MERRILL'S MARAUDERS Movie Review

1962 Samuel Fuller

The wild, unexpected touches that energize director Sam Fuller's best work are absent in this straightforward war film. By all accounts, he sticks fairly close to the broad outlines of historical fact to tell the story of a particularly grueling and little-known episode of the Pacific Theater.

A brief introduction made up of newsreel footage and animated maps sketches in the history of American involvement in Burma in the early 1940s. Gen. Stilwell's (John Hoyt) forces are run out by the Japanese in 1942. Two years later, he returns. Leading the attack is the 5307th Composite Provisional Regiment; 3,000 men strong, it undertakes the ambitious three-month assignment of marching 200 miles undetected through the jungle to attack the Japanese at Walawbaum. From there, though the men don't know it, they are to go even farther into Burma to Myitkyina. Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill (Jeff Chandler) is in command. Much of the action is focused on one of his favorite officers, Lt. Stockton (Ty Hardin) and the men of Stockton's platoon: Bullseye (Peter Brown), Chowhound (Will Hutchins), Muley (Charlie Briggs), and Sgt. Kolowicz (Claude Akins).

Fuller is extremely imaginative with his Philippine locations, going beyond the familiar jungles to vertiginous mountain trails and a rail yard-refinery where he stages a major combat scene. The central point of the film is the exhausting nature of the campaign, the toll that long months in the field take on the men both physically and emotionally. In the film, as in reality, Merrill suffers from a serious heart condition but stays with his men every step of the way. Though Stockton and Merrill and Dr. Kolodny (Andrew Duggan) emerge as believable, if unexceptional stiff-upper-lip figures, the rest of the secondary characters lack much personality.

Fuller puts his camera right down in the mud with them, and he makes their fatigue seem real enough in extreme close-ups, but they still lack depth. Because the film is trying to show the actions of the entire unit, the relatively modest budget is stretched thin in places. The best moments here do not come close to their counterparts in The Big Red One, but then, that autobiographical film is a labor of love. Merrill's Marauders is a finely crafted story with a deliberately ambiguous conclusion. Despite the gung-ho title, this is not a film about victory, heroism, or the adrenaline rush of action. The only victory that Fuller sees is survival, and for men who have been so brutally ground down, survival comes at a high price.

Cast: Jeff Chandler (Brig. Gen. Frank D. Merrill), Ty Hardin (Lt. Lee Stockton), Peter Brown (Bullseye), Andrew Duggan (Capt. Abraham L. Kolodny, MD), Will Hutchins (Chowhound), Claude Akins (Sgt. Kolowicz), John Hoyt (Gen. Stilwell), Chuck Hicks (Cpl. Doskis), Charles Briggs (Muley), Vaughan Wilson (Bannister), Pancho Magalona (Taggy); Written by: Samuel Fuller, Milton Sperling, Charlton Ogburn Jr.; Cinematography by: William Clothier; Music by: Howard Jackson; Technical Advisor: Lt. Col. Samuel Wilson. Producer: Milton Sperling, Warner Bros. Running Time: 98 minutes. Format: VHS.