GO TELL THE SPARTANS Movie Review
1978 Ted Post
In many important ways, this is the best and most intelligent film made to date about American involvement in Vietnam. Though it lacks the cachet of more expensive productions, its understanding of the roots of the conflict and the people who fought it is more profound than Hollywood's best. It's also entertaining, exciting, funny, and features one of Burt Lancaster's better mature roles.
He is Maj. Asa Barker, in command of a small garrison of American advisors and Vietnamese mercenaries in 1964. As a professional soldier with a checkered career, he doesn't take the duty too seriously, doing as little as possible to get by, until his superior Gen. Harnitz (Dolph Sweet) orders him to occupy an abandoned French outpost at a place called Muc Wa. Why? Barker asks. It is of no importance to anyone, and the French lost their war because they had “too many static defense posts.” But Harnitz is adamant. Despite the fact that Barker is understaffed, has weak air cover, even less reliable support from the local South Vietnamese Colonel, and poor communications—his contact with Harnitz is made via telegraph, not voice—he is to show the flag at Muc Wa.
Barker obeys and gives the job to the new guys. Second Lt. Hamilton (Joe Unger) is a fire-eating incompetent. “Send me into the field, sir. I feel I can kill Communists as well as any First Lieutenant, sir!” Along with his unfortunate name, Cpl. Abraham Lincoln (Dennis Howard) has a finely honed opium habit. Barker's old friend Sgt. “Oleo” Oleonowski (Jonathan Goldsmith) is a burnout case. No one quite understands what the bleeding-heart draftee Cpl. Courcey (Craig Wasson) is doing there. Though the Americans are supposedly in command, their translator, Cowboy (Evan C. Kim) is a cold-blooded killer who'll do whatever it takes to keep them alive. With a small contingent of South Vietnamese troops and farmers armed with shotguns, they head off to Muc Wa. So do the Vietcong.
Wendell Mayes's script, based on Daniel Ford's novel, presents the events at Muc Wa as a microcosm of the war. A combination of South Vietnamese infighting with American innocence and indecision is no match for North Vietnamese determination. At the same time, matters of promises, loyalty and escalation must be settled. Oleo is right when he says, “It's their war,” but having become involved, the Americans cannot simply walk away. Or can they? That, finally, is the question that the film addresses. If it cannot come to a satisfactory answer, it deals with the issues honestly.
It is able to do that because the decisions fall on Maj. Barker, and Burt Lancaster makes him an incredibly appealing hero. His scenes with Wasson and with Marc Singer, as an ambitious young captain, are some of his best. Lancaster is relaxed, often poetically profane, yet completely in command, and, as always, intelligent. The long scene where he tells the story about an encounter in a gazebo will never appear in a compilation of great Lancaster moments, but it's one of the funniest monologues in his long career.
Despite his outstanding work, the film has never received the attention it deserves. Its disillusioned view of the war won't satisfy committed partisans of either the left or the right. Though the battle scenes are fairly realistically staged, most of them take place at night and so they are not spectacular. The film was made on a modest budget, and that shows in the production values, though a restoration might look much better and is certainly in order.
Whatever the reasons, Go Tell the Spartans remains the great “lost” Vietnam film.
Cast: Burt Lancaster (Maj. Asa Barker), Craig Wasson (Cpl. Courcey), David Clennon (Lt. Finley Wattsberg), Marc Singer (Capt. Olivetti), Jonathan Goldsmith (Sgt. Oleonowski), Joe Unger (Lt. Hamilton), Dennis Howard (Cpl. Abraham Lincoln), Evan C. Kim (Cowboy), John Megna (Cpl. Ackley), Hilly Hicks (Signalman Toffer), Dolph Sweet (Gen. Harnitz), Clyde Kusatsu (Col. Minh), James Hong (Cpl. Oldman); Written by: Wendell Mayes; Cinematography by: Harry Stradling Jr.; Music by: Dick Halligan. Producer: Spartan, Mar Vista, Mitchell Cannold, Allan F. Bodoh. MPAA Rating: R. Running Time: 114 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV.