The Long and the Short and the Tall
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The Long and the Short and the Tall is a play written in 1958 by Willis Hall that was adapted into a 1960 film of the same name. The film stars Laurence Harvey, Richard Todd, Richard Harris, David McCallum and Ronald Fraser.
A sonic warfare unit is sent into the Malaysian jungle to monitor the Japanese in 1942. Tensions arise when the radio malfunctions and a lone Japanese soldier stumbles across the patrol's location.
The name comes from the second line of the soldier's song "Bless 'em All." In the U.S. the film was retitled Jungle Fighters.
[edit] The Play
The play was written as a response to the general unease and discomfort surrounding the Japanese in general, and the way the British public responded to them. It also opens up the debate of whether the fact that a man is wearing a different coloured uniform makes it justifiable to kill him.
In 1958, the Japanese would have been viewed very differently to how they are in this generation. Then, the memories of war were extremely vivid in people’s minds, and the stories passed down on the cruelty of the Japanese would no doubt have been embellished. We, today view them as hardworking people. We see them as trade partners and leaders in technology today. Education is now improved to the point that we have much more awareness of the Japanese culture, as opposed to how the audience of the time of this play didn’t. Currently it would be difficult not to be familiar with Japan's products and technological advances.
In a social context this play was hugely different from others in the British theatre at that time. It used a striking reality that had not been witnessed before. This was present in the cutting realism. Gone were the monotone accents and the fake voices, in this play, nothing was fake or un-realistic. The name “The Long And The Short And The Tall” suggests that all the men were different, and from different living areas, different walks of life, etc. their only thing in common being that they had all been stationed in the Malayan Peninsula.
It was demonstrated that this play was all about people coming from different walks of life, and this is done by the army and racist slang. This kind of language would make it all more believable. The different accents from different regions also made the play more naturalistic and “real.”
