Aldo Ray

Colonel Kirby has been given operational command of the US Green Beret forces in Vietnam is about to be shipped. At Fort Bragg, newspaper reporter George Beckworth (portrayed by David Janssen) attends a Special Forces briefing on America's role in the Vietnam War. Held at the Gabriel Demonstration Area, honoring SGT Jimmy Gabriel, the first Special Forces soldier killed in Vietnam, the briefing encompasses a demonstration and comprehensive explanation of the rationale behind the U.S. military's involvement in the conflict. The Green Berets say that military involvement is decided by the political leadership. Though, it is hard for humans to stand by when innocent civilians are massacred in a political and ideological war. Sgt. Doc McGee says that the South Vietnamese are fighting even though their entire political leadership has been decimated, along with their families. Meanwhile, Green Beret tour guides at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, showcase Soviet and Chinese-manufactured weapons provided to soldiers and guerrillas fighting for the communist North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong (VC) to civilian visitors at the U.S. Infantry School. The Green Berets are a well-trained, professional fighting unit. Each member of the unit knows their role in the case of battle. Each soldier can speak multiple languages and knows that they are a backup to specific people in the unit. Skeptical civilians and journalists are informed that the United States is combating multinational Communism in Vietnam, citing evidence such as weapons and equipment seized from North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong guerrillas, sourced from the Soviet Union, Communist Czechoslovakia, and Communist China. Sgt Muldoon says that the US military is fighting back against the communist domination of the world. Despite this explanation, Beckworth maintains doubts regarding the merits of U.S. intervention in Vietnam's internal conflict. When questioned by Green Beret Colonel Mike Kirby (John Wayne) about his firsthand experience in Southeast Asia, Beckworth admits he has none, leading to a dismissive response regarding his perspective. Recognizing his lack of knowledge, Beckworth resolves to travel to Vietnam to report firsthand on the situation. Colonel Kirby is posted to South Vietnam with two handpicked A-Teams of Special Forces troopers. One A-Team is to replace a team at a base-camp (led by Colonel Morgan (Bruce Cabot)) working with South Vietnamese (led by Colonel Cai) and Montagnard soldiers whilst the other A-Team is to form a counter guerrilla Mike force. The A teams are deployed along the Laos and Cambodian borders, each their own camp. While selecting his teams, Kirby intercepts a Sgt Petersen (Jim Hutton) from another unit who is scrounging supplies from Kirby's supply depot. Realizing Petersen's skills, Kirby promotes him and brings him onto his SF team. Sgt. Provo (Luke Askew) is a heavy weapons specialist and volunteers for the teams as he wants to be in the middle of the action. The A team is airlifted to their designated base camp from HQ. Kirby's A team relieves Capt. Coleman (Jason Evers) and his men, who return back to HQ. Arriving In South Vietnam, they meet Beckworth whom Kirby allows to join them at the base-camp (camp A-107, situated in the heart of VC country) where he witnesses the humanitarian aspect (irrigation ditches, bandages, candy for children) of the Special Forces mission. Still, he remains skeptical of the U.S.'s need to be there. The camp is circular, and surrounded by a 150 feet circular kill zone, which leads into the dense forest. Kirby orders for the kill zone to be extended by another 300 feet using a detachment of the Seabees. The camp is also surrounded by Punji sticks, used to impale an incoming enemy army. Other defenses include barbed wire fence and Claymore mines. Petersen is designated to find corrugated tin to complete the task of finishing the camp. He is also ordered to procure .50 caliber machine guns for the camp. The enemy forces mounts a mortar attack (which have been very regular recently), which is very accurate and takes out the main buildings of the camp. Coleman is killed in the attack, just a day before he was going to return home. The accuracy of the shooting that the VC have eyes inside the camp. Kirby outfits the helicopters with ammunition and scouts the nearby jungles for VC or NVA soldiers. He attacks their positions with rockets to push them back. The Seabees arrive finally and bring in heavy equipment to move the jungle back 300 feet from the base, giving Kirby an expanded killing zone. Petersen arranges the .50 caliber guns, which are mounted on an elevated position inside the base, giving a wide killing arc. Sergeant Muldoon notices a South Vietnamese soldier acting suspiciously (taking measurements and observing everything very carefully) and knocks him out, allowing Captain Nghiem (George Takei) to interrogate him. Nghiem is convinced that the soldier is a spy when he finds the Zippo lighter of a dead US soldier in his possession. After Beckworth sees Nghiem