Objective, Burma!

Plot synopsis:
A group of United States Army paratroopers led by Captain Nelson (Errol Flynn) are dropped into Burma to locate and destroy a camouflaged Japanese Army radar station that is detecting Allied aircraft flying into China. For their mission, they are assigned Gurkha guides, a Chinese Army Captain and an older war correspondent (Henry Hull) whose character is used to explain various procedures to the audience.
The mission is an overwhelming success as the 36-man team quickly take out the station and its personnel. But when the airborne troops arrive at an old airstrip to be taken back to their base, they find the Japanese waiting for them at their rendezvous site. Captain Nelson makes the hard decision to call off the rescue planes, and hike out on foot.
To reduce the likelihood of detection, the group then splits up into two smaller units to meet up at a deserted Burmese village. But when Nelson arrives at the meeting place, he finds that the other team had been captured, tortured and mutilated by the Japanese. Only Lt. Jacobs survives, and he too dies after telling Nelson what had happened. The surviving soldiers are then attacked and are forced again to retreat into the jungle. The men must then cross the swamps in their attempt to make it back to safety through enemy-occupied jungle.
Fighting an almost constant rearguard action, Nelson's paratroopers also succeed as decoys leading Japanese troops away from the site of the British 1944 aerial invasion of Burma.

Tags: violence

Review:
A solidly entertaining film that follows the exploits of a small group of American paratroopers dropped behind Japanese lines to destroy an enemy radar installation, it was quite gritty for a 1940's era war picture.
It's also one of Errol Flynn's best roles, as the captain of a parachute squad sent to blow up a Japanese radar station as a prelude to the allied re-conquest of Burma.
A few of the sequences have a lot of scratches and grain, but that was because the film makes good use of real jungle war footage.A must see for fans of WWII films, or of Errol Flynn fans who want to see him in one of his best roles..
There is a scene in "Objective Burma" which conveys to me, more effectively than any other film, how that rage was born.This is a Warner Brothers "A" picture, directed by the great Raoul Walsh, and it shows.
Errol Flynn leads a group of U.S. paratroopers on a mission to destroy an enemy radar station in Japanese-occupied Burma.
It rates right up there with Cagney's unbelievable turn in Yankee Doodle Dandy or Bogart's African Queen  If you never thought Flynn could act, this flick will turn your head around.The usual TV Guide description goes something like  "American paratroopers are dropped into Burma to destroy a radar station".
The real story begins when they find out they can't be picked up and are going to have to 'walk out', and it ain't no Robin Hood swash buckles his way through the castle sequence!The dialog, music, photography, settings, along with major and minor players all work exquisitely to deliver what I humbly consider to be the finest war movie ever made.
Objective Burma has to be one of Errol Flynn's best movies not to mention performances.
There is only a small amount of the stereotypical Bronx or New York guy with an accent.Objective Burma is an entertaining movie about a paratrooper units mission to destroy a radar station and how it their escape route becomes blocked and they must fight their way out.
I saw this movie when it came out in 1945.As a kid of 8 years it was terrific.I watch it every time it is on TV.I can almost repeat all the dialog in it.I think the part that Henry Hull says when they find our men captured in the village.I think it is very fitting today as to what is going on in Iraq.Colorizing this movie wasn't such a good idea in my opinion.Black and white seems to add realism to the film.I have been googleing all the actors in the film.Where Errol says to Henry Hull,"you know how old the colonel is in there?
It contains one of Errol Flynn's best performances and, correct me if I'm wrong, is the only film of Flynn's in which there are no females.Captain Nelson (Flynn) heads a group of paratroopers assigned by company commander Colonel Carter (Warner Anderson) to parachute into the dense Burmese jungle and destroy a Japanese radar station.
