Objective, Burma!

Objective, Burma! / Raoul Walsh (1945). Warner. It is often said that WWII was won in Hollywood by John Wayne, but I sometimes think that Wayne should share first place with Errol Flynn who was hero in a half dozen war or fighting the Nazis at home dramas. Reportedly, “Objective, Burma!” was his personal favorite of the six. Flynn plays Capt. Nelson who is assigned the task of parachuting into Japanese held Burma with a platoon of men, knocking out a radar instillation in preparation for an invasion, and then force marching to an abandoned air field to be picked up and flown home. The attack on the radar station goes without hitch but when a company of pursuing Japanese soldiers encounter them at the pick-up point, the U.S. platoon must return to the jungle and make their way across country on foot. At an almost two-hour run time, it does go on a bit long but earnest performances and direction from action vet Raoul Walsh rarely lets the soldiers stop for long in their flight. The rousing score by Franz Waxman was Oscar nominated (but lost to Miklós Rózsa for “Spellbound”). After Flynn, acting honors go to Henry Hull as a war correspondent who makes his first parachute jump accompanying the soldiers. Also in the cast is James Brown (Rin-Tin-Tin TV series), Warner Anderson, Hugh Beaumont, William Prince, and George Tobias. The 1951 Gary Cooper actioner set in the Indian Wars in pre-Civil War Florida, “Distant Drums” (also directed by Raoul Walsh), is usually identified as a remake or re-working of “Objective, Burma!” There are several instances of racial epithets flung at the Japanese that we would find offensive today (esp. a rant from Hull), but not nearly as severe as in films like “Guadalcanal Diary” or “Air Force” (both 1943).



Henry Hull and Errol Flynn