Yesterday's Enemy

Obviously, TCM's recent showing of this film was an eye-opening experience for many people, as it was for me. The other reviews (with the exception of the one with the historical ax to grind, completely unsubstantiated by the film) express all my own reasons for appreciating the film. The excitement I want to share is this: After 63 years of movie-watching, chancing on a film entirely unknown to me... one that I have never even seen included in anyone's list of "Great War Movies"... that is so well-produced, -acted and -directed... just so damn GOOD. And to have that incredible feeling of DISCOVERY... another prize addition to my "collection" of film-going experiences.

And it was gratifying to see Phillip Ahn, so familiar from the 40's, play a key role so effectively.

This movie is a terrific war piece of work, among the best ever, which Sam Fuller or Bob Aldrich could have done themselves. A pure men's tale, with no good vs evil silly scheme, as we usual see in war movies. Here British soldiers can behave like Japanese. I have always confounded this movie and Leslie Norman's THE LONG THE SHORT AND THE TALL. Another jungle patrol British film, very close to this one.

War for all those that do not glorify it is true hell. This movie is a document to the above statement; it feels like you are watching a play in a jungle the acting is superb the story tackles moral questions that nowadays dont seem to concern anybodyth about the hypocrisy and the utter futility of war, the fact that the action scenes are very old fashioned makes no difference to the superior quality of this production a must see for all those that want a first hand view into this hypocrisy and futility

I caught this for the first time this evening having never come across it before in over 60 years of film and a TV viewing. It proves what can be achieved without a huge budget as long as one has a fine cast, well written script and a darn good director. No over-dramatic music needed to highlight the tension, no million dollar special effects. Modern filmmakers could learn a thing or two from this lesser known masterpiece of British cinema.

This Hammer WWII b-movie was originally a stage-play, and with the contained setting and tons of dialog it's apparent..

But Stanley Baker turns in his greatest performance... a one-man show despite being surrounded by character-actors like faithful sergeant Gordon Jackson countered by idealistic reporter Leo McKern and priest Guy Rolfe, driving the central moral-quandary plot-line...

Beginning with their troop of disheveled British soldiers, lost and trudging through the Burmese jungle, happening upon a two-hut village where Baker's no-nonsense captain figures he MUST scare an informer by killing two elderly locals...

The best scenes occur during this first half when Baker's lethal, cold-blooded methods start becoming more clear and, because of the vital information gained, somewhat logical, and he never wavers to the ethical humanity in a village foreshadowing future Vietnam films (and their tropes) about murderous white soldiers...

These include Brian De Palma's CASUALTIES OF WAR and Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning PLATOON, still paling to this low budget, obscure gem mostly thanks to Stanley Baker...

Keeping up the same stubborn, determined intensity when the Japanese, led by an English-speaking, philosophizing Philip Ahn, turns the tables, and the adaptation becomes even more stagey and yet with tight, edgy suspense by Val Guest, one of Hammer's best directors, YESTERDAY'S ENEMY keeps the audience as locked-in as its unflappable leading man.