I don't understand how a great director (The Great Escape), a great plot (OSS training the Kachin natives), and a great cast which included Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Brian Donlevy etc. could combine to create such a horrible movie. What a waste of talent.
Within the first 45 minutes of this movie, my wife gave up, and I only lasted for an hour and a half because the whole thing was so implausible.
You have Frank Sinatra looking very dapper with his starched uniform and coat complete with manicured goatee in the middle of the steaming jungle, albeit a very clean looking jungle like a Hollywood back set, personally annihilating hundreds of Japanese with his 30 shot Thompson.
This "remote" jungle, where air supplies must be dropped in (3 boxes for 100 odd troops) is somehow able to support a twin-Beech airlift to bring 'ol blue eyes back to an extremely lavish hotel/city where he woos the sultry Gina Lollobrigida, who dresses like someone from the Italian Riveira circa 1959. All this during the period when Japanese are overrunning most of SE Asia.
Bottom line is that this movie takes a theater of war previously portrayed in such classics as "Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Operation Burma", and makes it downright silly.
Within the first 45 minutes of this movie, my wife gave up, and I only lasted for an hour and a half because the whole thing was so implausible.
You have Frank Sinatra looking very dapper with his starched uniform and coat complete with manicured goatee in the middle of the steaming jungle, albeit a very clean looking jungle like a Hollywood back set, personally annihilating hundreds of Japanese with his 30 shot Thompson.
This "remote" jungle, where air supplies must be dropped in (3 boxes for 100 odd troops) is somehow able to support a twin-Beech airlift to bring 'ol blue eyes back to an extremely lavish hotel/city where he woos the sultry Gina Lollobrigida, who dresses like someone from the Italian Riveira circa 1959. All this during the period when Japanese are overrunning most of SE Asia.
Bottom line is that this movie takes a theater of war previously portrayed in such classics as "Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Operation Burma", and makes it downright silly.