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23 reviews in total

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24 out of 24 people found the following review useful:
Gritty, Mostly-Authentic War Film; Jeff Chandler's Last; Powerful, 16 July 2005

Author: silverscreen888

Myitkyina, pronounced "Mitchinah"--remember the name. this is the objective in this gritty, tough-minded, mostly-authentic and unforgettable war movie. There is little Hollywood gilt about the film, as many viewers have noted; it was not made to be thrilling, event-filled or filled with speeches. Its theme is the limits men have, and how approaching or exceeding such limits of mind, body and emotions can affect men in an emergency or wartime situation--in this case the volunteers of Frank D. Merrill's unit in world War II fighting in the jungles of Burma.The unit is first discovered in the midst of a nasty and fatiguing jungle combat with Japanese soldiers; credit, as several reviewers have noted, is given to the brave British troops are carrying the main battle. But this unit has a single mission--to take Myitkyina, crawling there over mountains and through malarial jungles, fighting fierce opposition all the way. Not your average war film, this is the dramatic story of men in combat told by a man who had been there, and whose films are always short on gimmicks and long on the demand for courage--and made about the man who can answer that call the best. Writer-director Samuel Fuller used other writers, notable Charlton Ogburn III and Milton Sperling, but the main part of this late war film is his own. Jeff Chandler, wearing steel-rimmed glasses, played Brigadier General Merrill . He had died of a botched operation in hospital by the time the film was out, at the end of an illustrious career than should have had many more years to run. This is an award caliber performance in any year. As his second, there is Ty Hardin, good enough in the best role of his career as a strong young soldier. Andrew Duggan narrates and plays the unit's doctor with his usual skill; others in the nearly-all-male cast include dependable Claude Akins, Peter Brown, Will Hutchins, John Hoyt as General Stilwell, and Pancho Magalona. William Clothier gets the credit for the very atmospheric outdoor cinematography, and Howard Jackson for the music, which used additional older works by Max Steiner and Franz Waxman. There are prettier war films, and films about war with a more of a varied choice of scenes. But this Spartan production is among the most harrowing looks at the harsh realities of war ever put onto the screen. "They took Myitkyina", says the narrator simply at the end; cue the closing music. Some few films tell us what men are capable of achieving by showing them being tested to the limit. This films tells us that there were men once in British and United States uniforms who passed a severe test with flying colors. And that is quite a lot for any film to accomplish, especially one as engrossing as is this unrelenting narrative of combat.

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16 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
Jeff Chandler's Sad Farewell, 9 September 2006

Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

Just as Clark Gable died from the strain of doing those roping scenes with wild horses in The Misfits, Jeff Chandler died because of the work required in the Phillipines location for Merrill's Marauders. What a terrible tragedy and a terrible waste at the same time.

The story of Jeff Chandler's death could almost be the subject of a black comedy. He was injured while participating in a pick up baseball game among the cast and crew. According to Marilyn Kirk's biography of him, while playing first base he stretched for a throw to his position and pulled his back out.

With about six weeks of shooting left and not wanting to either run up the cost while on hiatus or having the film shelved altogether, Chandler continued in pain as his back got worse and worse. When the film wrapped he went for a needed operation and that was botched.

Chandler had just finally got free of his Universal contract and had signed a multi-picture deal with Warner Brothers of which Merrill's Marauders was to be the first. It was an important film to him. Maybe under other circumstances, he might have tended to health issues first.

Too bad he didn't live to see it because as Brigadier General Frank Merrill he gives one of his best screen performances. In fact in a crazy way the pain he was enduring in real life probably helped his performance because Chandler in the film is supposed to be under a physical and mental strain.

Merrill's Marauders was a picked group of GIs from the Pacific Theater who were on a volunteer mission to be a part of the retaking of Burma. The bulk of the fighting done in the China-Burma-India Theater was done by British and Commonwealth forces. The Commander of the Theater was Lord Louis Mountbatten, but the military genius over all was a very unsung British hero named General William Slim. Joseph Stilwell, the American General in China, is played here by John Hoyt. Stilwell may have been Merrill's commander, but Slim was running the show.

Warner Brothers provided a trio of their TV cowboys, Ty Hardin, Peter Brown and Will Hutchins in support of Chandler. And he got good support from Claude Akins and Andrew Duggan as well.

Merrill's Marauders is a fine film, but I'm not sure it was worth Jeff Chandler's life.

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16 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
An Exercise in Tension, 18 November 2003
Author: crispintp (crispintp@hotmail.com) from Nottingham, England

The fact that the film has no discernable introduction is entirely in keeping with Sam Fuller's B Movie style direction. It jumps straight into the action, with Merrill's army platoon stationed somewhere in the middle of the Burmese jungle. While it was quite hard to suddenly have to familiarise oneself with about 20 different characters, and determine the complicated relationships between them, it allowed for an epic war movie to be refreshingly condensed to a bite-sized 95 minutes.

