So I saw the 1965 movie [I]King Rat[/I].....

Cafe Society
1

The 1965 WWII movie King Rat was on a movie channel last night. I liked it and I have some observations and questions…

  • Could an lowly army corporal have ever become a financial kingpin in a Japanese prison camp? He even had his superior officer working for him.

  • Would prisoners have retained their money and personal possessions to create an economic system? Why would the Japanese even be interested in their money?

  • Would a Japanese camp commander have formally announced the Japanese surrender and the end of the war?

**** Was the movie ending the inspiration for the final episode of M.A.S.H. ???**

2

James Clavell was a prisoner of war, and apparently the book was at least inspired by his experiences.

[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Clavell suffered greatly at the hands of his Japanese captors. According to the introduction to Clavell’s novel King Rat (1962), over 90% of the prisoners who entered Changi never walked out.[2] Clavell was reportedly saved, along with an entire battalion, by an American prisoner of war who later became the model for “The King” in King Rat.
[/QUOTE]

3

As an aside - Changi Museum is well worth a visit if you’re ever in Singapore -
“enjoyed” when I took my father to see…

4

Not relevant to your OP, but it fascinates me. The movie King Rat features a lot of guys whgo appeared in prisoner of war (or just “prisoner” dramas

John Mills – starred as Pat Reid in *The Colditz Story

Richard Dawson – was Newkirk for years on Hogan’s Heroes

Tom Courtenay – starred in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

James Donald was James Ramsay (the British chief officer) in The Great Escape

I finally picked up a copy of the book last weekend. It’s one of the few of the books in Clavell’s Asian series I haven’t read yet.

5

Quite a movie. Never read the book but in the movie the prisoners have a limited amount of valuable goods they’ve smuggled in or traded with the guards for and the corporal ends up with virtually all of it. Unlike the overly melodramatic Bridge Over the River Kwai this movie focused on the suffering of all the prisoners. I have to paraphrase the line that stuck with me, “It’s not that he’s lost the will to live, he’s lost the will not to die”.

6

Never saw the movie; the book bored me.