Well, since the film runs 142 minutes, you know that's not going to happen.The 36 officers and men including Lt. Jacobs (William Prince), S/Sgt Treacy (James Brown), Cpl. Gabby Gordon (George Tobias), Nebraska (Richard Erdman), Hogan (John Alvin), Miggleori (Anthony Carouso), middle aged journalist Mark Williams (Henry Hull) and others, attack the radar station and destroy it in a relatively easy operation where the entire Japanese detachment is wiped out and without casualties to Nelson and his men.As they are about to be picked up by a plane piloted by Lt. Barka (Mark Stevens aka Stephen Richards), the Japanese prevent the landing and Nelson and his group are then forced to walk out to their camp, a distance of some 200 miles.
Things don't go as expected, of course, and instead of being picked up by an airplane after their mission is completed they are forced to trek through the jungles and battle the elements to make their escape.Director Raoul Walsh was in good form when he directed this overlong but effective film which adopts a semi documentary approach.
Also look out for the terrific performances by several actors that later went on to well known TV roles such as George Tobias who played Mr.Kravitz on Bewitched and Hugh Beaumont who was The Beaver's dad.The film has one dated over-the-top diatribe by Henry Hull as a newsman accompanying the soldiers in which he rants about the Japanese as "stinking little savages" who should be wiped off the face of the earth.
Charlie Nelson (Errol Flynn) is assigned a risked mission , as he leads the group of paratroopers (George Tobias , Anthony Carbone , James Brown , William Prince) into Burma to blow up an important post in advance of the allied invasion.
The band of American soldiers must face the treacherous jungle and hostile Japanese in order to reach safety and battle against risks .Zestful Warlike action film in which a platoon suffers several dangers to wipe out Japanese station .
It was very, very realistic (though according to IMDb, the Brits and Aussies were NOT pleased that it made it look the the Americans did all the work, as they apparently were the ones who re-took Burma--oops).This film was unusual for Errol Flynn because he was normally known much more for period adventure movies or romance--not contemporary war films.
(By 'period films' I mean 'films created during the war.') And while it has some issues (more on those in a bit), 'Objective, Burma!' manages to tell an effective story while avoiding most of the pratfalls you often see in those other efforts.Plot in a nutshell: American paratroopers undertake a secret mission behind enemy lines in Burma, and while their objective is met with relative ease, their escape from Burma is not.Errol Flynn is very good here and it was a welcome departure from his 'Robin Hood' and 'Captain Blood' roles.
Errol Flynn stars as Major Nelson, who along with 50 other commandos parachute into Burma to destroy a Japanese radar station.
The mission is a success but while waiting to be air lifted to safety they come under attack from the Japanese and are forced to trek thru the jungle, simultaneously fighting the terrain just as much as the enemy.There were two magnificently directed war films made in 1945, one was John Ford's supreme John Wayne vehicle, They Were Expendable, the other is this much unheralded Raoul Walsh classic.
Captain Errol Flynn (Nelson) leads a unit of men into the Burmese jungle to destroy a radar depot that the Japanese have hidden.
Second, Errol Flynn's character, Captain Nelson, although a brave and heroic soldier and the epitome of a battlefield leader, makes a major tactical blunder which the movie tries, yet fails, to adequately explain.
It soon becomes pretty clear that the "Burmese dancing girls" that one of the men jokingly refers to in an early scene, are not going to make an appearance in this kind of war film.Of course, it can only work if we the audience feel immersed in that danger.
Errol Flynn (who I am most familiar with as a swashbuckling swordsman type) offered a totally convincing performance here as the commander of a group of American commandos sent behind enemy lines into Burma to blow up a Japanese radar station in preparation for an allied invasion of the country during World War II.
The plane that's supposed to pick them up can't land because there are too many Japanese around, and the men are forced to try to find their way out of Burma and back to their base on foot - an increasingly hopeless task as they deal with hunger, the jungle, and the Japanese.The climax of the movie probably begins when Nelson (Flynn) orders the squad to split into two and meet up later.
I'm lucky not to have lived through those difficult times but come from a region of the UK where a large number of troops were based in Burma, and several veterans of the campaign have told me they feared the jungle as much as the Japanese.I am a big fan of WW2 films and certainly place this amongst my top 10..