Merrill, his respected lieutenant, Stockton, and the rest of the boys spend the majority of the film in a sweat-drenched feverish confusion, which is so convincing, that you wonder what the director had to do to in order to produce such a performance from his actors. I have never seen so much agony and despair on the screen, as Merrill's men struggle through the seemingly endless swamps and mountains. Fuller adds to the attention by way of silent close-ups and good use of the location which suggests that anything might be around the corner, and it usually is.

The film truly shows the horrors of war and the effects on the minds of the people who fought it. If there is a fault, it comes in the form of a patriotic voice-over commentary which bookends the film at the start and the finish. Otherwise, this makes for thrillingly uncomfortable yet exhilarating viewing.

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18 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
A Movie that Shows Us What Real Heroes are All About, 11 February 2006

Author: SgtSlaughter from St. Davids, Pennsylvania, USA

The best way to understand a man's emotions are to look into his eyes. What does the look on his face tell you about his mood? Sam Fuller knows that. This is a movie about the faces of ordinary men in battle. What brings them joy, what makes them angry, what fatigues them. Fuller, a former soldier himself, knows how to convey these emotions in a way few filmmakers ever have been able to.

In 1944, "Merrill's Marauders", a group of American volunteers, trekked across Burma to destroy several key Japanese bases. There was a legitimate fear that the Japanese would trek through Burma to India and link up with Hitler's forces in Europe. The Marauders played an important part in stopping this link-up, at great cost to their own lives.

The movie makes us understand what it must have been like to be a soldier in World War II. It's important to realize that the Marauders were expecting a reprieve very early on the campaign, and were pushed far beyond normal physical and mental limitations to complete their mission. Merrill (brilliantly portrayed by Jeff Chandler) has a heart condition himself, but keeps it a secret from his men, who come to loathe him – until he collapses from a stroke, and they realize he has been pushing himself just as hard, if not harder than, his own troops.

Just what causes the stress they endure? First, the death of their friends. Lt. Stockton (Ty Hardin, in one of his best performances) expresses frustration at having to write letters home to the families of the dead in his platoon. Gradually, the number of families he must write to increases. The men left under his command are trudging through several hundred miles of swamp, fearing detection by the enemy at any given moment. They are without sufficient food, infected with malaria and typhus, and lack enough medical supplies. Then have to fight off or meticulously avoid every enemy unit they encounter. By the end of the film, every man we saw at the start with a clean shirt and freshly shaven face is either dead, or wearing tattered clothes, unkempt hair and most likely wounded or exhausted from disease. These are normal men who miss their homes and families, and want to go home badly – they don't let the audience forget that, because it's almost all they talk about – and rightly so.

Although some of the battle scenes seem sanitized compared to post 1965-standards (the usual fake-looking "seizure" death scenes, bloodless hand-to-hand combat), the aftermath is shockingly realistic and haunting. There is one scene in which Lt. Stockton slowly walks across a maze of concrete tank-traps, where a pitched close-quarters battle has just been fought, and sees and endless tangled mass of bodies – both American and Japanese.

Fuller lets his camera linger on these moments. There is one scene where Merrill gives an order to his subordinate and Fuller keeps the camera on the officer's shocked and disappointed face for just long enough to let us start thinking about what is going inside the nameless man's head. Likewise, he makes the Philippine locations come to vivid life, especially the dark, confined sequence in the swamp. Only a few scenes set in pine forests near the end of the film look jarringly out-of-place.

"Merrill's Marauders" only weakness is in its almost forced jingoistic patriotism. The opening scene, a montage of documentary footage narrated by Andrew Duggan, sets us up for a flag-waving movie about American heroes single-handedly wiping out the Japanese Empire without effort, as has been seen in countless other war films. Likewise, the film's conclusion speaks of the heroism and dedication of the Marauders as if they and the entire U.S. military were immortal saints. These segments seemed tacked on, and I would bet in a minute that the military, who aided in production of the film, required that these scenes be included. Oh, yeah, and the ridiculous music score does not help much, either.

Am I patriotic? Yes. Do I support the American military? Of course. Who makes a war movie web site in order to cut down war movies? I love 'em. The body of the film is about ordinary fighting men and their dedication to each other. Not to a cause. I'm sure that when men were in the trenches together during WWII (and any other war, for that matter) their primary dedication was to their buddy next to them, not for a glorious cause.

I have a soft spot in my heart because Frank Merrill was my grandmother's cousin. So I have a bit of a tie to him and the history he and his men made, I suppose. That bit of prejudice doesn't change the fact that this is a great movie, and deserves a DVD release A.S.A.P.

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9 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Decent War Presentation, But Some Intensity Is Lacking, 12 May 2008

Author: ccthemovieman-1 from United States

This was a decent World War II movie, but not as exciting as I had hoped it would be. I liked the fact it was exactly that - a war story - with no sappy romance distractions - but yet it was still on the bland side. I can't quite put my finger on it, but some spark was missing. If this was re-made today, I'm sure it would have been more of an attention-grabber.

