In 1980, before everyone had Cable Television, teachers at school, more specifically the Middle School I attended in Central Virginia, would from time to time recommend students to go home and watch Primetime Television, if the subject was warranted. “Shogun” with Richard Chamberlain, The United States vs Russia Olympic Hockey Game of 1980, “Backstairs at the White House” with Lou Gossett Jr, were all examples of this suggested supplemental learning we kids could do at home, and it was a great excuse to stay up late watching Network Television. Another of these Teacher influenced recommendations was a Documentary mini-series about the recently concluded Vietnam War titled “Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War”. The series was incredibly informative, giving Historical information, interviews and consequential footage of events that transpired during the armed conflict which took the lives of almost 60,000 United States combat troops and an estimated over 3 million Vietnamese Civilians and Soldiers.
My first exposure to information about the Vietnam War was reading old Time magazines in my Father’s Law Office when he would have to take me to work with him. The Vietnam Documentary mini-series was an extremely detailed look at the War, and since the big Vietnam War movies that were released in 1979 like “Apocalypse Now”, “The Deer Hunter” and “Coming Home” were all R rated and had not played at my Parents’ repertory Movie Theater yet, my knowledge of the Vietnam War came from the old Time magazines, the TV series my teachers had suggested we watch, and a couple of films that my Mother had either taken me to or allowed me to go see, like “Hearts and Minds” or “Who’ll Stop the Rain”. One afternoon, when I was in Fifth Grade, my Mother asked me “Hey, Ian, I want to go see a little-known Vietnam War Movie that is getting good reviews but doing very little box office business…..it’s playing at the Barracks Road Theater and probably won’t be there long. I should scout it out and see if I should program it for our theater, do yo want to go with me? “Sure”, I responded, excited to go see a Vietnam War Movie.
Mom took me to a lightly regarded Movie called “Go Tell the Spartans”. The film’s source material was a novel from 1967 titled “Incident at Muc Wa” by War Correspondent Daniel Ford. The Film and Novel took place in Vietnam in 1964, when only 12,000 United States Military “advisors” were in Vietnam. Made in 1978, “Go Tell the Spartans” was made before Hollywood started advancing big money at Vietnam War movies, so this film was shot on location….in Valencia, California. Aside from aging Movie Star Burt Lancaster and up-and-coming Emo lead actor Craig Wasson, most of the other known actors were better known for their TV and B-movie work. Actors such as Dolph Sweet (from TV’s “Gimme a Break”). Evan Kim (The Bruce Lee imitator from the Zucker Brothers’ “Kentucky Fried Movie”) and Marc Singer (“The Beastmaster” and “V, the mini-series”)headed up a sturdy cast which also included James Hong (John Huston’s gardener in “Chinatown” and the evil wizard from “Big Trouble in Little China”).
The screenplay by Wendell Mayes was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for “Best Drama Adapted from Another Medium”. The script is dynamite, Mayes takes Ford’s source material and creates an authentic portrayal of America’s Vietnam War experience from the outset. The title of the film is a reference to a made-up quote left at a mass gravesite for French soldiers who had died at the hands of Vietnamese Freedom fighters in 1954. A garrison of over 300 French Men had been killed at the Village of Muc Wa, a French source trusted with creating a graveyard for the fallen French troops invented a quote that was held in a sign above the graveyard that encouraged prospective visitors to “go tell the Spartans”(A reference to the Spartan stand in military history at Thermopylae) that the French troops had tried their hardest to defend their position , but were outnumbered and out maneuvered by the home standing Vietnamese.
History would show that the French were colonizers whom the Vietnamese had righteous cause to dispose of. Now came the Americans, ten years later, backing the sketchy Republic of South Vietnam, while the North and many in the South wanted Western influence out of the Country altogether. The American “advisors” portrayed were fighting alongside South Vietnamese soldiers, while their opponents were comprised of a mix of North Vietnamese troops and South Vietnamese Communist sympathizers, both wished to dispel the West and overthrow the South Vietnamese puppet Government in Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam.
Mayes’ screenplay and Film Director Ted Post took the source material and the war movie construct and churned out a movie that is fresh, traditional and stark in its level headedness. Although Cinematographer Harry Stradling Jr provides a sharp, rich image throughout the movie, at times the staging and the music score by Dick Halligan, made me feel like this was a made-for-TV movie. The outdoor sequences involving the US bases look like some wealthy person’s backyard in Sonoma. The music at times sounding like Mike Post’s theme from the satiric TV action show “The A-Team”. The budget for this film was $1.5 Million, this was an AVCO Embassy Production, so that the amount of engrossment that one finds themselves involved in this film is impressive, considering the film’s meager production costs.
Starting with the legitimacy of the look and feel of this picture, regardless of the lack of funding, most of the battle scenes take place at night, so that aspect makes the battle scenes appear more chaotic and mysterious. If this was a metaphorical comment on the part of the filmmakers, that is even more precise and profound. The film has an interesting perspective, we the viewers have sympathy for the main American characters and their South Vietnamese allies, but the opposition are not portrayed as evil like in a Chick Norris action movie by any means. The movie is very impartial in it’s judgement of the Vietnam War. When one new American combatant to the region is horrified when a South Vietnamese soldier beheads a suspected fighter for the rural Communists, an older and more jaded and experienced American soldier cautions the outraged American by declaring “it’s THEIR War”.
