The Green Berets (1968/Warner Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B     Sound: C     Extras: C-     Film: C-

 

 

Many talk about how out of touch with the 1960s Elvis Presley was, but the same argument could be made about John Wayne.  He started the decade with The Alamo (1960), a 70mm epic he may have thought would set the tone for the decade, but by 1968, the film and he were being dubbed “fascist” and the chaos over the Vietnam fiasco was setting in.  Wayne co-directed The Green Berets (1968) in an attempt to get support for the “war” going.  Instead, it backfired and is considered one of his worst films, along with The Conqueror (1956, where he played Genghis Khan) as among his worst films.

 

Treating the situation like WWII with a touch of the Korean conflict, James Lee Barrett (The Greatest Story Ever Told, Bandolero!, …tick…tick…tick…) did his screenplay adaptation off of the book by Robin Moore, who would later pen another military history howler with Inchon in 1982, though his French Connection was an inarguable success.  Not knowing if the book was any better, the script has ever war cliché and formula piece they could squeeze in, going on and on and on (maybe its one similarity with the real life events) for a very, very long 142 minutes.

 

Since Wayne was still a big star and had many friends in the business, he was able to assemble a formidable cast even then.  Included here are David Janssen, Jim Hutton, Aldo Ray, Raymond St. Jacques, Bruce Cabot, Jack Soo, George Takei, Luke Askew, Jason Evers and son Patrick Wayne.  Too bad it is more like watching a television sitcom (Gomer Pyle, McHale’s Navy, Hogan’s Heroes) than an actual war movie that is believable.  In addition, the style it is shot in is the old Hollywood studio look, so when that is compared to the new style of young new director’s who were starting to change filmmaking in its last Golden Age and all the real-life 16mm footage pouring into news rooms across the country, the ideas that these Green Berets are going to pull off a mission in South Vietnam is like a very, very bad episode of Mission: Impossible.

 

Sure, the cast is likable and seeing some of them now is interesting to a point, but this is just a misguided dud and weak even for what a Wayne film usually offers.  Wayne co-directed with Ray Kellogg, who usually was known for his visual effects or directing the occasional Horror film, so he too was off base.  Mervin LeRoy (Wizard Of Oz, Gone With The Wind, Gypsy, The Bad Seed) also supposedly did some directing, but the War genre was not his forte either.  As a result, the film has no vision and sulks along until its silly ending.

 

Most Vietnam films then and now could not really deal with what happened (you have to see Apocalypse Now, Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket or Streamers for starters to grasp it) but The Green Berets was so full of itself and so oddly overproduced that the older it gets, the more ridiculous it becomes.  With its G (!) rating, you know it was propaganda aimed at the youngest to be drafted and sent into what was not being presented here.  If you need a few good chuckles, see it when you have nothing better to do.

 

 

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image was shot in real anamorphic Panavision on 35mm film by Winton C. Hoch, A.S.C., in one of his last films.  Original prints were issued in three-strip, dye-transfer Technicolor and though there are more than a few soft spots here, color has its moments and Hoch actually helped the Technicolor Company develop the dye-transfer process.  It always had a different color look as a result, but one here that increases its odd sense of non-realism over the would-be Vietnam locales.  Real Technicolor prints of this film go for top dollar.

 

The Dolby TrueHD 1.0 Mono is not as good as it could be, with a flatness and limited range that sounds like all the audio is down a generation or so.  Having covered the Limited Edition CD Soundtrack, we can tell you the sound on that was really impressive and why those tracks were not used to remix this film is not good.  Miklos Rozsa’s score is one of the few highlights of this film.  You can read more about it at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1129/Green+Berets+(Limited+CD)

 

 

The only extras are a trailer and vintage Featurette The Moviemakers: The Making of The Green Berets.  Maybe a commentary or more about the book, promotion and even controversy on the film would have been nice to add, but no such luck.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo