Blu-Ray News #349: Objective, Burma! (1945).

Directed by Raoul Walsh
Starring Errol Flynn, James Brown, William Prince, George Tobias, Henry Hull, Rodd Redwing, Hugh Beaumont

Raoul Walsh’s Objective Burma (1945), starring Errol Flynn, remains one of my favorite war movies — and it’s coming to Blu-Ray from Warner Archive.

It’s a 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. While it might be hard to imagine Flynn as an Army paratrooper, he pulls it off effortlessly (he tried to enlist but was declared unfit due to a medical condition).

Paired up, Walsh and Flynn were a movie-making force of nature (I even like 1948’s Silver River). Get Objective, Burma! on Blu-Ray. That’s an order!

Happy Veterans Day.

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.