Too late hero

Spring of 1942. Military service on one of the islands in the Southwest Pacific Ocean for Lieutenant Sam Lawson (Cliff Robertson) is like a vacation at a resort. Soon he will have a vacation, and he will be able to fly away for a month in San Francisco. Unfortunately for himself, Lawson is fluent in Japanese, making him an ideal candidate to participate in a joint US-British military operation. Such plans of the authorities are contrary to his personal mercantile interests, but he has no choice - a tribunal is due for disobeying the order.

So instead of the long-awaited vacation, Lawson gets to the English military base on one of the islands of New Hybrid. Here he meets Captain Hornsby (Denholm Elliott), who will command the mission, and the English soldiers participating in the operation, among which the indefatigable character and informal leadership among the soldiers stands out as a private, cockney by birth, Tosh Hearn (Michael Kane) - in his cynical attitude Hearn can even compete with Lawson for war.

Soon, Lawson, Horn, Hornsby and the rest of the soldiers find out that they will have to go to the Japanese part of the island, to the deep rear of the enemy, to disable the radio station, at a Japanese observation post, before transmitting to the Japanese air base false information about the American naval convoy.

• Michael Kane - Private Tosh Hearn
• Cliff Robertson - Lieutenant Sam Lawson
• Ian Bannen - Private Jock Thornton
• Harry Andrews - Colonel Thompson
• Denholm Elliott - Captain Hornsby

• Filming began on January 15, 1969 and ended on June 27, 1969. Filming locations are Austria, the Los Angeles Botanical Garden, and the U.S. Navy base in the Philippines.
• Although the action of the picture takes place during the Second World War, it is not difficult to see an allegory in it with the military conflict in Vietnam that occurs just during the filming of the film.
• The runway for Japanese aircraft, which is discovered by a group of English soldiers, was built specifically for the film.
• One of the companies in Tokyo, which specializes in military clothing, made 400 sets of Japanese uniforms from the Second World War specifically for the film.
• During field shootings in the jungle in the Philippines, Michael Kane always accurately guided the terrain. However, when filming took place in the California Botanical Garden in Los Angeles, on the first day of filming, Michael managed to get lost.
• When Cliff Robertson during the filming appeared at the base of the US Navy, dressed in the uniform of an officer of the American army, he was mistaken for an officer from the base guard.
• One night, during filming in the Philippines, unknown attackers stole the British flag, apparently for souvenirs. I had to specially send a plane to Hong Kong for a new flag.

• Too Late the Hero on the Internet Movie Database