"The Green Berets" Topic

…was on TeeVee today & I watched it all the way through.
Heckava movie. I only have one question: what war was it based on?

Enough of the irony, please name better 'Nam movie than this turkey.

The Deer Hunter, for one.

We Were Soldiers

Operation Dumbo Drop!

The Green Berets is an interesting period piece and a different slant from the usual sorts of Vietnam films.

Anyway, my personal favourite VN flm is, and always will be, Apocalypse Now. Just because it is a great film on so many levels. It doesn't pretend to be a documentary though.

Depends what you want from a film of course.

For historical accuracy and high production values, I think "Braddock III: Missing in Action" is hard to beat.

Picnic at Hanging Rock.

The problem is that Viet Nam films show a strong tendency to be utterly dreadful. Compared with overblown self-indulgent dreck like "Platoon", "The Deer Hunter" and the second half of "Apocalypse Now" (which seems entirely unconnected to the first half, and should have been a separate film), "The Green Berets" is no more than averagely dreadful, albeit in a different way, and at least it has a nice theme tune.

The only thoroughly excellent Viet Nam film I would unreservedly recommend is "The Odd Angry Shot", which is very well done indeed. "84 Charlie Mopic" is OK, as is "BAT 21".

All the best,

John.

Go tell the Spartans

My Dad got to train on the fire base built for the Green Berets before he deployed. They built it at Benning.

And honestly, I didn't think it was that bad of a movie.

Tinned Fruit's recomendation is solid. Go Tell the Spartans is a good movie.

Jake

You saw it too Don? I caught a bit of it myself.

The remade version of The Quiet American is excellent, but that's about the French war. To second Jphn, The Odd Angry Shot is excellent too.

I like Apocalypse Now, although it's not exactly a realistic depiction. We Were Soldiers is IMHO the pick of the other Vietnam movies & reasonably accurate to the book.

Hamburger Hill was pretty good.

Siege of Firebase Gloria? That one seemed to be mostly a 'war movie' or at least a good vehicle for R. Lee Ermey to use his DI skills again. At least the NVA were not simple cardboard cutouts.

I like Apocalypse Now, but that might be more as an artistic endeavor than its documentary qualities.

Some more also rans…

Flight of the Intruder?

Air America? Mel Gibson's 'other' Vietnam movie.

Full Metal Jacket?

Go tell the Spartans

Hamburger Hill

Once we were soldiers

Bat 21

It was period piece and did play to sold out crowds. When I saw it, they had to open the balcony to whites (!!!), so many people wanted to watch it. It showed different aspects of the war all crunched into the same film. Assaults and patrols.
It was a propoganda piece with most of the VC being soldiers from Fort benning GA.

Bat 21

The Quiet American – I know, right location, wrong decade…

HBO did a short seris of vietnam stories which were not all bad . I only reember pieces .

To be honest, I liked TGB, but, like Apocalypse Now, it is by no means a realistic depiction of anything. Taht being said, I enjoyed The Boys in Company C and Full Metal Jacket as well.

It would be neat if someone would make Phase Line Green into a movie, I think.

Rob

"The Odd Angry Shot" is a great movie but even after a couple of viewings there are still bits of dialogue I miss because of the accents. Why couldn't those Aussies speak English, like everybody else in the world?

I loved "The Boys in Company C" and "Go Tell The Spartans" (I also enjoyed "Incident at Muc Wa", the book on which the latter was based).

"84 Charlie Mopic" came highly recommended. It was okay and the LT's description of how he would parlay a choice combat assignment into a huge career boost could have been a direct quote from 90% of the junior officers I met there but as a recon unit those guys would have had a life-expectancy measured in nano-seconds.

"Full Metal Jacket" – meh. It was a generic war movie. The book ("The Short-Timers" by Gustav Hasford) was much better.

"The Siege of Firebase Gloria" was a lot better than I expected, given the fairly basic acting talent of the two main characters, and for once Charlie – or his commanders, at least – was depicted as an actual human being.

