The Purple Plain the three men struggle to survive in the hostile environment, the self-destructive Bill finally realises that he can depend on support from others and that he may have someone to live for. Blore, however, abandons them to attempt to return to the crash site and commits suicide. "The Purple Plain" is regarded generally as historically accurate with good production values and attention to detail, and depicts the native Burmese in a respectful manner. The film is based on the 1947 novel "The Purple Plain" by H. E. Bates, one of three novels he wrote after his travels to Burma and
Harry Bates (author) the old, raw, gloves-off school [including] every cliche of the period," concluding "Hawk Carse was so bad that he was almost good." Everett F. Bleiler characterized the series as "traditional pulp Western stories transplanted into space, with the addition of an Oriental villain in the mode of Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu-Manchu." Ten years later, "Amazing Stories" printed im July the final Hawk Carse novelette, "The Return of Hawk Carse:, written by Bates alone. This story has never been collected or reprinted. Harry Bates wrote the following science fiction short stories: The short story "Farewell to the Master" appears in the