646f9e108c In 1944, Capt. Charlie Nelson leads a platoon of paratroopers into Burma to blow up a Japanese radar station in advance of the allied invasion. They&#39;re accompanied on the mission by Mark William, an American journalist who is there to write about their exploits. The mission goes off without a hitch and without the loss of any men. The plan was for them to be picked up by two transport airplanes at an old landing strip but a Japanese patrol prevents them from doing so. The men are now forced to march towards the front lines, however the closer they get, the greater the number of Japanese troops they will face. With the Air Corps dropping them supplies at agreed locations, the men move on but few of them remain after encounters with the enemy. Eventually, they are all presumed lost justthe invasion is launched. A group of men parachute into Japanese-occupied Burma with a dangerous and important mission: to locate and blow up a radar station. They accomplish this well enough, but when they try to rendezvous at an old air-strip to be taken back to their base, they find Japanese waiting for them, and they must make a long, difficult walk back through enemy-occupied jungle. Rather suspenseful, well done, lower-keyed There and Back style WWII flick. I enjoyed the Burmese setting(albeit the US took a major back seat to the UK there, of course) it works, the cast and the scenario. Basically you have Errol Flynn leading a patrol of paratroopers into the Burmese frontier from India, knocking off a Japanese radar base and then trying to make it back home. They wind up separated after some initial success, cut off and taking some heavy losses, only to be saved at the end after a Khe-Sahn style battle on a rocky hill. The American planes fly over and down comes a sky-full of paratroopers.<br/><br/>It&#39;s a game of Kat and Mouse, w/ the Japanese giving aboutwellthey take save for a ludicrously easy storming of the base-60 dead Japanese and not a scratch on our guys. You know that&#39;s gotta changethe movie goes onwards, and it does.<br/><br/>I liked George Tobias &#39;mazel tov&#39;, Richard Erdman(typical Richard Jaeckel sorta role) and Henry Hullthe over the hill reporter along for the ride, plus you get to see Ward Beaverwell in an unbilled Officer role.<br/><br/>Flynn helps make this work, it&#39;s def. the anti-Robin Hood but it&#39;s all the better for it.<br/><br/>*** outta ****, it&#39;s NOT a documentary, but you will like what you see. I saw this movie when it came out in 1945.As a kid of 8 years it was terrific.I watch it every time it is on TV.I can almost repeat all the dialog in it.I think the part that Henry Hull says when they find our men captured in the village.I think it is very fitting todayto what is going on in Iraq.Colorizing this movie wasn&#39;t such a good idea in my opinion.Black and white seems to add realism to the film.I have been googleing all the actors in the film.Where Errol says to Henry Hull,&quot;you know how old the colonel is in there? 34&quot;And our general is 37.He was right.Warner Anderson was 34 years old.Errol of course was 30.All young men who jump out of planes.However,George Tobias was 44,a little old to be jumping out of airplanes.And Henry Hull was 55.I guess he was the oldest in the cast.I met William Prince in NYC many years ago. And talked to him just about this film.I should have asked him more questions but he and I both had appointments to make.Nice guy.
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