Objective Burma
by Raoul Walsh
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Errol Flynn, George Tobias, Henry Hull, James Brown, William PrinceDirector: Raoul Walsh
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: James Wong Howe
Editor: George Amy
Producer: Jack L. Warner
Producer: Jerry Wald
Writer: Alvah Bessie
Writer: Lester Cole
Writer: Ranald MacDougall
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 142 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-05-13
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Objective Burma
Movie Review: Truly, A Magnificently Gritty World War II Tale!
Summary: 5 Stars
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. According to Bessie, Wald called him into his office and said, "I was talking to some guys at my house last night, and they told me what a wonderful job the paratroops are doing in Burma." An hour after reading everything that the Warner Brothers Research Department had about combat in Burma, Bessie realized that it was "strictly a British operation." He told Wald, "Look, Jerry, there are no American troops in Burma." Wald's response was, "So what? It's only a moving picture." Bessie argued that an American invasion of Burma would lay Warner Brothers open to ridicule of the worst kind. Dismissing Bessie's prediction, Wald said, "So, look, put in some British liaison officers and stop worrying." Everybody from the War Department, to the PCA, and the OWI, warned the filmmakers about the controversy that they were causing, but the nonplussed Wald moved ahead with the production. Not surprisingly, Wald's cavalier treatment of the facts about the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations discredited "Objective, Burma," in Britain. British reaction to the movie was so negative that Warner Brothers withdrew it from circulation after a week.
Including British liaison officers as well as a Jewish American lieutenant, Bessie wrote the script for this "A" picture's in 19 days. He observed that "it was a good story, if you don't mind the fact that Burma was a British show and was not commanded by Errol Flynn." After Bessie wrote the original story, Jack Warner told Wald to assign two other writers, Randal MacDougall and Lester Cole, to the project because in Warner's words, "Bessie can't write all the pictures in the studio." The studio hired Raoul Walsh to direct the film and production started May 1, 1944. Shooting did not end until August 26, 1944.
"Objective, Burma" dealt with American paratroopers spearheading the invasion of Burma after the Japanese had chased General Joseph Stilwell out of the country. 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. Nelson's native guides spot Japanese troops on the march, so they wave off the two USAAF C-46 transport planes sent to retrieve them. Since no usable airfields exist between Nelson and Allied lines where the USAAF can land, our paratrooper heroes must march 150 miles through enemy infested jungle. During the long arduous journey, Nelson divides his men into two sections. Nelson leads one section with the war correspondent, and Jacobs, the Jewish-American Lieutenant, commands the other group. Eventually, Nelson's men link up with two survivors from Jacobs' ill-fated group. Nelson learns, to his horror, that the Japanese have captured and tortured Jacobs and his men and left him almost dead. Jacobs begs Nelson to kill him, but Nelson cannot bring himself to shoot his friend. He gives him a gun instead and lets Jacobs commit suicide. The horrified war correspondent surveys the carnage and rants that the Japanese should be wiped off the earth. At one point during production, Bessie sent a memo to Wald about this controversial scene and asked that the studio reinsert a line of his dialogue. According to the original Bessie script, Nelson said, "There's nothing especially Japanese about this . . . You'll find it wherever you find fascists. There are even people who call themselves Americans who'd do it, too." Neither Jerry Wald nor Jack Warner re-inserted the additional line in the film as released, that Bessie had written for Nelson, and the subject never came up again, despite his protest. Meanwhile, after the grisly discovery of the tortured paratroopers, Nelson receives surprising orders that direct him to march in the opposite direction from Allied headquarters. Reluctantly, the men follow their orders while the USAAF airdrops them supplies. The remnants of Nelson's force reach a barren hillside, dig themselves into foxholes, repel a Japanese night attack, and awaken the following morning to see gliders and thousands of paratroopers in the skies. They witness the beginning of the Allied invasion of Burma.
In March 1944, Warner Brothers sent the War Department a copy of the "Objective, Burma" screenplay, along with a request for a technical adviser who had served with the paratroops in the Pacific Theater. The studio emphasized in its correspondence with the War Department that "Objective, Burma" would stress "the important work of the paratroopers in the Pacific Theater." Warner Brothers' Location Manager, William Guthrie, contacted Army Colonel Curtis Mitchell and explained, "Rest assured no political angle as discussed between you and me will be brought into this picture. It will be strictly an all American affair with American personnel only. 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. The studio requested 5 compasses, 12 infantry demolition kits without explosives, 160 D rations, 80 K rations, 2 Lister bags, 6 hand axes with covers, 4 wire cutters with covers, 24 M-1 rifles with bayonets and scabbards and 4 carbines with folding stocks. As it turns out, the cast wound up eating the rations, apparently to evoke more realism in their performances. The Army located most of the equipment, except the folding stock type carbine.
Summary of Objective Burma
Mission accomplished! Errol Flynn, who brought boyish bravado to The Adventures of Robin Hood, Dodge City, Gentleman Jim and other screen yarns, turns in a mature, acclaimed performance as the leader of a paratrooper patrol stranded in Burma. It's "one of the few features of which I am proud," Flynn later said. There's reason for pride. "This is one of the finest World War II films made during the war," The Movie Guide says. "One of the best war movies," Guide for the Film Fanatic's Danny Peary wrote, "and among the grimmest." Raoul Walsh directs the hard-hitting action, shot in rugged California locations so similar to Burma that veterans of that campaign refused to believe the crew hadn't somehow sneaked into Asia.DVD Features:
Other:WB 1941 Short "The Tanks are Coming" WB 1943 Short "The Rear Gunner"
Theatrical Trailer
A paratroop captain (Errol Flynn) sets out with a platoon to attack a Japanese outpost in the jungle. The Americans reach their target, take out the enemy with almost balletic precision, then gear up to return home. This feels like the point when a conventional war movie would have reached its action-filled climax, but the journey has only begun. Ahead lies one of the most arduous and agonizing adventures any World War II film ever offered, brilliantly directed by that underrated old master Raoul Walsh and photographed with almost tactile realism by the great James Wong Howe.
The chief rap against Objective, Burma! (of concern mainly to British observers) is that it suggests that only U.S. forces contested the Japanese in the jungles of Burma. (OK, so it's not the most accurate history lesson.) But that's small beer in view of the movie's bone-chilling portrayal of pain, sacrifice, and endurance. The jungle atmosphere is so persuasive, you'd swear it was shot on the actual locations (though in fact Walsh effectively reworked many of the same situations in Distant Drums, a sort-of Western about the Seminole War, six years later). You'll never forget the terrifying last dark night on a mountainside--or the crocodiles.... Flynn is excellent (he had given his best performance ever in Walsh's Gentleman Jim three years earlier), and he's backed by a solid cast including Henry Hull (as an aging war correspondent), James Brown, William Prince, George Tobias, and Stephen Richards (soon to change his name to Mark Stevens). Incidentally, two of the writers, Alvah Bessie and Lester Cole, were later blacklisted; see if you can spot any Commie propaganda. --Richard T. Jameson
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