Rookies in Burma Film Review

Well, I just had to go and watch another film starring the two-bit comedy team of Wally Brown and Alan Carney. Zombies on Broadway had its moments - this one very few. Live and learn. There is a reason I had never heard of them before stumbling upon them like a blind man in a storm. First, we have to remember this is 1943. War time. The Japanese were our enemies. This is a box full of Japanese stereotypes that likely played fine back in 1943 but now is hard to take even knowing the reasons why. But even taking that into account the film is just not very funny - all the one liners of which there is an endless supply land like a wooden duck trying to fly. Clunk, clunk, clunk. The dimwitted one of the two - though neither is very bright - makes Lou Costello look like a Mensa member. This type of comedy mismatch was common back then - but this is so extreme that it just begins to gnaw on your nerves.

Our two boys are peeling potatoes in Burma - a Burma that looks as much like Burma as my terrace. They go into action - get lost and are captured by the Japanese and taken back to camp. They see their sergeant (Erford Gage) and the three of them break out of prison by impersonating Japanese - picture the buck teeth - and soon are being chased. They find a town and go into the bar and find two American girls who have escaped from Shanghai impersonating Burmese girls (Joan Barclay and Claire Carleton). They head out on an elephant. Comedy of a sort ensues. Perry White pins a metal on them at the end for stopping the invasion of India. Based no doubt on a true story. The only positive thing I can say about it is that it was done in war time. Hard to imagine the Nazis making such a stupid film about stupid soldiers. Maybe that is why we won the war.