Okay, "Apocalypse Now" … I can't quote it verbatim unfortunately but at the Cannes Film Festival (I think), Coppola said something like this: " 'Apocalypse Now' wasn't about Vietnam, 'Apocalypse Now' was Vietnam. We went into the jungle with too many people and too much money and too much stuff and slowly and inevitably we went insane." I think this is the quintessential Vietnam film.

Two things about this movie: 1. although the Redux version has some scenes that would have enhanced the theatrical release it is IMHO self-indulgent, flabby, and nowhere near as good as the original cut; 2. "Hearts of Darkness", the documentary about the making of "Apocalypse Now" is in and of itself an exceptional film – watch the two together if you can.

I'd also recommend reading Michael Herr's (non-fiction) "Dispatches", which is where some of the voice-overs and dialog came from.

I don't remember a great deal about it, but I seem to recall enjoying the movie version Philip Caputo's "A Rumor of War", as released for television. It was a long time ago and I only saw it once, so I could be wrong. As always, the book was better.

"The Green Berets" – how well I remember the pine forests of Southeast Asia and the sun setting to the East over the South China Sea. Takes me back, it does. Oh. Wait.

LT

Yeah, Go Tell the Spartans is one of my favorites. *4 Charlie Mopic is a different take on the war. Hamburger Hill for the combat. Boys in Company C and We Were soldiers are both good.
Full Metal Jacket is excellent in parts. Apocalypse Now has some very cool parts too.

Thanks,

John

Another vote for Hamburger Hill.

Mick

Hamburger Hill and We Were Soldiers.

Go tell the Spartans is my first choice.

"…seem to recall enjoying the movie version Philip Caputo's "A Rumor of War", as released for television."

Brian Dennehy made a good 'Sarge'.

Siege of Firebase Gloria, only scene I actually remember is Ermy walking around with 2 bodiless heads complaining about them letting Charlie have his MG…

Platoon was a good movie, somewhat dated now, but it was the Vietnam experience in the US transported to a platoon rather then a war movie as such.

Thin Red Line, technically it was WWII, but if that was not really supposed to be about Vietnam then nothing was (and it was a terrible movie)

Forrest Gump, not a Nam movie of course, but the Vietnam portion is one of the best parts.

Full Metal Jacket – If only since I used to look just like the guy who went nuts.

Hamburger Hill

We Were Soldiers

Only the air cavalry scenes in Apocalypse Now

Tom

I have a buddy who served in Viet Nam as an infantry Lieutenant.
He says that there are no movies about VN that are accurate.
The only one he recommends is "The Thin Red Line" set in WW2.
He says that it is very accurate regarding how officers behaved. Particularly senior officers.

My older brothers who served in Vietnam thought it was hilarious at the time.

They also reported the brass really getting P.O.'d at everyone singing "a hundred men will fight today, ninety-nine will run away"

I was always partial to "The Park is Mine" with Tommy Lee Jones, but my favorite "movie" about Vietnam was the TV series "Tour of Duty"

Here you go:

YouTube link

Don't hold me responsible for any flashbacks, though.

I was always partial to "The Park is Mine" with Tommy Lee Jones, but my favorite "movie" about Vietnam was the TV series "Tour of Duty"

If there was an accurate scene in "Tour of Duty" I was unable to identify it. It made "The Green Berets" look like a Ken Burns documentary on Vietnam.

LT

Oddly enough, Hollyweird avoided the subject of the Vietnam war like the plague during the war. I remember reading that the Green Berets was the only movie made about the Vietnam War while we were still fighting in Vietnam. Shortly after the war, you start seeing a slew of Vietnam War movies, most of them with a decidedly anti-war bent to them.

Dave

Here you go:

YouTube link

Don't hold me responsible for any flashbacks, though.

Holy guacamole! I didn't think it was possible but that show was even worse than I remembered.

LT

I went into my local hobby shop one evening and the kid behind the counter recommended Apocalypse Whenever. I informed that I had been in the original off-Broadway cast and he asked--in all seriousness--what part I had played. So I said "Myself."