OBJECTIVE, BURMA!, Errol Flynn's last WWII-themed film (he'd done six in four years, the last four in a row) was his best, by far, but timing, always a factor in his career, would again work against him.
Also working against the film was Flynn's reputation for making cartoonish WWII action movies, something OBJECTIVE, BURMA!
Directed by Raoul Walsh (who had also helmed the most far-fetched of Flynn's WWII adventures, DESPERATE JOURNEY), this was an exceptionally well-made drama, of 'average' soldiers on a routine mission that becomes a fight for survival, in the jungles of Burma.Working outside the sound stage (it was almost entirely filmed on locations near Pasadena, California), the film has an almost 'documentary' feel, re-enforced by the presence of an 'Ernie Pyle'-like reporter (Henry Hull, who is excellent as 'Pop'), chronicling the people and events.
On the eve of the invasion of Burma, Major Nelson (Flynn), and his paratroopers are assigned to blow up an enemy radar station, and after a dramatic 'jump' into the jungle (punctuated by Franz Waxman's powerful music), they complete the mission successfully.
As the band is whittled down by the Japanese, the march gains an air of urgency, with the courage and endurance of each survivor tested.While the entire cast is exceptional (of note is George Tobias, possibly Hollywood's busiest character actor in the 40s, playing another of his many G.I. roles), the performance of Errol Flynn should be singled out.
Even with the new prologue, some British critics weren't appeased, and the film would not be widely released in England until 1952.If you want to see Errol Flynn in one of his most enduring roles, in one of the finest, grittiest war films produced during WWII, OBJECTIVE, BURMA!
Compare that to something like "Bridge on the River Kwai" (which doesn't, to the best of my recollection, show any actual graphic abuse either -- and holds the same PG certificate as "Objective Burma!") or even "In Which We Serve", where the enemy are seen machine-gunning the wreck survivors (unfortunately true), or the Japanese treatment of civilians and prisoners in "A Town Like Alice", and you only end up doubling the impression that this is comic-strip stuff.Next problem: the characters are pretty much interchangeable.
The other bit that worked for me was the night attack, where the Japanese soldier crawls into the trench pretending to be an American; I cottoned on to what was going on at just about the right moment for maximum tension, i.e. a few seconds before the characters did :-)Overall as a war movie, I'd rank it about level with "We Dive at Dawn" -- or a little below.
Errol Flynn leads his men in "Objective, Burma!" a 1945 war film also starring James Brown, William Prince, George Tobias, and Henry Hull.
Unfortunately, once they were in Burma, getting out became much more difficult.There's something about Errol Flynn war movies that invites controversy, and this one is no exception.
Although the film does some of the typical telegraphing of who will die, the deaths are still affecting.Objective, Burma eschews the patriotic fanfare characterizing many other World War II movies, wisely focusing on the challenges faced by the soldiers.
What the movie brings out is one of the many daring stories both American and British in the CBI theater and how the Allied forces tried matching up to the ultimate jungle warrior - The Japanese soldier, who almost attained invincible status in the CBI war!
The first hour is taken up by a detailed, deliberately paced lead-up to the operation and its execution but things pick up nicely in the tense second half as they meet up with every kind of opposition - human, natural, psychological, geographical and technological - which quickly takes its toll on the morale and number of the battalion marooned on the Burmese peninsula.This propaganda piece is the 5th film Errol Flynn made under Walsh's direction almost consecutively, as well as being his 7th war movie in as many years; unfortunately, it also virtually marked the end of his 10-year reign at Warner Bros.
An Action War Movie Made During the Second World War. Two platoons are sent to Burma to destroy a Japanese radar station.
Indeed today sounds very funny the exclamation of the journalist to Captain Nelson (Errol Flynn):`-Damn clever these Americans !' The movie is a little long, but will not disappoint.
The biggest is that the Japanese are just a big cruel mass, they aren't characterised, they are just killing machines.All in all it's a good film with great action scenes so I can recommend it to anyone who likes war films..
