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The Green Berets

Director: John Wayne, Ray Kellogg Run Time: 142 min. Format: 35mm Rating: R Release Year: 1968

Starring: Aldo Ray, David Janssen, George Takei, Jim Hutton, John Wayne

John Wayne stars as a tough colonel who leads a squad of Green Berets and a liberal war correspondent on a dangerous mission to capture a Viet Cong general. A 35mm presentation and introduction by Andrew Kirell, Editor-in-Chief, Mediaite.

Loosely based on the novel of the same name by Robin Moore, The Green Berets is an anti-communist and pro-Saigon film produced at the height of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. It shows the conflicts and complications of warfare as cynical war correspondent George Beckworth, who works for a liberal newspaper, becomes complicent in the violence towards the Viet Cong. He joins tough-as-nails Col. Mike Kirby (John Wayne) on a special mission in South Vietnam and while he initially protests the U.S. torturous interrogation strategies, he transforms into a gung-ho fighter after witnessing the Viet Cong atrocities. In its heightened cinematic way, The Green Berets gives a voice to the stories that, at the time, people were only witnesses through media produced newsreels.

Part of the Journalists in Film series by VICE News and Nitehawk Cinema.

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