Online Video Guide

Peter Finch and Virginia McKenna star in this award-winning adaptation of Nevil Shute's moving novel. Jean Paget is a prisoner in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, compelled to trek all over Malaya at bayonet point during the occupation. She meets captive Australian, Joe Harman, and they are instantly attracted to each other and soon Jean learns all about his hometown Alice Springs, and how he hopes one day to return there. But the immediate problem is their forced enslavement by the Japanese. To relieve the sufferings of the gallant women prisoners, Joe steals a quantity of chickens from the sadistic Captain Sugaya and is caught. Sugaya orders Joe to be executed in front of Jean and the others. Later, back in peacetime London, Jean decides to return to Malaya and here, during her welcome back festivities, she learns that Joe did not actually die ...