Flight Lieutenant Michael Quinn (Dirk Bogarde) has seen a lot of action in the RAF and is itching for something different. So he volunteers for duty with Army Intelligence and goes to school to learn the Japanese language. However, a problem develops when a pretty Japanese language instructor, Sabbi (Yôko Tani) arrives. She and Michael fall in love and marry. So why is this a problem? Well, he never asked for permission to marry through military channels--and might result in him being severely disciplined. So, they keep their marriage a secret and hope for the best. But there are two problems. First, there is an officer who is a total jerk and could LOVE to see Quinn in hot water. Second, something is wrong with Sabbi...something she hasn't told her husband. and then, there's a third problem which comes along a bit later. What's next? Well, see the film and find out for yourself.What I appreciate most about this film is that it is unique. There must have been a bazillion war movies but so many of them have a sameness about them...but not this one. Well acted, well made and very engaging...this one's worth your time.

During World War II, the beauty Aiko Clarke, was one of the several Japanese who taught at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies(SOAS). She was immortalized by one of her students, Richard Mason, the author of The World of Suzie Wong, in his first novel The Wind Cannot Read.The Japanese instructors had to be accompanied by SOAS students for their protection, on outings in London. The instructors also taught respect for Japanese culture and life. Otome Daniels's parting words to pupils leaving for India were 'please look kindly on my people'.Mason served in the Far East in the Royal Air Force as an interrogator of Japanese prisoners-of-war. He did his writing in the evenings, often in temperatures of over 100 degrees and carried the manuscript in his jeep during the Burma Campaign.

This was the final picture shown at the famous New York City movie palace, the Roxy, the self-exclaimed "Cathedral of the Motion Picture." The Roxy opened in 1928 amid mid-Manhatten Roaring Twenties fanfare. By the mid-1950's, the theater was showing it's age through years of neglect and declining revenues, i.e. competition from television and general flight of patrons to the suburbs. It was during the late '50's to the late '80's that the large picture palaces were vanishing to the wrecker's ball, and the Roxy fell without a whimper from the public. After showing "The Wind Cannot Read," in the spring of 1960, the Roxy was closed and demolished in three months. A famous photo exists of silent movie actress Gloria Swanson in an elegant gown posing amid the Roxy's gloomy ruins; one of her silents opened the Roxy in 1928. A tragic end to a magnificent structure, only 32 years old at the time.

Dirk Bogarde's parts for Ralph Thomas are not among his best work,by a long shot.Drippy,the precedent user says ,and I can sadly find litlle fault with the opinion expressed.Besides ,the screenplay seems to have been written by chance:in its first part,the movie is pure bad soap opera,in the wake of Logan's superior "Sayonara"(1957) -the Japanese tongue is one of the most difficult in the world,but after a few weeks,Bogarde and his mates can speak in a very workmanlike way-where implausibilities abound (the female teacher is not the least one!).But the second part,which is roughly a war movie, verges on incoherence:there's the obligatory wicked cruel Japanese officer,and the bad news about Bogarde's love comes at the most awkward moment.This leads to an ending à la "a farewell to arms".The "poetic" prologue and epilogue are overkill.This forgotten movie has gone with the wind,which,as anybody knows,cannot read.