The film gives the viewer the War Movie platitude of a sequence where we are introduced to a majority of the film’s main characters through an interview process overseen by Major Barker, played with sagacity and reverence by Burt Lancaster, a fantastic screen presence throughout the movie. Barker’s second-in-command is the aspiring Captain Olivetti, played with conviction by Marc Singer. The scenes between Barker and Olivetti are telling and revealing. The two Men are almost like Senior and Junior partners in a Law Firm, while they discuss Company Business. Barker is the firm, sagacious Military Man who has seen it all while Olivetti is young but has his Military future all figured out, he knows the key to success in the Military is to get further up command as fast as possible, yet he still needs time in the field to validate his prospective promotion. He mentions he needs a CIB (Combat Infantryman’s Badge). Barker and Olivetti vet the new arrivals at their headquarters, including Wasson as an enlisted man with a conscience, Joe Unger as Lieutenant Hamilton, a dull-witted rah-rah Army Officer, Sergeant Oleonowski (played by Jonathan Goldsmith) is a jaded Sergeant who has seen way too much of the War, Dennis Howard plays a drug-addicted Medic named Abraham Lincoln and David Clennon is a Military analytics expert.
American Officers and Soldiers remark throughout the movie that the French were soft in getting kicked out of the Country of Vietnam by the Vietnamese and that won’t happen to the United States. In one battle scene, Captain Olivetti calls out to anyone in the bushes listening that after the US and South Vietnamese mow down a wave of Communist insurgents, “That’s how the USA kicks ass, Charlie”. In another scene, Major Barker goes to Penang, where the closest South Vietnamese Authority resides. The Major sits with the local General over a few shots of Cognac and bargains with him for extra needed troops and armaments. Major Barker is constantly attempting to instill an orthodox Military environment on the base and he is coming to terms with the informality of the encroaching future.
Aside from it’s accuracy in conjuncture with the War action scenes, the action scenes are at times hazy due to their taking place at night, but they provide a sudden catharsis whenever they abruptly get rolling. The movie gives us a foe who is unseen in the daytime and only attacks and appears at night. The night action scenes are stirring, especially when the explosions of different origins get going. The night sky is lit up with a visual symphony of flames in the background.
The movie’s accuracy in portraying Barracks’ life and Military acumen is specific and feels poignant and unerring. When the naive heroic Corporal, played by Craig Wasson, thinks he is being friendly by befriending random villagers he comes upon, Vietnamese interpreter Cowboy (played by Evan Kim) informs the Corporal that the people are probably Communist sympathizers. More than one Military Man who has been through the Vietnam experience and it’s duplicity declares that an attractive Female Vietnamese teenager in the village should be shot up with Penicillin by the Medics, due to the possibility that she could be dirty and be carrying a Venereal disease, or she has purposefully gotten an STD to infect horny rapacious US soldiers. The film is alive with Military jargon and Military people speaking in the rhythm of combat vernacular.
Aside from the trenchant screenplay and story, the glue and heart and soul of the film belongs to Burt Lancaster, a steady handed and scintillating performance by the master actor. The wisdom of Wartime and Military procedure exudes through him as Major Barker, including a searing and oft-times hilarious monologue Barker delivers to Captain Olivetti on why after all these years and Wars, Barker is still a Major. When Corporal Courcey takes a stand to stay back and fight with the last remnants of a South Vietnamese squadron that’s being abandoned as US Command has deemed a hot spot unwinnable and orders all American troops out of the area, Barker responds by saying, “I knew it, that’s your problem, Courcey, you’re a fucking hero, it’s written all over your forehead.”
”Go Tell the Spartans”, at the time of it’s release, was a different kind of War movie about a different kind of War. Yet it tells its tale through the nostalgic perspective of characters such as Major Barker and Dolph Sweet as General Harnitz (who Barker refers to as “Hard Nuts”), who are remnants from what seems like another era, even thought the film’s chronology is only less than 20 years removed from the end of World War II and over ten from the Korean conflict. In one scene, the Military Headquarters’ African-American communications specialist relates to another younger soldier that he refers to the Major as “World War 2”, as if this is the time period that Barker is from and still lost in.
When Barker and Corporal Courcey have a quiet moment together, Barker informs the Corporal, “You’re just a Goddamned tourist here, it’s too bad we couldn’t have shown you a better War, like the amphibious assault at Anzio”. “Go Tell the Spartans ” shows the futility of extending the ideas and mythology of a “righteous War” to a methodical exercise of Military conjecture, that the US Military was galvanized by World War II and Korea, and now just needed something to do to keep the juices and the money flowing. That in this instance, the Vietnam War was just a long drawn-out live-fire Military exercise, a grand-scale excuse with extreme casualties and collateral damage to justify America’s now gargantuan Military budget.
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