torture a confession from the soldier, he confronts Kirby, who justifies the act by telling Beckworth that their enemies are ruthless killers who deserve no legal protections of any sort in this new kind of war. A few days later, while accompanying Kirby and his team on a patrol in the nearby mountains, Beckworth finds that the family of a village chief he had befriended earlier have been tortured and executed by the Viet Cong for cooperating with the Americans. The injured daughter of the chief had been treated by Doc McGee and Beckworth had made friends with her by giving her his necklace. The girl was sexually assaulted by VC soldiers before being dumped in the jungle. During this period, Petersen befriends a young native boy named Hamchuck (Craig Jue), a war orphan who has no family other than his dog and the soldiers at the base-camp. The camp soldiers can sense an enemy buildup of forces around 15 Kms from the base. They know that an attack is coming and Kirby requests air support to be on standby. Beckworth changes his mind after a ferocious North Vietnamese Army attack upon the SF camp. The camp is ready, and the armed choppers attack the advancing enemy from the air, while the ground forces attack from their well concealed positions. Eventually, enemy sappers breach the perimeter by blowing openings in the barbed wire fences around the camp, and the Green Berets and South Vietnamese are forced to fall back to the inner perimeter. Nghiem sets off hidden explosives which kill the spies, but soon dies afterwards after being hit by a mortar. As the battle rages, the dog is killed, and the boy tearfully buries his faithful companion. Symbolically, the boy uses the stick he had used to dig the dog's grave as the tombstone. As the soldiers rush to their defensive positions, the stick is knocked away, leaving an unmarked grave. Due to the intense attack, Kirby orders a retreat from the camp, and U.S. helicopters arrive to evacuate the refugees. Petersen puts Ham Chuck on one and promises to return for him in Da Nang. With the base in enemy hands (and the VC flag flying over the camp), Kirby requests an airstrike by an AC-47 gunship, call-sign Puff the Magic Dragon, which annihilates the Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese Army regulars within Camp A-107. With the enemy having taken major casualties, Kirby and his team re-occupy the destroyed camp. Kirby orders his men to get some sleep as they need to start rebuilding the base all over again. Beckworth admits he probably will be fired from the newspaper for filing a story supporting the American war. Sgt. Provo had noticed that all war heroes had buildings named after them in Vietnam. But he was worried that nothing rhymes with his name. After he is mortally wounded in the VC attack, before dying, he reveals the name of the building dedicated to him, "Provo's Privy". Back at headquarters, Kirby meets with his superior, Colonel Morgan, and his South Vietnamese counterpart, Colonel Cai (Jack Soo). They tell him about a top-secret mission to capture North Vietnamese General Pha Son Ti, allowing them to end the war on South Vietnamese terms, as well as disrupting enemy leadership. Colonel Cai uses his sister-in-law Lin (Irene Tsu), a fashion model, as a honey trap to lure General Ti to a former French colonial mansion in a well-guarded valley in North Vietnam. Col. Mike Kirby leads a team of Green Berets, Montagnards (an umbrella term for the various indigenous peoples of the Central Highlands of Vietnam), and ARVN soldiers on a top-secret kidnap mission to capture General Ti, who lives, eats, and drinks very well, in a guarded mansion, while the common people go hungry, cold, and naked. Among those Cai selects (and accompanies) are Kirby, Muldoon (Aldo Ray), and Petersen. Muldoon, Doc McGee (Raymond St. Jacques), and two of Cai's men stay behind at a bridge over a river to set explosives to blow it up to stop pursuit by the enemy forces, while Kirby and the rest of the team head towards the plantation. After eliminating the plantation's guards, the group subdue Ti with Lin's help, and put him in the trunk of his car. Kirby, Cai, Petersen, Watson (Eddy Donno), and Lin drive away, but the rest of the team is killed by the guards while attempting to escape. At dawn, the survivors cross the bridge; it is destroyed, but McGee is seriously wounded as he and Muldoon escape, while the others airlift Ti out of the area by a Skyhook device. While Kirby and the team advance through the jungle to their extraction point, Petersen is killed by a booby-trap, and the others are forced to leave his body behind. Beckworth watches as Hamchuck awaits the return of the helicopters carrying the survivors of the raid. He realizes the toll of the war as Hamchuck runs crying from helicopter to helicopter, searching for Petersen. Kirby walks over to the boy and tells him the sad news. Hamchuck asks plaintively, "what will happen to me now?" Kirby places Petersen's green beret on him and says, "You let me worry about that, Green Beret. You're what this thing's all about." The two walk holding hands along the beach into the sunset.

