One thing about John Wayne that everyone agrees with, whether you liked him or not, you always knew where he stood and he put his money and life behind the projects that he believed in. True of The Alamo and true of The Green Berets.
The Duke's problem was simply that he made a World War II film about Vietnam. And he was pilloried for it. I well remember when The Green Berets first came out, Renata Adler wrote an absolutely hysterical review of it, cursing out the film and its producer/star every name in the book in that well known paper that only prints news fit to print.
Even World War II films as well as Vietnam ones done now have the value of some historical perspective if they're done now. For my money Casualties of War is the best film done about Vietnam. The Green Berets is not a great film. It does show however the Viet Cong were not exactly boy scouts, something many refuse to acknowledge to this day.
The Green Berets is at times more silly than bad. It has some stock characters you see in war films, the gruff sergeant Aldo Ray, the resourceful scrounger Jim Hutton, the kindly doctor Raymond St. Jacques. The Vietnamese besides the Viet Cong are represented by George Takei and Jack Soo. Soo, who I first saw on Broadway in Flower Drum Song has that disarming deadpan delivery that works great for comedy, but not really well in a serious role.
In fact Soo is part of what was the silliest part of The Green Berets, the capture of a defecting South Vietnamese General who gets entrapped by an Oriental Mata Hari. Irene Tsu is the temptress here in a story that had to have been lifted from Terry and the Pirates back in the day. Someone should have been asking why a general was defecting from the South Vietnamese cause.
George Takei is a grim and hating South Vietnamese Captain. I met George Takei at a Star Trek convention several years ago and asked him about the film and John Wayne. He kind of sidestepped the question about the film, Oriental players didn't exactly have too much choices in roles. However he did say that working with John Wayne was an experience and he liked the fact that there was no pretense about him. You always knew exactly where you stood with the Duke.
Vietnam, like Iraq today, was a story of culture clash. Americans and the west view the world quite differently than these people. Somewhere along the line we'd all better learn to get along. Maybe when we're faced with beings from another world, all of our religious and socio-political differences will melt away. I hope so because I suspect that Renata Adler didn't have any more clue to what made John Wayne tick than the Duke had about Vietnam.
The Duke's problem was simply that he made a World War II film about Vietnam. And he was pilloried for it. I well remember when The Green Berets first came out, Renata Adler wrote an absolutely hysterical review of it, cursing out the film and its producer/star every name in the book in that well known paper that only prints news fit to print.
Even World War II films as well as Vietnam ones done now have the value of some historical perspective if they're done now. For my money Casualties of War is the best film done about Vietnam. The Green Berets is not a great film. It does show however the Viet Cong were not exactly boy scouts, something many refuse to acknowledge to this day.
The Green Berets is at times more silly than bad. It has some stock characters you see in war films, the gruff sergeant Aldo Ray, the resourceful scrounger Jim Hutton, the kindly doctor Raymond St. Jacques. The Vietnamese besides the Viet Cong are represented by George Takei and Jack Soo. Soo, who I first saw on Broadway in Flower Drum Song has that disarming deadpan delivery that works great for comedy, but not really well in a serious role.
In fact Soo is part of what was the silliest part of The Green Berets, the capture of a defecting South Vietnamese General who gets entrapped by an Oriental Mata Hari. Irene Tsu is the temptress here in a story that had to have been lifted from Terry and the Pirates back in the day. Someone should have been asking why a general was defecting from the South Vietnamese cause.
George Takei is a grim and hating South Vietnamese Captain. I met George Takei at a Star Trek convention several years ago and asked him about the film and John Wayne. He kind of sidestepped the question about the film, Oriental players didn't exactly have too much choices in roles. However he did say that working with John Wayne was an experience and he liked the fact that there was no pretense about him. You always knew exactly where you stood with the Duke.
Vietnam, like Iraq today, was a story of culture clash. Americans and the west view the world quite differently than these people. Somewhere along the line we'd all better learn to get along. Maybe when we're faced with beings from another world, all of our religious and socio-political differences will melt away. I hope so because I suspect that Renata Adler didn't have any more clue to what made John Wayne tick than the Duke had about Vietnam.