Thanks for the memories!

Masterful Movie

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

In 1954 the French lost the war to keep their Indochina colonies and those colonies became North and South Vietnam . Then the North aided a rebellion in the South and the US sent in Military Advisers to help South Vietnam fight the communist . In 1964 the war in Vietnam was still a little one , confused and far away . There a tough veteran Major , But Lancaster , is ordered to establish a garrison at Muc Wa with a platoon of burned out soldiers and Vietnamese Mercenaries . But some soldiers start to wonder : What we are doing over there.Moving Vietnam war movie set in 1964 , it is a strong , provoking vision of the conflict . A tough view of the early Vietnam war that is provided in all terrible , bloody and violent detail . Blundering and a little boring war film , but politically interesting pre-dating the flood of the eighties , plenty of patriotic , jingoist , apologetic Vietnam pictures . As we watch the violent events , slaughters , crossfires and atrocities in Vietnam . The bloody ending reflects the bitterness and disillusion felt by most Americans . Based on Daniel Ford novel titled ¨Incident at Muc Wa¨ , it describes a pretty honest portrayal of America's early days in Vietnam . Including a realist and thought-provoking dialog and dealing with foreign intervention in Vietnam . Burt Lancaster gives nice interpretation as the hard-boiled Major who faces himself the combat . Remaining cast is pretty well , shining in adequate acting , such as : Craig Wasson , David Clennon , Jonathan Goldsmith , James Hong , and Mark Singer's film debut , among others . Atmospheric cinematography by Harry Stradling Jr , though a perfect remastering being necessary . Inappropriate setting , in fact , the film was not shot in Asia at all but filmed in California , USA with Vietnamese migrants to America portraying the Vietcong . The motion picture was compelling and professionally directed by Ted Post who directed to Clint Eastwood in ¨Magnum force¨ , ¨Hang'em high¨ and Chuck Norris in ¨Good guys wear black¨ . Post made all kinds of genres as SciFi : ¨Beneath of the planet of apes¨, ¨Harrard experiment¨ , as Thriller : ¨Nightkill¨, ¨The baby¨ and Western : ¨Yuma¨ , ¨Stagecoach¨.

"I've been in the Army twenty-six years and I can tell you it's a con. For a grown man to be trapped in wars, it's embarrassing, humiliating and absurd." - A. Jones"I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn. The more you kill and burn, the better you will please me." - US Brigadier General Jacob SmithIf Sam Fuller directed a war drama set in Vietnam, it would probably look something like Ted Post's "Go Tell the Spartans." Indeed, "Spartans" has all the hallmarks of Fuller's WW2 era war films ("Fixed Bayonettes", "Steel Helmet", "Big Red One"). It's shot on a low budget, is aesthetically plain but functional, it's primarily dialogue driven, its conversations sparkle with the blunt minimalism of 1940s/50s pulp, it's socially conscious without being pretentious, and it touches upon a number of big issues in a number of simple but not simplistic ways.The plot? It's 1964, and American forces have yet to fully commit to an invasion of Vietnam; they still see themselves as "military advisers". One such "adviser" is Asa Barker (Burt Lancaster), a US Major tasked with commanding a poorly-manned outpost in South Vietnam. Barker is battle-weary, tired, and hates having been repeatedly skipped over for promotion.The film's second act watches as Barker assembles a team and sends them off to scout a small hamlet. Once there, this team proceeds to build a defensible base camp. Behind the camp is a graveyard containing 302 french soldiers. Above the graveyard is a placard which reads, in french, "Stranger, tell the Spartans that we remain here in obedience to their orders", a reference to the Battle of Thermopylae, in which a Spartan army held back a larger force. The implication, of course, is that Vietnam held back the French and Japanese colonialists and will likewise hold back the incoming American neo-Imperialists.Rare for a film about Vietnam, "Go Tell the Spartans" deals with the difficulties US soldiers had working together with ARVN, or South Vietnamese, militiamen. These portrayals initially verge on the propagandistic – the ARVN are sadistic and are "correct" in massacring women and children, all of whom are "proven" to be "communist" spies – until the film begins to offer a variety of other conflicting perspectives. Some have complained that the film engages in scapegoating, putting most of its more extreme crimes onto the ARVN, and this is true to an extent. We see, for example, ARVN officers torturing civilians into "falsely" admitting they are "communists", but the film makes it clear that this is all US policy anyway. "Spartan's" characters are all cleanly drawn. One soldier is a skilled and experienced grunt, but the weight of war eventually gets the better of him. He commits suicide, firing a bullet into his own brain. Those who don't suffer combat stress find themselves killed by overeagerness and complacency, whilst naive idealists are brought down to earth. Elsewhere we see selfish careerists, cowards, nutty patriots, downright psychopaths and even several racists who deem American wounded soldiers to be "more human" than their "disposable" South Vietnamese allies. Because the film is stripped down, minimalist, these feel more like theatrical abstractions than poorly written clichés. The Vietnamese, meanwhile, are an eclectic cocktail. The film humanises the Vietnamese, North and South, yet doesn't shy away from portraying violent or duplicitous Vietnamese characters on either side. And all the while, the film, unlike more vague pictures like "Platoon" or "Hamburger Hill", never ignores the elephant in the room: the fact that Vietnam was essentially a nation seeking freedom from foreign occupation; the United States sided with the French colonialists, turned down offers to assist Vietnamese independence movements for decades, artificially divided the nation as a pretext for war, scuttled local elections, engaged in regime change, put in place dictators in the South and set about killing 3 to 5 million, blanket bombing the country and bathing it in all manners of chemicals, weapons and other abominations.Whilst "Go Tell The Spartans" is mostly unremarkable acted, Burt Lancaster is excellent in his role. He's a cranky old man, always juggling logistical problems, incompetent leaders/soldiers or trying his best to play games of military realpolitik. The absurdity of flawed intelligence reports and hokey psy-ops programmes irk the Major, but he's seen it all before. Vietnam era war flicks tend to end with a once idealistic soldier surviving and so becoming hardened and cynical (in "Full Metal Jacket" we witness the reverse, the cynic conning himself into naive participation). In "Go Tell the Spartans" everyone dies but a character called Courcey (Craig Wasson), an idealist whose enthusiasm for the Vietnam War turns sour. "I'm going home, Charlie, if they'll let me," he says during the film's climax. The war's a bad idea, director Ted Post affirms, the Spartan-like Vietnamese destined to make the white man pay (though in terms of their actual objectives, the Americans wholly "won" the Vietnam War). An on-screen caption then emphasises the date "1964", an ironic counterpoint to the massive mobilisation of western hardware which the film knows is on the horizon.8/10 - Underrated. See Pontecorvo's "The Battle of Algiers" and "Burn".

