For an Englishman, to watch this film for the first time in 2012, some 67 years after its initial release, is to ask what was all the fuss about. The fuss to which I refer is what I have read about in movie magazines and books about movies. Apparently the British people took exception to the way this film allegedly gave the impression that the Americans were solely responsible for victory in Burmaa and implied strongly that the British were not even there. Whilst it is true that the film concentrates on a small group of Americans, parachuted into Burma with a mission to destroy a Japanese radar installation and then, having done so, are obliged to walk some 200 miles to safety because it is unsafe for planes to land, I found nothing strange about focusing on one small unit in this way, I am sure a similar film could have been made about a strictly British unit involved in a similar mission and no one would have complained that there were no Americans portrayed. In fact at the close of the film the producers state that it is dedicated to all servicemen - English, Chinese, etc - who served in Burma. Errol Flynn is fine in the lead role and notably performs hardly any heroics, these are left to the men in his command, but Flynn's charm leaps off the screen. Henry Hull - who within two years would be appearing in O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra - is also splendid as a veteran war correspondent who elects to go on the mission. In short a fine example of the genre.
Review of Objective, Burma!
