The Long and the Short and the Tall 1961

During the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942, a seven-strong British sonic deception unit on a short jungle exercise takes shelter from the rain in a hut set inside an abandoned tin mine. The mood is tense and the atmosphere crowded with squabbles, as the men constantly bicker under the pressure of danger and fatigue. The bullying Corporal Johnstone Richard Harris frequently needles the others, while the ever-watchful Bamforth Laurence Harvey spends much of his time mocking the teased and teased-back, creating a fragile undercurrent of hostility that hissed under their breath like static.

When Sergeant Mitchem and the stern Corporal Johnstone separate to reconnoiter, the mood hardens further. Lance-Corporal Macleish, known as “Mac” and played by Ronald Fraser, is provoked to the limit and lashes out at Bamforth, a blow that echoes the growing strain among the group. The soldiers fail to establish radio contact with their base, and a stray Japanese broadcast crackles into their ears, hinting that a hostile presence is nearby. A Japanese scout is captured during the confusion: Johnstone grabs him and orders Taff to stab, but Taff cannot bring himself to kill in cold blood. It is Mitchem who returns from the reconnaissance and decrees that the scout must be brought back for interrogation, a decision that reshapes the entire mission.

Mitchem places Bamforth in charge of the prisoner, whom Bamforth names Tojo Kenji Takaki. The revelation that Tojo is merely a fellow soldier rather than a celebrated enemy gradually softens Bamforth’s initial resolve, and the men find a kind of uneasy bonding in sharing glimpses of Tojo’s family through pictures. Johnstone, furious at this unexpected companionship, furies at the sight and tries to tear the pictures apart. Bamforth’s temper finally snaps, and he pounds Johnstone, risking a court-martial as the group looks on in stunned silence. Mitchem halts the escalation, but the tension remains, gnawing at everyone’s nerves.

Meanwhile Mac and Smudge depart to reconnoiter again and glimpse a small patrol that is dispatching two soldiers to locate Tojo. Mac executes one of the soldiers to protect the prisoner, while the other escapes, and both return to warn the rest. The patrol’s radio contact becomes a perilous risk, and despite the danger of exposing their position, they decide to issue a warning to their base. A taunting Japanese broadcast escalates the urgency of their flight as the men press onward toward their own lines.

As they press for home, Mitchem comes to a grim realization: the prisoner has become more liability than asset, and Johnstone’s eagerness to kill Tojo grows more menacing by the hour. The group pauses in the canyons carved by a flood, the canyon walls echoing their anxious heartbeat. Bamforth keeps watch, and the tension culminates when Johnstone spots Mac and Tojo sharing a cigarette. He points out—cruelly—that the cigarettes are British, implying that Tojo must have looted them from a fallen comrade. This accusation forces the others to confront their own complicity with looting and the lines between right and wrong in such a war-torn landscape. The group rummages through Tojo’s possessions and tries to restore some semblance of dignity by gathering his belongings. Johnstone sneers that Tojo’s cigarette case bears a Birmingham mark, a detail that stings deeply. Bamforth counters that Tojo could have traded for it, which forces the youngest member, Whittaker, to admit a troubling truth about survival on the march.

As the flood recedes, Mitchem orders one last attempt to contact their base before they depart. The plan shifts toward abandoning the mules, blowing up the special equipment, and killing the prisoner Tojo if necessary. Bamforth, staunchly opposed to execution, pleads for support from the others but finds none. The radio finally crackles to life, but only with a Japanese message that cannot be understood. Tojo steps forward, trying in Japanese to explain the message, and Whittaker—racked by shame over his earlier looting—mistakes Tojo’s movement and fires, killing him with a machine gun. The radio later returns with a Japanese-accented English proclamation that the patrol is surrounded and demands their surrender. Whittaker’s volley will have alerted the enemy even further.

Mitchem joins Bamforth to form a stubborn rear guard that buys time for the others to escape. The main Japanese force closes in, and the fighting intensity rises as a sniper destroys Taff and Mac. Whittaker is cut off from the group, and Johnstone orders Smudge to return to Mitchem, a command that ends in tragedy as Smudge is killed in the fighting. Mitchem’s shock when he finally sees Johnstone, superficially injured and returning alone, ends in a brutal twist as the sniper finishes him off. With the Japanese closing in, Johnstone urges Bamforth to surrender, but Bamforth refuses and instead triggers the explosives. The blast destroys several attackers, yet a rockfall that follows seals Bamforth’s fate in a final, fatal moment. Johnstone advances, salvages a white scarf from a dead Japanese soldier, and surrenders, while Whittaker is found cowering and captured by the pursuing forces, subjected to mockery just as the British had treated Tojo earlier.

In this harrowing sequence of courage, cowardice, and the brutal calculus of war, the bonds and betrayals among the seven men culminate in a devastating conclusion. The jungle, the rain, and the relentless threat of capture hang over every decision, reminding us that even in the chaos of wartime deception, the line between heroism and wrongdoing can be impossibly thin.