The Purple Plain

Gregory Peck and Win Min Than

Robert Parrish's The Purple Plain is an above average Gregory Peck vehicle from 1955. Peck plays a Canadian airman suffering from PTSD after flying bomber missions in Burma during World War 2. The film has two narrative sections. First, Peck falls in love with comely Win Min Than who helps him deal with his trauma and become whole again as a person. Second, the film becomes a tale of survival as Peck and two comrades crash in the Burmese jungle and try to make it out alive.

The print I saw (on MGM's own channel) was not up to snuff. The technicolor was faded at the end of reels and there were numerous scratches. A pity since Geoffrey Unsworth's cinematography is eye-popping. Sri Lanka stands in for Burma and the locales are beauteous. Peck is as wooden as ever, but as he is unconscious and or delirious for half the picture, the negative effect is negligible. Parrish gets good performances out of his mostly British cast and it is sad that this is the only film Ms. Than appeared in because she gives a sweet and winsome performance.

The courtliness of the romance is contrasted with lysergic flashbacks depicting the trauma of Peck's wartime experiences. Parrish's deliberate pacing and an evocative soundtrack heighten our feelings for his plight. Parrish has always interested me because I thoroughly enjoyed his memoir (the lively Growing Up in Hollywood) some years back, but have had a hard time tracking down the films he directed. I've seen two of his Westerns and found them to be better than run of the mill. The Purple Plain seems to be the most acclaimed film he directed and while not a masterpiece, is a worthy film.