PRISONER OF WAR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 814, 4 March 1955, Page 19

PRISONER OF WAR

(M.G.M.) N its way this film is quite a notable contribution to the maintenance of international tension. It purports to give us a behind-the-scenes view of the treatment meted out to American prisoners of war in North Korea before hostilities concluded, and very little seems to have been omitted from its "sorry catalogue of sadism, brutality and torture; There is, in fact, so much brutality in it that I doubt if the film can be other than brutalising in its effect. The most startling aspect of the production, however, is its outright assertion that Soviet officers supervised the torture of U.N. prisoners. You. must condition their reflexes, says Comrade Colonel Oscar Homolka to his North Korean colleagues, citing Pavlov and his dogs; but before long I was wondering whose reflexes were being conditioned by whom. Fifty years ago this kind of thing would have provoked an international incident, and possibly, a breach. of diplomatic rela- 4 tions, That such a film can be shown today, apparently without exciting comment, could indicaté that we are, on the whole, more stable and sensible than our fathers. I would just like to be sure that stable and sensible are the right words. |