Somewhere in the Pacific in the spring of 1942, a U.S. Navy captain – played by “guest star” Henry Fonda – dispatches the shore patrol to bring back Sam Lawson (Cliff Robertson). Dragging him off a beach, the captain cancels the lieutenant’s leave and orders him to assist a British combat unit who need a Japanese speaker.

The surly Lawson makes it clear that “As a language specialist, I was gonna get a bar on my shoulder and be able to sit by a radio and eavesdrop on those fiendish Orientals.” He tries resigning his commission in order to get out of the assignment, but Fonda threatens to send him out there as a seaman second class if he has to.

Arriving in the sweltering New Hebrides, Lawson finds a British regiment patched together by conscripts who escaped Singapore and would rather be anywhere but in the army. These include a nut (Ian Bannen), a soldier who wounded himself (Ronald Fraser) and a capable private named Hearne (Michael Caine) in even less mood for combat than Lawson.

The men are sent to disable the Japanese radio on the northern side of the island so that a U.S. convoy can pass without being reported to enemy air and naval forces based at Rabaul and Truk. They’re saddled with a green captain (Denholm Elliott) and encounter numerous Japanese patrols on their hike through the jungle.

Once the radio has been destroyed, the unit’s survivors stumble upon a Japanese airfield no one realized was on the island. The Japanese commander (Ken Takakura) utilizes an intercom system strung through the jungle to inform the men they cannot be allowed to return to their base and give away the position of the airfield. He offers amnesty to anyone who surrenders.

Hearne and Lawson don’t fall for it, but the Brit favors hiding out until after the naval convoy is hit and the Japanese won’t be so inclined to hunt them down. Lawson is intent on making it back to the base before that, risking his own neck for the chance he might save the lives of the men on the convoy.

Directed by Robert Aldrich and adapted by Aldrich & Lukas Heller from an unpublished novel by Robert Sherman called Don’t Die Mad, Too Late The Hero was an attempt at a World War II movie adorned with allusions to Vietnam. The cynicism and low morale of the unit, coupled with realistic violence, was a departure from the patriotism still exhibited in most war films at that time, except for maybe Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen.

This movie was far less successful. I’ve never liked Cliff Robertson and this role did nothing to change my mind. Caine is good, but he’s essentially playing the same character as Robertson. Not enough was done in the script to really make any of the men in the unit stand out from each other. Their debate on whether to surrender or act heroic was intriguing, but the conceit of loudspeakers hung up in the jungle was pretty silly.

Filmed on location in The Philippines, in what was the biggest production to film in the country at that time. Robertson won a Best Actor Oscar for Charly while on location, but Aldrich refused to let him travel to L.A. for the ceremony. If you don’t mind Robertson, this could be a decent time killer on cable TV, but I was disappointed.