King Rat (film)

King Rat is a 1965 war film written and directed by Bryan Forbes, adapted from James Clavell's 1962 novel, which in turn is partly based on Clavell's experiences as a POW at Changi Prison in Singapore during the Second World War. It stars George Segal, Tom Courtenay, James Fox, Denholm Elliott, Todd Armstrong, Patrick O'Neal, James Donald and John Mills.

The film was released by Columbia Pictures on October 27, 1965, to generally positive reviews. It received Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.

Corporal King is an anomaly in the Japanese prison camp. One of only a handful of Americans amongst the British and Australian inmates, he thrives through his conniving and black market enterprises, while others, like upper class British RAF officer Flight Lieutenant Peter Marlowe, struggle to survive sickness and starvation while trying to retain their civilized standards. King recruits Marlowe to act as a translator, and as they become acquainted, he comes to like King and appreciate his cunning. King respects Marlowe, but his attitude is otherwise ambiguous; when Marlowe is injured, King obtains expensive medicines to save Marlowe's gangrenous arm from amputation, but, despite the fact that he stays by the sick man's bedside, it is unclear whether he does so out of friendship or because Marlowe is the only one who knows where the proceeds from King's latest and most profitable venture are hidden.

However the lower-class, seemingly incorruptible, British Provost Lieutenant Grey has only contempt for the American, and does his best to bring him down. Then Grey has to deal with an unrelated dilemma when he accidentally discovers that the high-ranking officer in charge of the meagre food rations has been stealing. He rejects a bribe and zealously takes the matter to Colonel George Smedley-Taylor. To his dismay, Smedley-Taylor tells him the corrupt officer and his assistant have merely been relieved of their duties and orders him to forget all about it. Grey accuses Smedley-Taylor of being in on the scheme, but the tampered weight he presented to the Colonel as evidence has been replaced, so he no longer has proof of the crime. Smedley-Taylor offers to promote him to acting captain. When a troubled Grey does not respond, Smedley-Taylor takes his silence as consent.

King starts breeding rats and selling the meat to British officers, telling them it is mouse-deer. When a pet dog is put down for killing a chicken, King has it cooked and he and his friends secretly eat it. Although they protest when they discover the origin of the meat, they ultimately relish it. The stakes are raised when they acquire a diamond to sell. The Japanese commander reads a scroll while a junior officer translates for the senior British officers, informing them that the Japanese have surrendered and the war is over. The prisoners celebrate – all except King: he realizes he is no longer the de facto ruler of the camp. King manages to squelch a premature attempt by resentful underling First Sergeant Max to reassert his rank and authority, but that only delays the inevitable.

Weaver, a lone British paratrooper, appears seemingly from nowhere to liberate the camp. After disarming the guards he attempts to talk with the prisoners of war, most of them are in a state of shock; King is the only one who responds. Though King is polite and deferential, Weaver almost immediately becomes suspicious of his clean and healthy appearance compared to the other prisoners and promises not to forget him. When Marlowe speaks to him before King's departure from the camp, King belittles their friendship, saying "you worked for me, and I paid you." The Americans are put on a truck. Marlowe rushes to say goodbye to King, but is too late and the truck drives off. When Grey makes a disparaging remark, Marlowe replies that Grey should be grateful as it was his hatred of King that kept him alive.

Credits from the AFI Catalog of Feature Films.^[1]

Bryan Forbes was offered the job of writing the script and directing by James Woolf. Forbes called Clavell's novel "stunning" but said

Faced with the task of condensing its 400 pages into screenplay form, I stripped away those portions of the novel I did not wholeheartedly admire (mostly the introduction of native girls which, though possibly authentic, belonged to the realm of Dorothy Lamour) and posed one single question: how did men survive under such conditions? It is my most complex screenplay, with little action and mostly concerned with the interplay of character.^[2]

Carl Foreman was originally attached to produce, with a cast including Peter O'Toole, Trevor Howard, John Mills and Albert Finney. However, he left the project in late 1963, claiming he had "[felt] now I have nothing more to say about war," after making four consecutive films on the subject.^[1]

Forbes wanted to shoot exteriors in Singapore,^[1] and interiors at a studio in Britain. Columbia's new head of production Mike Frankovich wanted to show he was opposed to "runaway productions", and insisted on shooting the entire film in Southern California. A ranch was discovered at Thousand Oaks that was turned into the camp.^[1]

Forbes said he and Woolf had a battle with Columbia "who were adamant that we should employ a variety of middle-aged Americans" in the film. He and Woolf arranged it that "in return for employing every resident British actor in Hollywood on the SAG list, we were allowed to import a quota from England." Forbes said the British actors "were selected for their slimness as well as their acting talents and asked to stay on a strict diet until their roles were completed."^[3]

Forbes said Columbia's suggestions for the title role included Frank Sinatra, Robert Mitchum, James Garner, and Burt Lancaster, but he felt these would "have made nonsense for Clavell's novel" and he insisted on George Segal.^[4] (Michael Callan had also been linked with the part.^[1][5]) The director also insisted on black and white photography.^[6] Dirk Bogarde declined the role of Smedley-Taylor. Forbes later called making the film:

A watershed in my professional life, a unique experience I am unlikely to repeat. I was being paid to create something I passionately believed in with the absolute minimum of interference and the maximum loyalty and co-operation of studio, cast and crew alike. I learnt a great deal from that American crew and however fortunate I am in the future, the situation will never be quite as perfect again. It was a hard, physical film to make, not without its moments of despair and indeed desperation, but at the end of the sixty-two shooting days I was so affected I could scarcely talk for fear of breaking down.^[7]

The movie previewed poorly and led to Forbes deleting some scenes, and toning down anti-religious passages.^[8]

Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote "The film (King Rat) is dexterously made. It is also meretricious, imitative, thematically muddy'. Kauffmann went on to praise the performances in the movie, especially James Fox's.^[9]

The film has been praised for its realism and cinematography.^[10] Moreover, George Segal's performance has been cited as one of the strongest of his career.^[11]

Filmink argued "there was some sex in the novel but Bryan Forbes removed it, which possibly hurt the film at the box office."^[12]

James Clavell later said "my feeling is the film failed because Forbes took away the story thread and made it a composite of character studies".^[13]

Forbes was unhappy with what he felt was a misleading ad campaign. He said the film "made little or no impression in America, although it was given long and impressive reviews by the top-line critics — but I remain convinced that whatever chance it had was thrown away by run-of-the-mill and basically dishonest exploitation. Now it has become a cult film on the university campuses, but in 1965 when it was first shown Vietnam was still a clean war, and the American mass audiences were unlikely to take kindly to such a cynical view of human behaviour. It had no happy or heroic ending and said some unpopular things about the American dream. The real audience, the audience for whom it was intended, stayed away."^[14]

He later clarified the film "proved to be a success everywhere but in America, at one time playing in four cinemas simultaneously on the Champs-Élysées."^[15]

John Mills wrote the film "showed how unpredictable this funny old business can be. It was a wonderful script, a great cast and one of the best directorial jobs Bryan Forbes has ever done... Everybody loved the picture but it wasn’t a success. The only thing I can put it down to is that there was no gorgeous, glamorous girl, no love interest."^[16]

• List of American films of 1965

• Forbes, Bryan (1974). Notes for a life.
• Forbes, Bryan (1993). A divided life : memoirs.

• King Rat at IMDb
• King Rat at the TCM Movie Database (archived version)
• King Rat at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• King Rat at Rotten Tomatoes