A Town Like Alice

A Town Like Alice is a 1956 British drama film produced by Joseph Janni and starring Virginia McKenna and Peter Finch that is based on the 1950 novel of the same name by Nevil Shute. The film does not follow the whole novel, concluding at the end of part two and truncating or omitting much detail. It was partially filmed in Malaya and Australia. Plot In post-Second World War London, a young woman, Jean Paget, is informed by solicitor Noel Strachan that she has a large inheritance. Jean uses part of it to build a well in a small village in Malaya. The village women will no longer have to walk so far each day to collect water. She lived and worked there for three years during the war. The film then goes in flashback to 1942. Jean is working in an office in Kuala Lumpur in Malaya when the Japanese invade. When she stays to help the wife of her employer, Mr. Holland, with her three children, she is taken prisoner, along with other white men, women and children. The men are taken away to prison. The women and children, however, are made to walk from place to place, looking for a ship to transport them to Singapore, but at each place, there is no ship available, and the Japanese authorities have no wish to take responsibility for them. On their trek, the group meet a young Australian soldier, Sergeant Joe Harman, also a prisoner, who drives a truck for the Japanese. He steals petrol and barters it for medicine for them. He and Jean strike up a friendship in the little time they have together, and he tells her about Alice Springs, the town where he grew up. Jean does not correct his impression that she is married (she is carrying the youngest of Mrs. Holland's children, the mother having succumbed to the endless walking).