Another movie that's been sitting on my DVR since TCM's Memorial Day marathon of war movies and is now getting another airing on TCM is Merrill's Marauders. That airing is tomorrow, November 15, at 1:45 PM. So once again, I sat down to watch the movie in order to be able to do a post on it here in conjunction with the upcoming airing.
The movie opens with narration over black-and-white World War II footage about the state of the war around the beginning of 1944. Britain held India, but were worried that Japan would try to break through to meet up with the Germans since Japan held most of Southeast Asia. The UK had even bigger manpower issues than the Americans, and the Soviets had not declared war against Japan, so a conference in Quebec resulted in a multinational force under General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell to push back against the Japanese. The American portion of that force was commanded by Brigadier General Frank Merrill (Jeff Chandler).
The first objective is a town called Walawbum, which is inside Burma through miles of jungles and swamps that the Americans are going to have to march through. Merrill himself is part of that, despite the doctor (Andrew Duggan) foreshadowing that Merrill has a serious heart issue. (In fairness to the movie, the real-life Merrill did in fact have a heart issue.) One of the platoons is led by Merrill's protégé, Lt. Stockton (Ty Hardin). Merrill sees great possibilities for Stockton's career, except that Stockton is a bit too close to his men.
Eventually, the men do make it to Walawbum and are able to take the town, leading the Americans to think they're going to be relieved, as this was a very tough campaign that led to a lot of them being either killed or sickened by tropical diseases. Unfortunately for them, Gen. Stilwell shows up and tells Merrill that no, you're not getting relieved; in fact you're going to have to push on to the railhead at Shaduzup. Merrill isn't exactly pleased but has a sense of duty. He also has to give the order to Stockton, who in turn is going to have to deliver the message to his men who aren't going to like it. And we've seen that Stockton already has command issues, like difficulty in writing the "I regret to inform you" letters that go home to the families of the fallen soldiers. But fight on they do, since they don't really have much choice. And of course Stockton starts becoming a better officer.
There's another big battle at Shaduzup, which the Allies win. But there's still another objective, the airstrip at Myitkyina, and the soldiers, by now known as Merrill's Marauders, push on despite being at their breaking point. History tells us that the Marauders did win a battle at Myitkyina, and that the Marauders were disbanded not long after because they had next to nobody left who was fit to fight and they all hated Stilwell.
Merrill's Marauders is a well-enough made movie, done closer to location in the jungles of the Philippines, and has fine performances from both Chandler (in what was sadly his final performance since he suffered a back injury during the shooting and died from complications of surgery after filming wrapped) and Hardin. However, like a lot of other war movies of the era, it has a lot of the same tropes of character development, which is why I mentioned the recently reviewed Fighter Squadron in the title. The Merrill/Stockton relationship is reminiscent of the one between Edmond O'Brien and Robert Stack. There's also a comic relief character with animal involvement. This time, it's a man nicknamed Muley who is the keeper of the pack mule in the platoon. (The real Marauders did use pack mules.) Muley has grown too attached to his mule, while everyone else in the platoon sees it as a source of food.
Merrill's Marauders isn't a bad little movie, and in some ways it's more about the limits of endurance men can face rather than about the actual battles. But I can't help think that if it had been made a few years earlier and with a better budget that it could have been a movie with a much higher reputation than the one it has today.
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