Mother and daughter, Rachel Kempson and Lynn Redgrave, play mother and daughter in Virgin Soldiers, a tale about a group of young British soldiers in Malaysia doing their national service at the time of the Communist rebellion there. The Virgin Soldiers are seen through the eyes of Hywel Bennett who narrates the film.
His crowd are not World War II veterans, they grew up during the war and the blitz and are doing the national service in the hopes they'll never have to do any real fighting. In fact going into battle with this lot worries the hell out of the veteran British army people, the career soldiers such as Nigel Patrick the sergeant major of the regiment who Kempson is married to.
But in addition to worrying about the quality of his troops, Patrick is worried about his daughter's aloofness from the opposite sex. Her frigid behavior has him concerned so much so he commands her to attend a regimental dance.
She meets Bennett there, but their inexperience in these matters lead to a disaster. Never mind both of them get over the hump so to speak with another sergeant Nigel Davenport for her and the best whore in Singapore Juicy Lucy played by Tsai Chin.
In the meantime the Communist guerrillas have come out of the back country and are making some real war on the British. The troops get battle tested and of course some don't make it. Check out the death of Christopher Timothy, a really tragic occurrence, a needless death of an untrained man in a bad situation.
In the year of Stonewall in the USA, the British cinema acknowledged the presence of gay people in their armed services. Gregory Phillips and Wayne Sleep find each other, in fact we know about them within the first 10 minutes of the film. Funny thing is that it doesn't particularly bother their fellow king and country volunteers and the brass know they have to make due with what they have and can't worry about whom they kanoodle with.
Virgin Soldiers is a good film, remarkably funny and sad at the same time. You're not sure how you should feel and I can tell you that you will feel both at the same time.
His crowd are not World War II veterans, they grew up during the war and the blitz and are doing the national service in the hopes they'll never have to do any real fighting. In fact going into battle with this lot worries the hell out of the veteran British army people, the career soldiers such as Nigel Patrick the sergeant major of the regiment who Kempson is married to.
But in addition to worrying about the quality of his troops, Patrick is worried about his daughter's aloofness from the opposite sex. Her frigid behavior has him concerned so much so he commands her to attend a regimental dance.
She meets Bennett there, but their inexperience in these matters lead to a disaster. Never mind both of them get over the hump so to speak with another sergeant Nigel Davenport for her and the best whore in Singapore Juicy Lucy played by Tsai Chin.
In the meantime the Communist guerrillas have come out of the back country and are making some real war on the British. The troops get battle tested and of course some don't make it. Check out the death of Christopher Timothy, a really tragic occurrence, a needless death of an untrained man in a bad situation.
In the year of Stonewall in the USA, the British cinema acknowledged the presence of gay people in their armed services. Gregory Phillips and Wayne Sleep find each other, in fact we know about them within the first 10 minutes of the film. Funny thing is that it doesn't particularly bother their fellow king and country volunteers and the brass know they have to make due with what they have and can't worry about whom they kanoodle with.
Virgin Soldiers is a good film, remarkably funny and sad at the same time. You're not sure how you should feel and I can tell you that you will feel both at the same time.