A paroled conman co-ordinates the robbery of an L. A. Airport bank with the arrival of the Soviet premier. Involved crime drama about an intricate plan to rob an airport bank. Watch for the surprise ending and look quickly for a barely-recognizable Harrison Ford in his film debut, playing a bellhop. —Brett England Eli Kotch is a manipulative conman who seduces his prison psychiatrist in order to gain parole. Utilizing his skill with various accents and disguises, he further seduces a variety of women in order to raise the money he will need to buy the security plans of L.A. Airport bank from a fellow inmate and finance its robbery. Under yet another identity, he also charms and marries beautiful Inger Knudson as she unknowingly helps him in the preparations for the heist. Kotch is able to co-ordinate the robbery with the high-profile arrival of the Russian Premier at the airport as he and his accomplices cleverly tries to utilize the resultant commotion as a diversion. —Gabe Taverney (duke1029@aol.com) In seducing Dr. Marion Hague, the psychiatrist at the San Francisco area prison where he's being confined, convict Eli Kotch is able to secure parole, which he quickly violates in the reason for his want to get out of prison at this time: to carry out a heist at the bank at LAX, the heist which he plans to carry out at the same time as the Soviet premier's visit to Los Angeles when the authorities, including the airport police, would be preoccupied with security for that visit. A large part of the front end of the plan requires Eli to raise an additional $85,000 to purchase the bank layout blueprints. In doing so and to carry out the heist itself, Eli relies on his usual M.O.s of seducing women, much like he did with Dr. Hague, dropping them after he's gotten what he needs from them, and using a variety of personae, which not only includes disguises but also foreign accents. What happens with the heist may be affected by two unexpected things for which Eli may not have made contingencies. First, secret service discovers a breach in their security making them have to change their security detail from their original arrangements. And second, Inger Knudson, the personal secretary to a New England matron, Inger the woman on who he has the longest con, his seduction which includes a sham marriage, has something happen in her and by association his life. —Huggo

A millionaire with a mysterious fiancee hires a detective to discover the truth about her past. Sylvia West is a young poetess engaged to Frederic Summers, an eccentric millionaire. Summers, a man who always fears he is being loved for his money, decides to make a small check on his prospective bride. The results of this check completely shock him. Not one fact matches 'his' Sylvia. Intregued and bewildered, Summers hires detective Alan Maklin and has him make a thorough investigation on 'Who Is Sylvia.' —filmfactsman

At the end of the Second World War on a military base on a small South Pacific island, U.S. Marine Sgt. Phil O'Hara and his fellow soldiers await their discharges while attending to mundane peacetime duties. On a routine supply pickup, Phil and several of his men meet arriving sea passengers Dr. Robert MacPhail and his wife, and missionaries Alfred and Margaret Davidson who are returning to the island after a year's absence. With two free hours between transports, Davidson and MacPhail are intent upon revisiting the missionary hospital they established on the island. Phil and the men are more enthusiastic about the arrival of the mail boat, which brings another passenger between ships, singer Sadie Thompson, who is headed to New Caledonia. While Phil and the men excitedly smuggle the gregarious Sadie to Bill's Bar in the village, Davidson and MacPhail visit the missionary hospital. Later, when Davidson hears robust singing emanating from Bill's, he stops by to chastise the Marines for breaking the Sabbath. Upon returning to the harbor to catch her boat, Sadie discovers that a week-long