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''Yesterday's Enemy'' is a 1959
Hammer Films British
war film
War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...
in MegaScope directed by
Val Guest and starring
Stanley Baker
Sir William Stanley Baker (28 February 192828 June 1976) was a Welsh actor and film producer. Known for his rugged appearance and intense, grounded screen persona, he was one of the top British male film stars of the late 1950s, and later a pro ...
,
Guy Rolfe,
Leo McKern
Reginald "Leo" McKern, AO (16 March 1920 – 23 July 2002) was an Australian actor who appeared in numerous British, Australian and American television programmes and films, and in more than 200 stage roles. His notable roles include Cla ...
and
Gordon Jackson set in the
Burma Campaign during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. It is based on a 1958
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
teleplay by
Peter R. Newman, who turned it into a three-act play in 1960. The TV play was reportedly based on a
war crime perpetrated by a British army captain in Burma in 1942.
[Marcus Hearn, ''The Hammer Vault'', Titan Books, 2011 p. 28] Gordon Jackson repeated his role from the BBC teleplay as Sgt. Ian McKenzie.
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...
co-produced the film with Hammer Films in an agreement for five
co-productions a year with Columbia providing half the finance. The film, including extensive jungle and swamp scenes, was shot entirely on indoor sets in black and white and Megascope. The film has no musical score.
Director Val Guest later said that ''Yesterday's Enemy'' was one of his films of which he was the most proud. In 2013, film magazine ''
Total Film
''Total Film'' is a British film magazine published 13 times a year (published monthly and a summer issue is added every year since issue 91, 2004, which is published between July and August issue) by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched ...
'' included ''Yesterday's Enemy'' in their list of ''50 Amazing Films You've Probably Never Seen''.
Plot
The lost remnants of a
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
brigade headquarters make their way through the
Burmese jungle, retreating from the
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
. The group, numbering over thirty, is led by Captain Langford because the most senior officer, a brigadier, is one of several who are wounded. The group arrives at a small village which is enemy-occupied. After a short but costly battle, the small detachment of Japanese soldiers in the village is wiped out.
Among the Japanese dead is a colonel, an unusually high-ranking officer to be with such a small group. The dead officer possesses a map with unknown markings. A Burmese man is caught trying to flee and he is revealed to be an informer employed by the Japanese. Langford interrogates the man about the dead colonel and the map and when he refuses to talk, Langford selects two men from amongst the villagers, saying he will have them both executed if the informer does not co-operate. The villagers plead for mercy and the doctor, a civilian correspondent named Max and the padre angrily protest at Langford's decision, but the captain is unmoved. The two hostages are killed by Langford's men, prompting the informer to begin divulging what he knows. The map contains plans for a major Japanese flanking attack which aims to cut off the British army from its
supply lines and leave it surrounded. Langford is anxious to send a warning, but the group's radio has been damaged.
Langford orders Sergeant McKenzie to execute the informer and then announces that the British wounded are to be left behind so as not to impede the group's progress back to Allied territory. The doctor, Max and the padre are enraged by the decision, but the dying brigadier and the other wounded agree to remain in the village. The group's presence in the village is discovered by enemy scouts, so Langford decides to send McKenzie, the doctor and two others back to British headquarters to raise the alarm, thinking a smaller group will have a better chance of getting through whilst the remainder of the group will remain to defend the village and delay the enemy as long as possible. Langford offers Max and the padre the chance to go with them, but they both refuse, suggesting that another two men go in their place. McKenzie's group leaves the village, but it is soon ambushed and all in it are killed.
Langford takes a party of men out to ambush the approaching Japanese, leaving Lieutenant Hastings and the others to defend the village. The surviving Burmese evacuate, an English-speaking woman remarking bitterly to Hastings, "Japanese, British - all the same". After a bloody engagement, Langford's group is all killed or captured. The enemy, using the POWs as a human shield, approach the village, but Langford shouts at Hastings to open fire. Just before the village falls, the radio operators manage to send out a weak signal from the repaired set to alert headquarters of the enemy's plans, although it is not clear if the message gets through. The handful of surviving British are now all POWs. The Japanese commander, Major Yamazaki, who speaks English, demands to know about the missing colonel and the map, suspecting that Langford knows about the attack plans.
Yamazaki lines up all of the prisoners in front of a firing squad and informs Langford that unless he agrees to talk, the major will order his troops to shoot them. Given just two minutes to make his choice, Langford bolts towards the transmitter in an attempt to signal HQ, but he is shot dead. Impressed by Langford's courage, Yamazaki bows to his corpse, saying "I would have done the same", whilst outside the padre calmly leads the other prisoners in the Lord's Prayer as they await their execution. The final image is a silent shot of the memorial cross located within the Kohima War Cemetery. The cemetery is located in Kohima City, the state capital of Nagaland, India. The Kohima Epitaph on a plate of bronze reads: "When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today."
