Bombs Over Burma (1942)

You won't be disappointed!

Really Surprised!

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Blistering performances.

Poverty Row PRC produced this film that stars Anna May Wong as a lovely and dedicated Chinese school teacher who joins the Chinese cause to defend her country from Japan's attacks. It's a cheap film, typical PRC, but one of the better products from that studio.Bombs Over Burma has school teacher Wong first witnessing an attack on her village from the air where one of her little pupils is killed. After that she joins the cause and because she's a school teacher and presumably can read and write she gets into intelligence work.Sometime later she's on a bus with a mixed group of international travelers that is forced to spend a night at a monastery. It's there she will ferret out the spy.Don't look down the cast list to spot who might be the slim traitor. If you pick who I think you'll pick you'll be wrong.For a PRC film it's not half bad.

After several years of somewhat reading about this Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong, I finally got to see her in a movie. In this one, she plays a school teacher in the Asian country who becomes a liaison to some supply trucks meant to aid in the battle against the enemy Japanese during World War II. Since this picture is from the poverty row PRC, it's length is a little more than an hour which is just as well since part of the time it seems padded with some scenes of trucks just moving without any dialogue or music to ease the monotony. Still, there is some dramatically compelling moments at the beginning with one of her students having some fun in hearing planes flying-not knowing what their target is-before his tragic ending and near the end when one of the bus passengers is discovered to be a spy who gets his comeuppance. The print I watched was quite fuzzy with a soundtrack that had some surface noise that made it hard to understand some of the dialogue though whoever ran the film at least silenced it when no sounds were supposed to come out on audio. In summary, Bombs Over Burma isn't quite good as a drama but isn't too bad as a mystery, either.

Anna May Wong is a Chinese school teacher Lin Yang, who is also a spy for the "good guys" during WW II. She is traveling with an international group, who must discover who is leaking information to the Japanese bombers. The story is pretty good, but the sound quality is poor in parts of the film, with quite a bit of static in the soundtrack. Also lots of stock wartime footage thrown in. I was quite impressed at how the women could keep their hair and makeup just perfect on this long, hard roadtrip. Leslie Denison ( Roger Howe ) was a busy guy in those days - made 12 films in 1942, and 14 in 1943, in large and small roles. Wong had just made Lady from Chunking, the year before, another Alexander/Stern production about wartime China. Astute viewers will recognize the large, annoying Dan Seymour (Brogranza), who had played Captain Renard in To Have and Have Not. Too bad they didn't give him a larger role in this film - might have helped spruce it up. Connie Leon, who was actually British, provides the only laughs as the Chinese customs agent who taunts each person in the group as they are questioned when leaving town. This was just the third film for Ned Young (Slim Jenkins), and only the second credited role for lovely blonde Teala Loring, who seems to be the daughter of Doctor somebody or other, going to Chunking to check on him. Entertaining film, quite short at 65 minutes. It was a little odd... in the credits for the film, they use the PRC symbol for "producers releasing corp", but that's also the abbreviation for "Peoples Republic of China"...

A good, tense story and Anna May Wong's leading performance more than make up for this World War II feature's cheapish production and low-budget look. The story is interesting in itself, and it also serves the purpose of illuminating a vital but little-remembered aspect of the world war. Wong also gets support from some of the other cast members, although most of them are well below her stature as a performer.The setup has Wong as a schoolteacher who is helping to keep the Burma Road supply line open, despite enemy raids and other problems. The main part of the movie comes when she and a bus load of fellow passengers are stuck in a remote monastery along the supply line, as it becomes increasingly clear that one of their little group is a traitor who is tipping off the Japanese Air Force so that they can destroy the supply convoys.The story is told effectively, and even the low-budget look often actually aids in setting the atmosphere. The suspense is maintained rather well for an extended time, and the story keeps you guessing as long as possible as to just how things will turn out.The down side includes the dialogue, which is not nearly as good as the story, and some of the flat supporting performances. Dan Seymour is an exception, in a smaller role as the kind of lowlife that he always portrayed convincingly. As Sir Roger, Leslie Denison gives a rather plain performance for most of the movie, but he redeems himself with a fine wordless performance in the tense climactic scene. Nedrick Young has a couple of good moments as an American truck driver, and Connie Leon does a decent job of providing comic relief in her scene as a Burmese bureaucrat."Bombs Over Burma" and "Lady From Chungking" both starred Wong, and were both made by the same production company at about the same point in the war. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses, but both benefit considerably from Wong's presence, and both were worthwhile in drawing attention to the often forgotten part of the war that was fought on mainland Asia.