during their captivity?
6. How painful was the separation from the men? The subjection of the British, empire-minded women, the bowing, the hunger?
7. Was the presentation of the Japanese just? (Cruelty, the ordinariness of the guard, his sufferings with them, his death?)
8. Did you like the Australians? What did Joe offer Jean by way of hope (a town like Alice), and love?
9. Comment on the way the film moved from humour about the chickens to the deadly seriousness of punishment and death.
10. Did Jean have reason to be bitter about Joe's torture?
11. What did the women learn by their years in Malaya?
12. Were you glad that there was a happy ending? Why?