In a recent biography of Burt Lancaster, Go Tell The Spartans is described as the best Vietnam war film that nobody ever saw. Hopefully with television and video products that will be corrected.I prefer to think of it as a prequel to Platoon. This film is set in 1964 when America's participation was limited to advisers by this time raised to about 20,000 of them by President Kennedy. Whether if Kennedy had lived and won a second term he would have increased our commitment to a half a million men as Lyndon Johnson did is open to much historical speculation.Major Burt Lancaster heads such an advisory team with his number two Captain Marc Singer. They get some replacements and a new assignment to build a fortress where the French tried years ago and failed.The replacements are a really mixed bag, a sergeant who Lancaster has served with before and respects highly in Jonathan Goldsmith, a very green and eager second lieutenant in Joe Unger, a demolitions man who is a draftee and at that time Vietnam service was a strictly volunteer thing in Craig Wasson, and a medic who is also a junkie in Dennis Howard. For one reason or another all of these get sent forward to build that outpost in a place that suddenly has acquired military significance. I said before this could be a prequel to Platoon. Platoon is set in the time a few years later when the USA was fully militarily committed in Vietnam. Platoon raises the same issues about the futility of that war, but I think Go Tell The Spartans does a much better job. Hard to bring your best effort into the fight since who and what you're fighting and fighting for seems to change weekly.Originally this project was for William Holden and I'm surprised Holden passed on it. Maybe for the better because Lancaster strikes just the right note as the professional soldier in what was a backwater assignment who politics has passed over for promotion. Knowing all that you will understand why Lancaster makes the final decision he does.Two others of note are Evan Kim who is the head of the South Vietnamese regulars and interpreter who Lancaster and company are training. He epitomizes the brutality of the struggle for us in a way that we can't appreciate from the other side because we never meet any of the Viet Cong by name. Dolph Sweet plays the general in charge of the American Vietnam commitment, a General Harnitz. He is closest to a real character because the general in charge their before Johnson raised the troop levels and put in William Westmoreland was Paul Harkins. Joe Unger is who I think gives the best performance as the shavetail lieutenant with all the conventional ideas of war and believes we have got to be with the good guys since we are Americans. He learns fast that you issue uniforms for a reason and wars against people who don't have them are the most difficult.I think one could get a deep understanding of just what America faced in 1964 in Vietnam by watching Go Tell The Spartans.

"Go tell it to the Spartans that here in obedience to their order we lie," ran the quote of Heroditus, the father of Western History which inspired this movie.In a more recent time line, this film is based in part on a vignette Robin Moore told in the book version of Green Berets where American advisors bribe an ARVN (Army of the Republic of Viet Nam)officer to launch a barrage in support of a Republic of Viet Nam (RVN) outpost manned by mountagnards.Go Tell it to the Spartans shows certain aspects of the American advisory personnel: that they became very loyal to the Vietnamese units they worked with. Robin Moore's authoritative text on the subject, not to be confused with the John Wayne movie, would seem to bear this out. Whether the loyalty extended so far as to join in a suicide mission at an outpost apparently written off, well that's hard to say.Yet the movie is a good primer on a subject that's very difficult for most Americans to approach even today.