bschlan I thought it was a great film, especially as it depicted a lot of "a day in the life" of the soldier's profession. The unit doesn't come into the village shooting from the hip; they put in a lot of time and effort building fortifications, something other films don't often show, even though an infantry soldier is issued both a rifle and an entrenching tool (shovel). The film "Twelve O'Clock High" is a similarly accurate depiction of everything (not just a few air-to-airs of miscellaneous B-17s, to say nothing of whatever stock footage is swept off the cutting room floor) that happens on a heavy bomber base of the 8th Air Force in 1942-3. The documentary quality of the film is completely due to the screenwriter, Beirne Lay Jr, who served on Ira Eaker's staff in 1942 and flew ops with the 100th ("Bloody Hundredth") bomb group. FYI: Bob Dylan's "Brownsville Girl" memorializes (but doesn't name) the film "The Gunfighter," which also pairs the director and star of both films: Henry King and Gregory Peck.Most compelling argument for how true this movie is: in 1984, I worked with a guy who had been a Green Beret captain in Vietnam in 1965-66, and he said "Spartans" should be treated as part fiction and part documentary, because the film was so accurate that it gave him Nam flashbacks.

Guy GO TELL THE SPARTANS is a small Vietnam War film which never caught on, which is a pity as it's one of the best. Based on the novel by a veteran it's set in the early days of the Second Indochina War as a handful of US advisers set up base in the jungle with their ARVN pals, only to get attacked by waves of Vietcong. Like many such films it's cynical and ironic, but here is feels real rather than simply the result of hindsight (Mark Moyar might disagree). Like the best war films, it shows the army as a bureaucracy as well as a fighting organisation. Burt Lancaster as the lead gives a cracking performance as the over- age and under- promoted Major in charge; he's too honest to climb the greasy pole (which he illustrates with a hilarious anecdote about the President's garden). Unfortunately the low budget means that he's the only memorable actor, that the scenery is too obviously American and that the battle scenes revert to Hollywood standard, as people blaze away on full auto and things explode in balls of orange gas. Still, it's a gem of a picture.

lost-in-limbo Compared with many war films that covered America's involvement with Vietnam, "Go Tell the Spartans' didn't set the world alight due to its very understated style and low-scale resources, but because of centering towards a steady character/situation driven story, it remained an thoughtfully harrowing and toughly grim account showing that there were no heroes, or anything to gain from this war. Leading the way is the commanding presence of Burt Lancaster's inspired performance barking out his dialogue, but holding a truly genuine rapport with his mainly unprepared soldiers. He's not in it for pride, as his knows this isn't the place for it.Vietnam, 1964. American forces haven't been fully deployed into the Vietnamese jungles yet, but Major Asa Barker is assigned to set up a barricade at an abandoned post at Muc Wa (where 10 years earlier 302 French soldiers were massacred by the Viet Cong), but at his disposal is only a few American soldiers and ragtag bunch of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers. Soon making there presence known, the motley crew come up against overwhelming odds to hold the barricade.Directed by Ted Post (who noticeably helm Clint Eastwood in 'Hang Em' High' and 'Magnum Force'... plus made the weird horror 'The Baby'), it's tautly handled in very candid, no-frills way. This forthrightly grounded touch, lend it to having some almost TV-like qualities (like the mechanical camera-work and spotty editing) but on the other hand it gave it true grit and an imitate cloud that stamped in a realistically raw air. This meant the dramas (psychological/psychical) while there (and this is a fairly laborious and talkative film confronting the issues of war and politics), were never overdone or overly milked, but still having enough kick to leave an impression. I read some complaints about it being flat or lacking emotion… but I thought it did enough questioning the naïve involvement (doubts outweighing the for) and the state of mind of their soldiers (looking at misguided obligations). Wendell Mayes' hardened script (who adapted the screenplay from Daniel Ford's 'Incident at Muc Wa') is precisely stimulating in its text be it personal or tactical, but also worked in is some welcoming humor. Outside of Lancaster, there are solidly humane and rounded performances from the cast in the likes of David Clennon, Jonathan Goldsmith, Joe Unger, Dennis Howard, Dennis Howard, Craig Wasson, Dolph Sweet, James Hong and Marc Singer. The literary is heavy, but the roughly rampaging action (intense firefights) might only be minor, still it's staged with excellent ferocity and alertness that it becomes like a disorienting blur (definitely the night sequences) amongst the harshly authentic surrounding terrain. You can feel its setting itself up for a big one, and when it happens the 'you know what' really hit's the fan. Despite the cheap origins 'Go Tell The Spartans' is an accomplished effort deserving a lot more merit, both meaningful and scathing without being pushy in its text, but also visuals.

arma_dillo1 This film came out the year before 'Apocalypse Now', and possibly that's one reason why it's not so well known today, having been pushed out of the limelight by Coppola's monstrosity which set a disappointing trend for later Vietnam films. They became immersed in 'pop culture' (as another reviewer here notes) rather than having any historical or dramatic interest; 'Apocalypse Now', 'Platoon', 'Full Metal Jacket', etc., despite their respective claims to be hard-hitting, uncompromising, gritty dramas, etc. etc., are just glamour-fests that tend at times to degenerate into little more than music videos. This film doesn't have their glitz, and it certainly has its own faults, but on the whole it's more thought-provoking and interesting. The early-war (indeed, technically, 'pre-war') setting allows for reflection on just what a mess the Americans were gradually getting themselves sucked into, and its effects on the officers and soldiers who were sent out into the jungle without being told quite what they were actually supposed to be doing there.