"Objective Burma" is a gritty WWII drama set in Burma and competently directed by Raoul Walsh. This film, as far as I can tell, has never gotten the praise it deserves among WWII movies. It contains one of Errol Flynn's best performances and, correct me if I'm wrong, is the only film of Flynn's in which there are no females.
Captain Nelson (Flynn) heads a group of paratroopers assigned by company commander Colonel Carter (Warner Anderson) to parachute into the dense Burmese jungle and destroy a Japanese radar station. The idea is for them to go "in like Flynn" and then be picked up by plane the next day on an abandoned airstrip. Well, since the film runs 142 minutes, you know that's not going to happen.
The 36 officers and men including Lt. Jacobs (William Prince), S/Sgt Treacy (James Brown), Cpl. Gabby Gordon (George Tobias), Nebraska (Richard Erdman), Hogan (John Alvin), Miggleori (Anthony Carouso), middle aged journalist Mark Williams (Henry Hull) and others, attack the radar station and destroy it in a relatively easy operation where the entire Japanese detachment is wiped out and without casualties to Nelson and his men.
As they are about to be picked up by a plane piloted by Lt. Barka (Mark Stevens aka Stephen Richards), the Japanese prevent the landing and Nelson and his group are then forced to walk out to their camp, a distance of some 200 miles. Along the way the group has several encounters with the Japanese and some are killed. Col. Carter has planes out searching for the men but eventually calls off the search.
Nelson continues to lead his men to the last rendez-vous point given him before his radio was smashed but................................
What makes this film so compelling is the inter play between the various characters and Nelson's efforts to keep them all focused on the task at hand while inwardly believing the situation to be hopeless. True the picture is somewhat a flag waver but it nonetheless conveys the horrors of war without the necessity of a love story or two inserted for Flynn. It's, in my opinion, the best acting job of his storied career.