Like the obsessive sound track with the parrot cryings, after the second escape from the Burmese place with statues in stone inside the forest nearby the river, several aspects of this movie - that tells the story of some marauders on the jungle as a disciplined group but climbing slopes and crossing forest, nearby India colonial border, are nonetheless at the brink of collapse and despair -, are also subject of innovation since the aerial photography till the target of a Japanese village with an installed radar, which is destroyed during the mission that took the time of a picnic, but fails in the rescue for retirement by plane.
"Objective Burma" was unfairly savaged by the British press on its release in Great Britain and, therefore, never received its true accolade as one of the best war films ever made.
Well done Errol Flynn,well done Raoul Walsh, the war film has never been done better !.
This particular film deals with fighting the Japanese Government and showed the different ways in which the enemy tortured and tricked the American Forces in hand to hand encounters in the jungle.
This is just about the best American war film I've ever seen.It has great tension and suspense and could easily be shown to a modern audience today if only the black and white thing could be got over.Flynn is superb as the leader of a platoon in a very simple story of a group of men who are detailed to go into Japanese occupied Burmer on a mission and there struggle to return back to base.Most films of this era have awfully abvious studio stage set ups with lots of echoey speech and blowing up of models.I suppose this film does belong to its film making era to some extent eg some docu war footage inserted etc but even so the film is so good it does draw the viewer in so much so that the burmese settings become realistic.When it comes right down to it any film will succeed with good acting, great characters, atmostpheric music and with tight fast moving direction when needed and suspense as here shown in abundance by the great Raoul Walsh.If you like a war story instead of a war film this is recommended....
During World War II, a military unit is tasked with flying into the jungles of Japanese-occupied Burma and destroying a radar station.
This time, Flynn plays the role of an American soldier commanding a handful of men who successfully complete a mission but must trek through miles of jungle to get to their rendezvous point.
Raoul Walsh directed this real life account about a special operations unit of paratroopers led by Col. Nelson(played by Errol Flynn) who are sent into the jungles of Japanese held Burma to destroy a radar station there.
Errol Flynn left his swashbuckling image to star in this interesting film about a group of soldiers in India assigned to blow up a Japanese radar station in Burma.
It also boasted splendid looking Art direction by Ted Smith with the Burmese jungle mock-ups (filmed at the "Lucky" Baldwin ranch near Pasadena in California) not only looking convincingly authentic but with the added sounds of jungle wildlife making it quite daunting too.The story has Major Nelson (Errol Flynn) and his large contingent of American Paratroopers being dropped into the Burmese jungle behind enemy lines on a secret mission.
Losing half of the platoon on the journey - because of their forced march through rivers and dense jungle plus tangling with enemy troops - they finally make it to the pick-up point and are rescued.Although there are the usual stock characterisations - which seems to be endemic in all war movies - performances are generally good.
The British banned this film for 7 years because they resented the fact that this movie made it look like Flynn won Burma single-handed.
It has an almost documentary-type feel to it much of the time, showing a group of American soldiers going about a dangerous mission in the jungles of Burma, and the film is both exciting and tedious, showing the miserable conditions the average fighting man must have endured there and elsewhere.
Warner Brothers encountered greater production problems on "Desperate Journey" director Raoul Walsh's "Objective, Burma" than any other battle front movie that it made during World War II.Scenarist Alvah Bessie remembers the first time that producer Jerry Wald mentioned the idea for the film.
An older American war correspondent accompanies Captain Nelson (Errol Flynn of "Captain Blood") and his young paratroopers who drop behind enemy lines and demolish a radar station.
We welcome any suggestions Army would like injected." On March 11, 1944, Mitchell briefed Major General Alexander Surles about "the story of about 48 paratroopers dropped 200 miles behind the Japanese lines for the purpose of wiping out a radar station and some supply dumps." He explained that the filmmakers were "prepared to make any changes you suggest in order to keep away from any subject that might be embarrassing." Eventually, the War Department assigned Captain Charles Galbreath as technical adviser for the film production.Warner Brothers wanted "Objective, Burma," to look as realistic as possible, especially regarding the troops.