The Green Berets (film)
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| The Green Berets | |
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| Directed by | Ray Kellogg John Wayne Mervyn LeRoy (uncredited) |
| Produced by | Michael Wayne |
| Written by | James Lee Barrett Col. Kenneth B. Facey Robin Moore (novel) |
| Starring | John Wayne David Janssen George Beckworth Jim Hutton Aldo Ray George Takei |
| Music by | Miklós Rózsa (as Miklos Rozsa) |
| Cinematography | Winton C. Hoch |
| Editing by | Otho Lovering |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros.-Seven Arts |
| Release date(s) | July 4, 1968 (USA) |
| Running time | 141 min. |
| Language | English Vietnamese |
| Budget | $7,000,000 (USD) |
| IMDb profile | |
The Green Berets is the title of a 1968 film starring John Wayne and featuring George Takei, David Janssen, Jim Hutton, and Aldo Ray. It was nominally based on the 1965 book of the same name by Robin Moore, but the screenplay has little to do with the book.
The Green Berets has a strong anti-communist and pro-Saigon theme, which resonates throughout the movie. The movie was produced at the height of the Vietnam War, during the same year as the Tet offensive against the largest cities in South Vietnam. It was the atmosphere of growing discontent with the war that prompted John Wayne to make a film countering the anti-war message.
John Wayne had been a long time supporter of the Vietnam war. He had visited the troops in Vietnam, and he wanted The Green Berets to be a tribute to the soldiers in Vietnam. He directed the film and turned down the role of Major Reisman in The Dirty Dozen to do so. The movie justifies America's involvement in what it describes as "a global crusade against communist domination of the world". It illustrates the point by showing Soviet- and Chinese-made weapons, which were commonly issued to communist NVA and VC soldiers.
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[edit] Plot
Reporter George Beckworth (David Janssen) is one of the journalists present at a briefing about the Vietnam war that includes illustration of the situation by military officers. Skeptics are shown various pieces of equipment recovered from captured or killed enemy soldiers, identified as made in various Communist nations, including the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Beckworth remains skeptical about the value of the war, and agrees to travel there to witness the situation first-hand.
Beckworth arrives at an American camp in Vietnam, where he becomes convinced of the necessity of war when the camp comes under a fierce siege by North Vietnamese forces.
After the battle, Col. Mike Kirby (John Wayne) leads a special ops team into enemy territory to capture an important VC field commander who lives in a mansion surrounded by bodyguards.
The hopeful spirit of the movie ends with a subtle reassurance that America will be victorious.
[edit] Criticism
The film has been heavily criticized for its inaccurate and patriotic portrayal of the war, especially when compared to later Vietnam films such as Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Hamburger Hill, Casualties of War, and Full Metal Jacket. Critic Renata Adler called it "vile and insane." However, from a technical standpoint, it does portray US special forces working in conjunction with ARVN South Vietnamese commandos in accurate uniforms defending a firebase against a night attack. Many authentic aircraft make an appearance that are absent from most of the other movies, such as the Chinook, Skyraider and AC-47 Spooky gunship. At this early point in the war, there was yet optimism for a positive outcome.
[edit] Glorification of the war
The film has been further criticized for glorifying the Vietnam War, and made the 2005 list of Roger Ebert's most hated films for being a "heavy-handed, remarkably old-fashioned film."
[edit] Apparent technical errors
Three commonly cited technical issues are the closing "sunset", the pine trees and the enemy firearms.
- The film closes with a dramatic shot of the sun apparently setting into the sea by Da Nang. Critics frequently mention this scene, because the coastline in Vietnam faces east and the sun actually sets in the west. However, nothing in the film definitely indicates the time of day that the scene is to have taken place as the team could have easily waited for a nighttime helicopter extraction and arrived at Da Nang in the predawn twilight. This scene was filmed near Fort Benning, Georgia.
- Since Fort Benning has many pine trees, many viewers think that it does not resemble Vietnam. However, the Central Highlands of Vietnam actually do have pine trees and other similarities to the terrain of Fort Benning. [1][2]
- The firearms used in the film by the Vietcong and NVA forces, while mostly of US and UK origin, are not inaccurate, as Chinese copies of these designs had been exported to the NVA and Vietcong. At the time, few modern-era Soviet and Chinese rifles such as the AK-47 had been acquired by U.S. armed forces or Hollywood.
[edit] Trivia
- As the movie was made with the full co-operation of the US military, the filmmakers had access to authentic firearms. Early in the movie, John Wayne uses a US-marked M16 made by Harrington & Richardson, while later he uses a CAR-15, manufacturer unknown (presumably Colt). After filming, both guns were set aside because of their connection to the movie, and never issued. The H&R M16 has long resided in a private collection in the Northeastern US, while the CAR-15 is believed to have been retained by the US Army.[citation needed]
- In a climactic scene in which Wayne was scripted to break an M16 rifle against a tree, rather than break a real gun, he used a plastic toy replica of an M16, made by Mattel, as a substitute.
- The defensive battle that begins the second half of the movie is very loosely based on the Battle of Nam Dong, during which two Viet Cong battalions attacked a small outpost defended by a mixed force of Americans, Australians and South Vietnamese. After the successful defense of the outpost, the commanding officer, Capt. Roger Donlon was awarded the Medal of Honor.
- The two leading Vietnamese characters would have served in the ARVN army of South Vietnam. In the film, they were actually portrayed by Japanese-Americans Jack Soo, later seen on Barney Miller and George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek. In fact, Takei missed a number of Season 2 episodes of Star Trek because he had been working on this film.[citation needed]
- Comedian Richard Pryor is often credited with a small role in this film, and author Gilbert Adair even went so far as to point out Pryor's presence as an example of the underrepresentation of African-Americans in the film. In reality, however, the Richard Pryor in this movie is Texas newspaper columnist Richard 'Cactus' Pryor, a friend of Wayne's and a white man.
- Bruce Lee was the martial arts coordinator for the film and Chuck Norris was one of the martial arts performers.
- This film is often identified as the "only film made about the Vietnam War during the Vietnam War" or as the "only pro-war movie made during the Vietnam War", but it is neither. At least two arguably pro-war films were made during the Vietnam War concerning American forces in Vietnam: A Yank in Viet-Nam (1964) (which was actually filmed in Vietnam) and To the Shores of Hell (1966).
