Objective Burma
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Actors: Errol Flynn, James Brown (II), William Prince, George Tobias, Henry Hull Rated: NR (Not Rated) Retail Price (not our price): $14.98 Release Date: 2003-05-13 Studio: Warner Home Video Run Time: 142 minutes Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Discs: 1 |
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Editorial Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
1) Description
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 Trailer2) Amazon.com
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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