ma-cortes 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¨.

Robert J. Maxwell The title is from Herodotus who recorded from a plaque left by the several hundred Spartan warriors who died at the Battle of Thermopylae around 480BC. "Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by. That here, obedient to their laws, we lie." This is a war movie and carries several recognizable stereotypes but not the OLD stereotypes, not the braggart from Texas or the wise guy from New York, but rather men who differ in their attitudes towards the war. Burt Lancaster is the experienced veteran of World War II, practical and kind of old for the rank of major. There is the gung ho lieutenant who is fiercely patriotic and desires nothing more than to kill Gooks. There is the educated naive corporal who refuses to reveal why he volunteered for Vietnam, and who is portrayed as an idiot begging the children of a village to accept chocolate from him. There is the seasoned master sergeant who knows it all but is burned out and takes to booze when off duty, unlike some of the others who are doing hard dope. There is the native guide who is usually used for comedy but here represents the stern and unyielding fact that war is brutal and there is no room for kindness. The black guy who handles communications at the command center provides some comedy relief. And there is the intelligence officer, the new lieutenant, who brings to Lancaster's command a systematic way of judging the threat to each outpost, and at whom Lancaster stares in wide-eyed disbelief as the officious young man gives his pitch. Some of the characters are overdrawn.It's odd to see Americans and South Vietnamese using old-fashioned weapons of World War II. The Vietnamese seem like children carrying M-1s that are too big for them. No M-16s or anything. That came later. This is 1964 in the jungles of South Vietnam and we don't have many facilities available there, yet. It's from a novel written by Daniel Ford, the correspondent, not John Ford's grandson. Ford was able to get down with his men. He ate their rations, slept on a blanket in the bush, and bonded with them. He's left a blog in which he explains the difficulty he had getting his "novel" published and sold. Nobody was interested in Vietnam, yet. I remember the general lack of interest in 1964. I was about to leave civilization for a few years and my roommate brought my attention to an inconspicuous article in the New York Times about our increasing involvement. I politely dismissed its importance.It was an ironic war in many respects, impossible to tell the good villagers from the bad villagers, much like today's asymmetric warfare. And politics was woven in and out of the war itself. Lancaster has learned that an outpost is about to be attacked so he asks for air support. There is a problem. The aircraft are grounded in Saigon because they may be necessary to suppress a coup against the South Vietnamese government. The American advisors don't win very much, if anything at all. The final scene doesn't bring up the usual "The End" because it wasn't the end. It just shows us "1964", with another decade of misery to come.

Barry-Brodsky For some reason, I hadn't seen this film before. I was in the army from 67-70 (did not go to Vietnam) and have read, written, and watched films about that time ever since. Burt Lancaster was...Burt Lancaster. He had some great lines, but I agree with the reviewer who commented on his age being a bit of a distraction. But the story more than compensated. This was when Americans in general had never heard of Vietnam. Burt's amazement that a draftee would be there spoke volumes about how early in our engagement this was. Yet, there were engagements. The US military was actively supporting the south Vietnamese, including fighting battles on the ground and giving air support. The ensemble cast felt like a stereotypical war movie cast, but the lighter dialogue in the first half of the film starts to give way to the seriousness of the situation. And finally, by the end of the film's "second act" it takes on more of an "alamo" feeling.Burt's character's cynicism, plus the viewers' historical knowledge of how things turned out for the US military in Vietnam, makes for some powerful moments. It also leads me to consider this an anti-war film. Because in the end, what did all the soldiers who died in the movie die for? As Burt's Major tells the hung-ho captain, this isn't like world war II. This one is just running us in circles. He knew the score in 1964, but unfortunately it was generals like Dolph Sweet's character who drove the policies that LBJ followed that resulted in so many more needless deaths.

lord woodburry "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.