My favorite movies about Viet Nam, in order:

7. "R-Point"
Creepy little Korean horror film about a ROK unit in Viet Nam; Sort of an "Apocalypse Now" meets "The Ring".

6. "Tigerland"
Wasn't really interested in seeing this, but ran it in the background while packing up my basement; surprise! Tidy little yarn about a misfit making ggood in spite of himself; "Cool Hand Luke Goes to Basic and Comes Out As A Grown-Up"

5. "84 Charlie MOPIC"
Used to play "Up Front" with one of the cast… he was a wargamer! Also, he had best line in any war movie about counting the days 'til discharge: "I'm so short I could parachute off a dime!"

4. "Go Tell the Spartans"
This was the best role Burt Lancaster had had for years up to that time, and he was brilliant in the part.

3. "Hamburger Hill"
GREAT story, brilliant script, excellent cast. Dylan McDermott, Stephen Weber, Courtey Vance, Michael Boatman… all great.

2. "We Were Soldiers"
A Viet Nam War movie filled with American soldiers depicted as heroes, their wives no less so.

1. "The 317th Platoon"
A French film about a platoon trying to reach safety in the aftermath of the disaster at Dien Bien Phu. Stark, gripping and relentless. The memory of this film has stayed with me for forty years.

What I like about all of these is the respect they show for the common soldier, particularly the American citizen soldier.

I am frankly apalled by the plaudits heaped on movies like "Apocalypse Now", "Full Metal Jacket" and "Platoon" whose directors were so obviously obsessed with their own profundity that they felt obliged to present such soldiers as witless naifs, sadists, drug-addled psychotics, burn-outs, or outright lunatics.

Oh, well. As usual, Kipling said it best:

"…and makin' mock o' uniforms
that guard you while you sleep,
is cheaper than them uniforms,
an' they're starvation-cheap."

Not me.

Thank you, veterans, one and all.

Oh come on, you have to keep it in historical perspective, The Green Berets was made in the early 60s, How many westerns from that era do we not consider campy by todays movie standards? Think of all those black and white movies from WWII that we would tear to pieces today? WHAT no GFI fights! How lame.

FWIW As a former SF I have a soft spot for the movie. Much of what was shown was based on facts, more then some of the Anti-US Military crap that came out of other's later.

VR
James Mattes
SF USA Ret.

I am frankly appalled by the plaudits heaped on movies like "Apocalypse Now", "Full Metal Jacket" and "Platoon" whose directors were so obviously obsessed with their own profundity that they felt obliged to present such soldiers as witless naifs, sadists, drug-addled psychotics, burn-outs, or outright lunatics.

Well, "Full Metal Jacket" was written by a former Marine who served in Vietnam, so perhaps he had an insight or two that some of us lack. I never thought "Platoon" was a great movie but in both it and "Apocalypse Now" I saw people whose archetypes I recognized instantly as people I had known during my time in Southeast Asia.

I mean, Captain Willard was downright mainstream compared to some of the MACV-SOG people I met and as for Colonel Billy Kilgore, I flew occasionally with the 1/9 Cav out of Phuoc Vinh (real unit – part of the 1st Cavalry Division) and they had a lot of officers who were just like that. I know that there was a lot of hell raised in the press about all the pot-smoking and hippie paraphernalia in "Platoon" but, having spent three months leading a demolition team of which I was the only member not addicted to heroin, I'm fairly sure there were a lot of people in Vietnam doing drugs.

Sorry, the troops in Vietnam were not the guys who won World War II. We were ill-trained, abysmally equipped, and usually poorly led, the majority of us had little or no idea why we were there and why everyone back home seemed to hate us so much, and all any of us wanted to do was survive our tour and get the (insert inoffensive term for the netherworld here) out of there. There's not much good war movie fodder in that.

LT

Well for what it is worth there were still lots of Drugs in the military Until Ronald Regan was elected. Most drug use stopped when he came to office.

There was still lots of Anti Military fellings until around the time of Iran.
VR
James Mattes

I can understand that I suspect the notion of Ronnie as CinC was weird enough without drugs.