A Town Like Alice (1956)

An English woman (Virginia McKenna) working in Malaya when the Japanese invade is taken prisoner along with a group of other women and children. They are supposed to be interned in a prison camp but even though they are prisoners of war, no one wants them and they are forced to trek hundreds of miles along with a solitary Japanese guard (Takagi) looking for a haven. Based on the novel by Neil Shute (ON THE BEACH) and directed by Jack Lee. The film only uses a portion of the Shute novel, the WWII Malayan years and omits the Australian portion of the book. While the film doesn't hesitate from showing the horrors of the experience and the Japanese brutality toward prisoners, not all the Japanese are portrayed as yellow peril and the sergeant accompanying the women played Takagi is very sympathetic. Indeed, his death scene is the most moving in the film. The romance between McKenna and an Australian POW (Peter Finch) is given a focus that tends to distract from the horrors of the women's experience but I suspect that romance is what made the film a hit. With Jean Anderson, Renee Houston, Marie Lohr, Nora Nicholson, Maureen Swanson and Tran Van Khe.