Raoul Walsh’s Objective Burma (1945) remains one of my favorite war movies. It’s a surprisingly hard-hitting picture, loosely based on the exploits of Merrill’s Marauders in the Burma Campaign — which also inspired the 1962 Sam Fuller picture, Merrill’s Marauders.
Raoul Walsh and Errol Flynn between takes.
It’s hard to imagine Errol Flynn as an Army paratrooper, but he pulls it off effortlessly (he tried to enlist but was declared unfit due to a medical condition). I always come away from this film and John Ford’s They Were Expendable (1945) with the same thought — that we a huge debt to the guys who gave so much during the Second World War. We may not have a clue who they are (and they probably like it that way), but we can never even begin to repay ’em.
So to all those who serve in our military, in wartime or peacetime, while I can never understand all you’ve gone through, I sure appreciate it.
