Go Tell the Spartans
by Ted Post
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DVD details
Actor: Burt Lancaster, Craig Wasson, Dennis Howard, Jonathon GoldsmithDirector: Ted Post
Brand: HBO Home Video
Writer: Wendell Mayes
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 113 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-08-30
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 90615
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Product features:
- Academy Award-winner Burt Lancaster delivers the finest performances of his illustrious career as a hard-boiled major in command of a grubby Vietnam outpost in thisic film of wartime confrontation. The war was still a "conflict" and American soldiers were merely "advisors," yet the ambushes, the betrayals and the brutality were all very real. While the riveting action concentrates on a single obsc
DVD Reviews of Go Tell the Spartans
DVD Review: "I did the one thing I was trained to do: I saluted!"
Summary: 5 Stars
If you can get by the whole idea that the military advisors as portrayed in "Go Tell the Spartans" don't have whitewall haircuts and the fact that the film isn't a big-budget recreation of combat in the Ia Drang valley, then you might be able to take "Go Tell the Spartans" for what it is: A film that attempts to shed some light on the sort of activities that were taking place in South Vietnam two years prior to the first deployment of combat troops, a US Marine battalion landing team in 1965.
I liked "Go Tell the Spartans" because I thought it was unpretentious. In some ways, the film is flawed, but no more flawed than "The Green Berets," a John Wayne vehicle that was filmed on location at Fort Benning, Georgia, and looks it. (If you look closely, you can actually see the Chatahoochee River at one point. Talk about flawed: Unbelievably, the film ends with John Wayne hiking up a little kid to his arm and walking into the sunset over the South China Sea - to the east.)
Then there's the other direction, as in "Apocalypse Now," with the Do Long Bridge sequence. That whole thing was unreal. A bridge lit up at night in the middle of a combat zone with grunts running around here and there, for no apparent purpose. Ridiculous.
I'm not going to go into a synopsis of "Go Tell the Spartans", which you can read about in the other reviews. I will say that I liked the character that Burt Lancaster portrayed, and could understand the others.
I will also say that the production crew did get a lot of the equipment right. The Nungs were using M-1's and carbines, not M-16's. The helicopters were Sikorskys, not Hueys.
There are only three noteworthy characters:
The character 2LT Hamilton was basically a gimmick thrown into the story. His purpose is only to show the naivette of all American citizens - not necessarily service members - with regard to the culture of war existing in Vietnam at that time. A green kid, fresh out of college and ROTC or maybe OCS, Hamilton lacks the cynicism that will allow him to stay alive. He is preoccupied with fighting and concluding World War II and fails to recognize the concept of asymetrical warfare when confronted with it.
The character CPL Courcey (Wasson) is the "Everyman" character who ultimately survives. He too is a college grad, but unlike Hamilton, is a draftee. Like Hamilton, he has some of the same "Give `em the benefit of the doubt" attitudes, but is not as steadfast in his opinion of his surroundings.
The character MAJ Barker (Lancaster): He's old brown boot army. Even though he wasn't with Pershing in Mexico, he probably talked to old hands who were. He's old, he's tired, and he should have been put out to pasture a long time ago. The worst part is that he understands he's reached a dead end.
The ending of the story should come as no surprise to anyone who watches the film closely and pays attention. When First Sergeant Oleonowski (Goldsmith) kills himself, that's the albatross sighting. As the situation deteriorates further, Hamilton is killed, the majority of the advisory team leaves, and then finally, only Courcey and Barker are left.
In the end, Coucey does not walk away into the sunset and talk about freedom and winning the hearts and minds. He doesn't even talk about being the meanest SOB in the valley or about letting the gooks play the indians.
Instead, as if he were in some weird episode of the Twilight Zone, Courcey realizes that he's reached a dead end.
If nothing else, "Go tell the Spartans" is good food for thought. Although it wasn't something I'd want to watch again and again, I'd recommend it to anyone who has a general interest in cinema that relates to the Vietnam era.
Description of Go Tell the Spartans
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