quarantine has been issued for the entire island. Phil and the men cheerfully escort Sadie to Joe Horn's modest hotel, where she is forced to accept a small spare room because the Davidsons and MacPhails have already taken the larger rooms. The following day as the monsoon season begins, Davidson expresses dismay at Sadie's boisterousness and the Marines visiting her room. When Davidson criticizes Sadie's character, MacPhail protests, accusing Davidson of intolerance. That evening, Sadie sings and dances for the men at Bill's, as Davidson, playing cards with the MacPhails, recalls having seen Sadie in Honolulu, outside of the notorious Emerald Club, a house of prostitution. MacPhail defends Sadie, upbraiding Davidson for his presumption that Sadie was employed at Emerald's. That night, Phil and the men drunkenly escort Sadie back to her room. Angered by their rowdiness, Davidson bursts in, ordering the men to leave, which prompts Phil to attack the missionary before being stopped by the others. After the soldiers leave, Davidson asks Sadie why she left Honolulu abruptly. Startled, she insists that he clarify his insinuations, but Davidson maintains that he only wishes to offer her redemption. The next day, Davidson visits the governor and demands Sadie's arrest, claiming she is a fugitive from America. Back at Horn's, Phil finds Sadie packing, determined to move into the village, fearful that Davidson may try to prevent her passage to New Caledonia. In the village, however, the native families refuse to take Sadie in, not wanting to incur Davidson's displeasure. Angry and frustrated, Sadie returns to Horn's, where Phil asks her to forgo her plans for New Caledonia and instead meet him in Australia, where he intends to settle upon his discharge. Sadie agrees just as a messenger brings her notice from the governor's office of her deportation to San Francisco in three days. Phil accompanies Sadie to the governor's office, but she insists on seeing him alone. When Sadie pleads with the governor to be allowed to go to Australia, he tells her that if Davidson allows it, he will approve. At Horn's, Sadie confronts Davidson but he accuses her of fleeing from the American police. Sadie admits to having been involved with a man who committed murder and for behavior for which she is not proud. Davidson insists she must pay for her immorality. Later, Phil visits Sadie and when he realizes Davidson is responsible for the deportation order, seeks him out. Learning of Sadie's past, Phil berates her, and declares that he could never marry her. After Phil departs, Davidson visits the distraught Sadie and prays over her. Confused, Sadie withdraws for the next couple of days and begins reading the Bible. When MacPhail expresses concern for her, Sadie reassures him, revealing that Davidson has helped her face up to her past and that she has accepted that she must return to San Francisco. As the transport arrives on the island, Phil visits Sadie to apologize for his reaction and to tell her he has arranged for her passage to New Caledonia. Sadie insists the only way that she will feel free is to accept punishment for her actions and return home. Davidson arrives and Sadie asks a disappointed Phil to go away. Davidson praises Sadie for her strength and she thanks him for providing her with confidence. To Sadie's amazement, Davidson then abruptly demands to know why she is leaving him and coldly tells her she can never change what she is and attacks her. The following morning Davidson commits suicide by jumping from a cliff. Phil rushes to Horn's, worried about Sadie's reaction to Davidson's death. Embittered, Sadie is nevertheless stunned and paralyzed by the news, until MacPhail convinces her she cannot let Davidson's actions ruin her. When Phil insists he wants to resume their plans for Australia, Sadie asks him if he can forget her past and he says he wants the opportunity to try. She agrees and sets off for Australia after Phil promises to meet her there in a month.

