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By Doug Oswald

Errol Flynn leads a group of American paratroopers into WWII Burma on a pre-invasion expedition in “Objective, Burma!” released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection. The mission for the paratroopers is to parachute into Burma behind enemy lines, destroy a Japanese radar station and meet up at an old British air strip to be picked up and returned to their base in India. Everything goes as planned and they succeed in destroying the radar installation with no casualties. Mission accomplished. There wouldn’t be much of a movie if things ended with a successful mission and rescue. Naturally, the Japanese are at the airfield ready to destroy the soon-to-arrive C-47 transport aircraft. Flynn orders the aircraft to leave them rather than risk their destruction and he takes his men to a more defendable position in the jungle.

Errol Flynn goes to war! One of the last major direct-combat pictures to come out of Hollywood during the war, Raoul Walsh’s finely-crafted ode to the jungle fighters in Burma lets loose a powerful, almost frightening blast of anti-Japanese rage. Errol Flynn earned his pay slugging it out through the swamps, George Tobias provides the Brooklyn humor and Henry Hull the outrage over combat atrocities. And the English were none too happy either, claiming that the movie made it look as if America had done the heavy fighting in what was largely a Brit field of battle.

Objective, Burma!

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1945 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 142 min. / Street Date July 13, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: Errol Flynn, James Brown, William Prince, George Tobias, Henry Hull, Warner Anderson, John Alvin, Mark Stevens, Richard Erdman, Anthony Caruso, Erville Anderson, Hugh Beaumont, Douglas Henderson, William Hudson, Rodd Redwing, George Tyne.

Cinematography: James Wong Howe

Art...

Our 75th guest! The legendary filmmaker John Sayles joins Josh and Joe to explore some of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Ulzana’s Raid (1972)

Django (1966)

The Birth Of A Nation (1915)

City Of Hope (1991)

Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980)

The Challenge (1982)

Avalanche (1978)

Eight Men Out (1988)

Piranha (1978)

The Howling (1981)

The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

The Killers (1964)

The King And I (1956)

Time Without Pity (1957)

The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)

Ben-Hur (1957)

The Ten Commandments (1956)

Two Women (1960)

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Citizen Kane (1941)

Spartacus (1960)

Fixed Bayonets! (1951)

The Steel Helmet (1951)

Merrill’s Marauders (1962)

Targets (1968)

Touch Of Evil (1958)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Woodstock (1970)

Crime In The Streets (1956)

The Bad Seed (1956)

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

Fedora (1978)

Dune (1984)

The Cotton Club (1984)

Choose Me (1984)

Raising Arizona (1987)

El Norte (1983)

Yellow Sky (1948)

Apocalypse Now (1979)

The Irishman (2019)

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood (2019)

The Thing (1982)

Chinatown (1974)

Manhattan (1979)

Duck Amuck (1953)

Goodfellas (1990)

Humanoids Of The Deep (1980)

Cockfighter (1974)

Dynamite Women a.k.a. The Great Texas Dynamite Chase...

Hollywood embellished history for this account of Us troops retaking Burma – realistic if you forget that their allies did most of the legwork

Director: Raoul Walsh

Entertainment grade: B+

History grade: D–

During the second world war, Japanese forces occupied Burma. Allied forces began their campaign to retake it in 1944.

People

Objective, Burma! begins with Us general Joseph Stilwell planning the invasion of Burma. "Here's where we start paying back the Japs," he growls, chewing on a cigarette in a dainty holder. General Stilwell did indeed smoke a cigarette in a holder, though you wouldn't have dared take the mickey out of it. He had one of the sharpest tongues in the army, earning him the nickname "Vinegar Joe", and didn't soften it for anyone – not even his good lady wife. "We have had a hard scrap in this bitched-up jungle," reads one typical billet-doux he sent her from Burma...

With 2010 only a week over, it already feels like best-of and top-ten lists have been pouring in for months, and we’re already tired of them: the ranking, the exclusions (and inclusions), the rules and the qualifiers. Some people got to see films at festivals, others only catch movies on video; and the ability for us, or any publication, to come up with a system to fairly determine who saw what when and what they thought was the best seems an impossible feat. That doesn’t stop most people from doing it, but we liked the fantasy double features we did last year and for our 3rd Writers Poll we thought we'd do it again.

I asked our contributors to pick a single new film they saw in 2010—in theaters or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they saw in 2010 to create a unique double feature.