I could never get with Andrew Duggan, the doctor who trudges along with the Army expedition into Burma. He always seemed so actorish, no matter what the part. Ty Hardin looks good, I guess. His features are razor sharp and he has a hefty build but he's not much of a performer. Jeff Chandler, as the real-life General Frank Merrill, who leads the force against the Japanese in 1944, at least had the advantage of steel-gray curly hair, aquiline nose, a deep baritone, big ears, and industrial-strength facial bones going for him.

Director Sam Fuller was in his stride in 1962 and this is a well-done film. A viewer will find it a character study in the context of combat. There are several brisk fire fights that only emphasize the real focus of the movie -- fatigue and illness. It's an unusual story for that reason alone. It's an exhaustion of mind, body, and spirit, and you can almost smell it.

The film is about the war in Burma but it's relatively modern and more realistic than most of the movies made during the war years. An officer belts an enlisted man, for instance. It was shot on location in the Philippines rather than the live-oak covered hills of California. There are no stereotypes -- no wise guy from Brooklyn or braggart from Texas -- just as there were no stereotypes in Errol Flynn's "Objectiv Burma", of which this is a simulacrum. ("Merrill's Marauders" even borrows some of the musical score from the original.) Claude Akins is the tough and uncomplaining top sergeant who keeps the men together, and there is a scene in which the bearded and played out Akins is slumped against a wall after a fierce battle, his eyes closed, almost too fagged out to move. A Burmese child, and then an old lady with a bowl of rice, creep out of the rubble and approach him. He opens his eyes as the wizened woman offers him some rice and then he begins to weep abjectly. It's a touching moment, especially so, coming as it does from the cynical and unsentimental Sam Fuller.

Francis Stahl was the sound man and Ralph Ayres did the effects. They should both be applauded. The fire fights don't sound like any other movie fire fights. The battles sound like strings of firecrackers going off on Chinese New Years. I've never been in combat but those clusters of cracks and pops sound much like rifles did on the firing range.

Fuller could be a headlong and reckless director and he made some clinkers but this isn't one of them. Along with "Pickup on South Street," I'd consider this among his best efforts. For what it's worth, Frank Merrill survived World War II, but just barely.

This film is about a unit that fought hard and suffered horrific attrition rates while fighting in Burma during World War II. It specifically focuses on the grueling and exhausting struggle they made to complete the objective against all odds.

MERRILL'S MARAUDERS is a decent war film, though it's hardly one that stands above the genre. While it does receive high marks for not being overly sensational or adding unnecessary story elements, the film also seems a tad sterile and unsatisfying when all is said and done. Now perhaps I might not have felt this so strongly had the film not been directed by Sam Fuller--a guy very capable of making better war films (my personal favorite of his is STEEL HELMET--a very realistic and gritty Korean War film made on a minuscule budget). Fuller did well in not over-glamorizing the soldiers but because he didn't provide much in the way of character development, you really don't particularly care who wins or dies. This is really evident near the end when the general (Jeff Chandler) falls to the ground--does he have a fatal heart attack or is he okay? The film never even bothers to tell! And that is very telling about the soul of this film--very competent but not especially involving.

It's 1942 and the Axis powers are at their zenith. Allied forces are retreading in Burma. Gen. Frank D. Merrill directs three thousand American soldiers through the jungle to attack the Japanese forces in Walawbum. After gaining a difficult victory, they're ordered to do an impossible march over mountains and attack.

Like the epic march, this is also a bit of a slough. The characters aren't really the star of this movie. It's the march. It has the elements but it doesn't have the tension. The jungle battle scenes have lots of extras running around but they lack the thrills of great action directing. This is a solid war movie and the final numbers are shocking. It may be worthwhile to keep a running tally on that number.