In this 1953 remake of the the 1937 film "The Awful Truth," Jane Wyman and Ray Milland play Constance and Gary Hart, a New York show-biz couple. She's a singer and dancer and he's a songwriter. But he's also a philanderer and she turns the tables on him by pretending to spend the night with their friend Courtney (Tom Helmore), an older (and sexually ambiguous) male friend. Constance is furious at Gary. She wants a husband who's "there" for her. But no sooner does she throw Gary out, than he becomes constantly underfoot, hanging around their apartment songwriting on his old piano that's too big to remove without taking out the window. Maybe she doesn't want a man who's really "there" after all? After all, she does sing a song called "Taking a Slow Burn Over A Fast Man" about being in love with a heel. Constance files for divorce and they both fall into dissatisfying single lifestyles. Constance finds herself living a spinsterish life with her maid Nelly, who lovingly tucks a hot water bottle in a needlepoint pillow and pops it in her bed each night before she goes home. Gary's also leading a superficial bachelor life at the Sherry-Netherland with his valet. Both enter into imperfect relationships: Gary is dating an elegant socialite, Deborah Randolph (Karin Booth). Constance still spends time with the dapper Courtney, but we know he's not really interested in her sexually. A younger man, Frank (Aldo Ray), a uranium millionaire from Alaska, and a longtime admirer of Constance's, arranges to meet her at a backer's audition for Courtney's new show, and immediately goes after her. But is he really the dull guy Constance thinks she's looking for? He likes a night on the town and does a mean "Cuban Mambo" on the dance floor. Also in the picture is Lilly Adair (played by famed dancer Valerie Bettis), a rather outrageously sexual singer-dancer at an upper-crust nightclub, where Gary runs into Constance and Frank, "by chance." There, Lilly performs a song "I Long for Love the Jungle Way," suggesting that it's a lack of physicality that's at the bottom of Gary and Constance's marital problems. Although wooing Constance, Frank's fascination with Lilly is evident. Gary, having discovered that Constance had only pretended to spend the night with Courtney to get back at him, wakes her up with a song he wrote called "Let's Do It Again." He wants her back. But in the meantime, Courtney proposes to Constance in her bedroom (even though he swore he would never get married), so that she'll stay in her "own world." Gary, ready to reconcile, comes back to the apartment. Constance tries to hide Courtney, but he's discovered when Gary accidentally puts on Courtney's larger hat by accident. Could this mean that despite his asexuality towards women, Courtney is more of a man than Gary? They get into a fist fight in Constance's bedroom and Frank comes to visit, ready to take Constance home to meet his parents in Seattle. Their relationship ends, but Constance was never really committed to Frank anyhow. Gary, who for a city slicker is amazingly naive about Courtney's sexual disinterest in Constance, goes back to Deborah with a vengeance. Constance puts on a sexy, wedding style outfit on the day their divorce decree becomes final. Gary wants her signature for permission to take the window out of the apartment so he can move his piano. She wants to get back together with him. She opens a huge bottle of champagne in the kitchen, closes the blinds and turns out the lights. But Deborah calls just as Constance pops the cork and Gary pretends he's with his sister. Gary gives Constance a rude brush-off. But Constance fights back; pretending to be Gary's sister, she calls Deborah and has her arrange a party at Gary's hotel suite. Not only that, Deborah's parents are in town to meet Gary. The only parents mentioned in this film are Frank and Deborah's; it suggests that that even though they're in touch with their sexuality in a way that Gary and Constance aren't, neither of them are truly adults. Constance brazenly enters the party pretending to be Gary's sister. Like Irene Dunne in "The Awful Truth," she's wonderfully trashy. She does a mean imitation of Lilly, and we hear "I Long For Love The Jungle Way" a second time, this time sung by Constance. Deborah's parents and the rest of the guests leave in disgust. Deborah throws in the towel, saying to Gary that Constance must really still love him. Frank and Lilly end up getting together--after all, they're emotional equals. Gary wants Constance to stay at the hotel with him, but she runs back to her apartment in tears. Nelly's waiting with the hot water bottle. And Constance is not so distraught that she can't put on one last beautiful outfit, a white negligee that evokes a wedding night. Nelly leaves and Gary bangs on the bedroom door. Constance's weeping and clutching the hot water bottle that symbolizes her solitary female life. She has a chance at the husband she thought she always wanted, one who will be always there. She lets Gary in and they passionately embrace. The film ends with needlepointed hot water bottle discarded on the floor. It's tossed aside for now, but it's still in the couple's bedroom. This suggests that their marital problems are not quite over. Constance is going to have to give up more than Frank to make this marriage work. "Let's Do It Again," maybe because it's a remake, is thematically more of a thirties or early forties film than a fifties one. Constance wants a steady husband, but she's not interested in being a housewife. She has no interest in giving up her career or having children. Ray Milland is serviceable in this film as Gary, but he's no Cary Grant. This makes Constance's choices more problematic than Lucy's in The Awful Truth. But he probably helps foot the bill for her drop-dead wardrobe. Constance appears in one beautiful outfit after another throughout the film; that New York apartment must have a lot of closet space. Jane Wyman is Irene Dunne's equal in this remake. As the years go on, Wyman has become overly identified with the dull, virtuous women she played in Douglas Sirk's films. It's nice to see her let loose here and it reminds us that she was also a great comic actress.