Go Tell the Spartans is a low-budget, critically-acclaimed 1978 American war film based on Daniel Ford's 1967 novel Incident at Muc Wa, about U.S. Army military advisors during the early part of the Vietnam War in 1964, a time period when Ford was a correspondent in Vietnam for The Nation magazine. The screenplay, by Wendell Mayes, was shopped around for years with various older leading men attached to it in the role of Major Asa Barker. Barker i...
more
Go Tell the Spartans is a low-budget, critically-acclaimed 1978 American war film based on Daniel Ford's 1967 novel Incident at Muc Wa, about U.S. Army military advisors during the early part of the Vietnam War in 1964, a time period when Ford was a correspondent in Vietnam for The Nation magazine. The screenplay, by Wendell Mayes, was shopped around for years with various older leading men attached to it in the role of Major Asa Barker. Barker is a weary infantry veteran in his third war, who provides veteran supervision to a cadre of advisors attached to a group of South Vietnamese who garrison the deserted village of Muc Wa.
Director Ted Post persuaded Avco Embassy Pictures to produce the film on a limited budget. He sent the script to a friend of Burt Lancaster, then 65 years old, who was recuperating from a knee injury – his Maj. Barker limps throughout the film. Calling the script brilliant, Lancaster agreed to star in it, and, when the 31-day production budget ran short, he...
less
