It has always bothered me that King Rat is so underrated. On one listof top the thousand films in history, it gets no mention. I think it'sbecause George Segal's character, Corporal King wasn't a totallylikable person. He is not the standard Hollywood hero. But he is a heroof mine. Were I in that prison camp, I guarantee you, I would have beenCorporal King's best friend. One thing I learned in life was how tosurvive, and everyone around Corporal King survived. The movie misses avery important point that was in James Clavell's novel on which it isbased. In case the war turned bad for the Japanese and they startedtaking revenge on the prisoners, King had planned an escape route. Notjust for himself, for everyone close to him. Put that in the film andyou've got a major American hero. The movie is totally cliché free. Onenever knows where it is going or how it is going to end. Winning thewar, you see, will not guarantee the safety of the prisoners. How itends is perfectly logical in retrospect, but difficult to predict. Itis a near perfect motion picture.

I saw this grainy black and white film sometime in 1967 one steamyevening in a tin hooch Army movie theatre at TSN airfield on theoutskirts of Saigon. The movie was punctuated by the sounds of mortarson the perimeter and the occasional flash from an aerial flare. I neverforgot it. It rang true there. So true that no-one could say a wordafter. We just got drunk -- as usual. I haven't talked to many otherswho saw this movie. It hit right in the middle of the rising tide ofdespair over Vietnam. And since it wasn't actually an anti-war movie, Ithink it went nowhere. I believe it's origin is a short novel, possiblyautobiographical by J.B. Clavell, author of Tai Pan and other sagas setin the 19th C orient. No matter what George Segal has done since, Ihave known that he has the heart of a rat. His King was a natural rulerin a perverse state of nature -- and his fate the fate of all maverickrulers in the end. If you can find it and see it, it will take on thecharacter of a lost dream.

I saw "King Rat" on television shortly before going to Vietnam. A few months later I was reading the James Clavell novel while serving onDaNang Air Base with air force communications intelligence. It struckme that this book and this movie, which was "researched" by JamesClavell when he was a POW in a camp near Singapore during World War II,have the real feel of what it is to be surrounded by enemy forces onealmost never sees while being kept isolated on a hot, humid, dustyencampment It's an environment that brings out the best and the worstin mankind. The novel, the movie, and my own war zone experience alsopoint out that adapting to a war zone and mastering the skills thatenable one to survive and even prosper there do not necessarily meanthat the individual will subsequently be adaptable to "civilization"when he returns to it. The novel, the movie, and my own experiencesalso raise the questions that are raised in "The Man in the GrayFlannel Suit" (and even in "Rambo" for that matter): Which is more ofa challenge and which is the "real" life: adapting to the war zone asa youth or the expectations by "civilization" that you readjust to lifeback in "the world" as if nothing had happened?