Outlining the plans for the Burma film, Lord Burnham, Director of Public Relations at the War Office, stated that ‘The picture must be good entertainment or it has failed before it starts. If it is not extensively booked and widely seen it has no value’ (Burnham). He was particularly conscious of the viewing practices of audiences in the USA, believing that ‘The American public are allergic to official material of any kind and a version of an official dispatch illustrated by indifferently relevant visual material would not go with a swing’ (Burnham). It is ironic, then, that out of the eventual two films it is The Stilwell Road that is more focussed upon official material. Although both documentaries employ maps and statistics to tell their tales, the American film goes to greater lengths in detailing the command structure and the military plans of the Burmese campaign. It is also careful to disclose its use of reconstructed footage. An early title card states that ‘Two close-ups of individuals have been re-enacted to permit live sound’. Meanwhile, Burma Victory does not admit to the fact that itfeatures a combination of Burmese footage (of both genuine and staged action) and of scenes created in Pinewood studios.

The Stilwell Road is less narrow than its title suggests – the film does pay attention to British-driven aspects of the campaign. Moreover, it is more accurate than Burma Victory in the way that it outlines the chronology of the Allied manoeuvres. It also gives more detail regarding the Japanese plan of attack and is alone in incorporating film material captured from the enemy. Nevertheless, The Stilwell Roadavoids any mention of the colonial status of Burma and it also largely devoid of any coverage of the British advance towards the capital, Rangoon. The Japanese invasion is portrayed as an attack upon the supply route to China, and it is the defeat of China that is outlined as presaging any advance towards India. ‘This is the story of a bridge, it is a land bridge to China and its name is Burma’, Reagan states at the start of the film. He adds that ‘This is the story of the destruction of that bridge and of the men who fought and died to rebuild it so that China could fight on’. All other aspects of the campaign are subordinated to this aim. In contrast to Burma Victory, which pointedly includes footage of the liberated Burmese, the American documentary climaxes with grateful Chinese citizens, celebrating the arrival of the first military convoy in their homeland.

Rather than showing the liberation of the Burmese, The Stilwell Road instead has footage of refugees from the country, pictured during the initial retreat from Burma. This ignominious part of the campaign is passed over in Burma Victory; it would have been undesirable for a British film to show the abandonment of a colony and of its people. In contradistinction, The Stilwell Roademphasises this withdrawal. The length of the retreat (in which no American forces were involved), makes the reopening of the land route appear all the more heroic.

A further contrast is provided by the way in which the films portray the people, culture and climate of Burma. The Stilwell Road features a brief segment in which Burma, ‘a land of legend’, is outlined. We get to see pagodas and Buddhas, as well as the country’s ‘strange and picturesque people’ (here we see a woman lighting a smoking device and then a different woman who wears multiple rings around her extended neck). Such exoticism is lampooned in Burma Victory. The British film opens with a soldier casting aside a travel brochure that has talked of the ‘romance’ and ‘sunshine’ of the country. The brochure is contrasted with the reality of the monsoon rains. It should be admitted, however, that The Stilwell Road also portrays the Allied forces in Burma facing a ‘perpetual struggle against nature’.

Ian Jardine is correct in his belief that the value of these films lies not in their historical accuracy, but instead in the way they ‘shed light on the position of mass media in democratic society during war time’ (Jardine, 1988, 68). Nevertheless, the emphases of The Stilwell Road and Burma Victory are sometimes surprising. For example, it is The Stilwell Road that takes the greatest pride in the ‘polyglot army’ that has been assembled to defend India, drawn as it is from the countries of the British Empire, allied with American and Chinese troops. The film features a roll call of ‘Scots, Irish, English, Welsh, Australian, New Zealander, Indian, Gurkha, Burman, African, Chinese, American’, which is matched with individually framed shots of soldiers from each of these nations. Burma Victory has a similar, but less overt sequence, in which the troops of various nations are shown listening to Mountbatten’s speeches; however, their countries of origin are not mentioned by name. Moreover, although the colonial status of Burma is not mentioned in The Stilwell Road, this film does describe Calcutta as being the ‘second largest city in the British Empire’. Britain’s Empire, meanwhile, is not mentioned in Burma Victory, an absence that can be attributed to the need to appeal to an American audience.

Richard Osborne (September 2009)