Cast
*
Stanley Baker
Sir William Stanley Baker (28 February 192828 June 1976) was a Welsh actor and film producer. Known for his rugged appearance and intense, grounded screen persona, he was one of the top British male film stars of the late 1950s, and later a pro ...
as Captain Langford
*
Guy Rolfe as Padre
*
Leo McKern
Reginald "Leo" McKern, AO (16 March 1920 – 23 July 2002) was an Australian actor who appeared in numerous British, Australian and American television programmes and films, and in more than 200 stage roles. His notable roles include Cla ...
as Max
*
Gordon Jackson as Sergeant MacKenzie
*
David Oxley as Doctor
*
Richard Pasco as 2nd Lieutenant Hastings
*
Philip Ahn
Philip Ahn (born Pillip Ahn (), March 29, 1905 – February 28, 1978) was an American actor and activist of Korean descent. With over 180 film and television credits between 1935 and 1978, he was one of the most recognizable and prolific Asi ...
as Yamazaki
*
Bryan Forbes
Bryan Forbes CBE (; born John Theobald Clarke; 22 July 1926 – 8 May 2013) was an English film director, screenwriter, film producer, actor and novelist described as a "Renaissance man"Falk Q. . BAFTA. 17 October 2007. Retrieved 9 May 2013 and ...
as Dawson
*
Wolfe Morris
Wolfe Morris (born Woolf Steinberg, 5 January 1925 – 21 July 1996) was an English actor, who played character roles on stage, television and in feature films from the 1950s until the 1990s. He made his film debut in ''Ill Met by Moonlight''. ...
as the informer
*
David Lodge as Perkins
*
Percy Herbert as Wilson
*
Russell Waters
Russell Waters (born 10 June 1908, Glasgow, Lanarkshire – died 19 August 1982, Richmond, Surrey) was a Scottish film actor.
Waters was educated at Hutchesons' Grammar School, Glasgow and the University of Glasgow. He began acting with the ...
as Brigadier
* Barry Lowe as Turner
*
Burt Kwouk
Herbert Tsangtse Kwouk, (; ; 18 July 1930 – 24 May 2016) was a British actor, known for his role as Cato in the ''Pink Panther'' films. He made appearances in many television programmes, including a portrayal of Imperial Japanese Army Ma ...
as Japanese Soldier
*
Timothy Bateson
Timothy Dingwall Bateson (3 April 1926 – 15 September 2009) was an English actor.
Life and career
Born in London, the son of solicitor Dingwall Latham Bateson and the great-nephew of rugby player Harold Dingwall Bateson, he was educated at ...
as Simpson (uncredited)
* Edwina Carroll as Suni (uncredited)
*
Alan Keith as Bendish (uncredited)
*
Arthur Lovegrove
Arthur Lovegrove (15 July 1913 – 7 November 1981) was a British actor and playwright. His comedy ''Goodnight Mrs Puffin'' starring Irene Handl, ran for 3 years in London's West End, from 1961.
Filmography
* '' Noose'' (1948) - Drummer ...
as Patrick (uncredited)
Critical response
Terence Pettigrew (writing in 1982) wrote "''Yesterday's Enemy'' was criticised at the time for its depiction of British Army cruelty to the natives in a progressively desperate fight to survive. Nothing is done to soften the harshness of armed conflict on all concerned and the film delivers its strong anti-war message without flinching from the task."
Andrew Spicer (writing in 2001) wrote '(Stanley) Baker's officer hero Langford in ''Yesterday's Enemy'' is no gentleman. Langford's dilemma is that he feels he must break the
Geneva Convention
upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864
The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conve ...
and kill civilians in order to obtain the information that may save many lives. Langford's men dislike him, the padre and the liberal war correspondent denounce him, but they all know he is their only chance of survival.'
Julian Upton, reviewing the film's 2009 DVD release, singled out Baker's performance. 'The film is worth seeing for Baker's performance alone. A kind of proto
Peckinpah anti-hero, he'll commit war crime for the greater good of the operation.....but he'll risk his life to save men he's never civil to.'
See also
*
Kohima War Cemetery
References
External links
*
*
*
*
*
{{Val Guest
1959 films
1950s war films
British war films
1950s English-language films
Films directed by Val Guest
British black-and-white films
Burma Campaign films
Films set in Myanmar
Films based on television plays
Hammer Film Productions films
1950s British films