Perhaps part of the minor problem is that the story is a bit of a downer most of the way through (not that war is ever uplifting). It's basically about a group of soldiers who volunteered for this bad assignment (to fight in Burma) and when their assignment was over and they assumed they were going home, they were given further assignments. Battling unrelenting fatigue and extremely difficult terrain means there are very few upbeat moments in this film. In this based-on-a-true story movie, only about 100 soldiers were left fighting after 3,000 started. Yet a lot of the movie just shows the poor guys sloshing through swamps or slowing trying to make their way up treacherous mountain terrain.

You get a few minor attempts at some humor to break up the depressing story, but they are weak such as the stereotypical southerner with his pet mule who wears a straw hat.

In some respects, this film reminded me of "The Big Red One," which also was directed by Sam Fuller but had a lot more intensity and passion to it.

Jeff Chandler and Ty Hardin were fine in the lead roles, as was Claude Atkins in a supporting one. Chandler and Atkins looked like tough, battle-scarred soldiers more than the others. Hardin has too much pretty-boy looks and voice for this role, although his acting was fine.

Overall, okay, but not worth a second look.

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9 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Production vs. product, 29 July 2002
Author: floridawar from Tampa, Florida

Merrill's Marauders isn't the best WWII film by a long shot. However, it does have several things going for it. Director Sam Fuller had plenty of army infantry service under his belt from his own WWII experiences. That in itself makes it difficult to argue with his portrayal of the trials of Merrill's foot soldiers. I notice this movie turns on the breaking point of the Marauders, especially how these American infantrymen transcended it in order to win. this is a hallmark of the special forces tradition, but I think Fuller is less interested in the origins of the US special forces than in defining the qualities of physical and mental fortitude necessary for successful soldiers. There is more than the stoicism of normal Hollywood heroes here, these characters do reach the end of their ropes, but fall in for another fight, time and again. The other noticeable production element is the apparent use of active duty personnel as extras. This shows in scenes like the assault on Wallabum, with the men charging in squad rushes (one of the best battle scenes of the movie). Other parts of that same battle scene, and others, aren't so impressive, but This flick isn't about the action. It is Fuller's biggest war production, if not quite his best, and while it may not be his best film, a close viewing may redeem the effort.

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9 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Good, not great, war movie, 7 May 1999

Author: Matt Downey from Toronto, Ontario, Canada

This movie was like any other war movie at the time (1962). It was a good movie because it depicted the only American force to be fighting in Burma and the India border. This movie, I think, was able to bring the 3rd theatre of war (The Burman theatre) to Americans, to show in a greater sense just how much of a world war WW2 was. Good movie, but still some American hollywoodism at its best. Good depiction of the fighting, showing American and Japanese fighting, but also the British, who were defending India and trying to liberate Burma and the rest of Eastern Asia. It showed that the Americans were certainly not the only ones fighting the Japanese.

Overall, fairly true to the real story, well written (except for certain stupid things - hollywoodism again), mostly well acted, and well directed and filmed. After watching, I was not thrilled by it, but was happy to see that the Americans did fight in Burma and that they were not the only ones fighting the Japanese.

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17 out of 27 people found the following review useful:
Thanks Yank, 16 November 2003

Author: Theo Robertson from Isle Of Bute, Scotland

Post Battle Of Britain there were two campaigns of the second world war that were almost exclusively British led and British fought . One was the North African campaign and the other was the Burma campaign , and unlike the inaccurate American flag waver OBJECTIVE BURMA the production team of MERRIL`S MARAUDERS have taken the time and effort to point out the British contribution of the campaign . A British patrol is spotted " A five hundred mile hike and the eighteeneth Japanese imperial army are waiting for them , I`m glad I ain`t in that British Army - Amen to that " and later General Stilwell points out " That the British have been fighting alone here for three years " , so a big thank you to Sam Fuller and co for pointing out a few truths that American didn`t win the war single handed . If only Spielberg , Hanks and Ambrose had done the same with BAND OF BROTHERS

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6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
"A good psychological study of the suffering of soldiers fighting in the jungle", 8 February 2006
Author: ArCon1956 from United States

"This is not the best war movie I've ever seen, but it is certainly not the worst. (I prefer Sam Fuller's The Big Red One myself.) It certainly uses most of the movie clichés of the day.

For me, the film is a sentimental favorite more than anything else. My father served with the Marauders in Company "L" and we always enjoyed watching it together.

Probably the best thing which I could say about it is how Fuller sets the emotional tone of the life of the soldiers. Watch this movie if you want to see what it was like to fight in the jungles of Burma without enough food or rest."

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7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Jeff Chandler's best film, 28 April 2003

Author: grahamsj2 from SE US

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Unfortunately, Jeff Chandler was already dead when the film hit the theaters. This was the culmination of a good career and I think he was getting better as he went along. This is an extraordinarily good film and came out more or less at the end of the great war film making era of the 40's and 50's. I think the public was tired of war films by the early 60's and so Hollywood cut way back on making them. There had been the war and then countless war films right afterward, so perhaps the public was just ready to move on from war. The US was barely involved in Vietnam as far as the public knew, so that couldn't be the cause for the apathy towards war films. At any rate, Hollywood tossed out one of the best in this film. It is a true film classic, a true story (more or less) and one that should be seen by any war film buff!

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