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.
Review of Go Tell the Spartans
