Frontline Flicks: The Green Berets (1968)

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John Wayne’s The Green Berets (1968) is one of the only major American feature films of that era to openly support the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict, as the real war was turning into a public and political disaster. The US state got a two-hour advertisement for Special Forces, and Wayne got helicopters, bases, kit, and the movie theatres got riots not only in the US, Britain and Germany, but also in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

John Wayne was 62 years old when he tried to portray a fit Vietnam War Green Beret colonel, but the obvious age gap isn’t the only head scratcher in this film. Released in 1968, the film was Lyndon B. Johnson-approved attempt to shift American opinion on the Vietnam War. The Green Berets is considered one of the only major American feature films of that era to openly support the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict.

The film was inspired by the battle of Nam Dong in 1964, in which Viet Cong fighters took on US Special Forces. James Lee Barrett’s screenplay was based on The Green Berets, a 1965 novel by Robin Moore.

Wayne plays Colonel Mike Kirby much as he played cavalry officers and frontier lawmen: a thick-shouldered paternal force of order, morally untroubled, calmly violent when needed. The film is structured like a frontier picture, too. There is a fort, the Special Forces camp, there are raids and counter-raids, and there is a line between “our” village and “their” wilderness. If older Westerns used Native Americans as a faceless threat beyond the settlement, The Green Berets uses the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in much the same way: shadowy, cruel, and ultimately there to be outsmarted and outgunned. The parallels between the war film, fronted by an ageing Western star, and the old cowboys-and-Indians narratives were not lost on contemporary film critics.

There is an attempt at modernity: David Janssen as the sceptical journalist, brought in as a stand-in for the doubting American viewer. The device is neat in theory: the sceptic goes to Vietnam, sees the truth, and is converted. In practice, the execution reads like a glossy brochure. The film does not persuade him with complexity. It overwhelms him with set-pieces and staged atrocity. You are not meant to think through the war, you are meant to stop asking questions because good men are busy being good.

The film was produced by Michael Wayne, John Wayne’s eldest son, through their production company, Batjac Productions. John Wayne directed, starred in, and heavily influenced the pro-military production. Producing the film, Wayne actively sought US government help. Accounts of the production describe extensive Department of Defense involvement, including script input and the provision of aircraft and equipment, with major filming at Fort Benning, Georgia, standing in for Vietnam.

President Johnson’s advisor, Jack Valenti, encouraged the collaboration, telling LBJ that if Wayne made the picture, “he would be saying the things we want said”. While the film was a commercial success, it was critically panned by critics like Roger Ebert, one of the most influential film critics of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, who deemed it “unreal” in his review for The Chicago Sun-Times. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. In her famously savage New York Times review, Renata Adler dismissed the film as crude propaganda and morally vacuous, writing that it was “hard to imagine a nastier or more morally irresponsible film”.

The military gear in the movie is impressive. It has plenty of Hueys, utility military helicopter The Bell UH-1 Iroquois, which were used in the Vietnam War at the time. The uniforms are crisp, the machinery works, and the soldiers, some of whom were real Green Berets, look competent.

What makes The Green Berets especially striking is its timing. The Tet Offensive (January to April 1968) badly weakened public support and credibility at home. The gap between official optimism and televised reality had become wide. Wayne’s film filled that gap and tried to plaster it over with sincerity and sunsets. The film cost about $7 million and grossed around $32 million worldwide in the era’s reporting conventions. It also produced strong distributor “rentals” in North America for 1968.

Widespread Protests in the US

In the United States, protests against The Green Berets were widespread but usually non-violent. Anti-war groups organised pickets outside cinemas, leaflet campaigns, and co-ordinated walk-outs, particularly in university towns. Demonstrations were reported in cities including New York, Boston, San Francisco and Chicago.

The protesters accused the film of sanitising the war and functioning as recruitment-adjacent propaganda. The police were frequently present at screenings in major cities.

International distribution was slower in the 1960s. Films often took months to reach European and Nordic countries, especially smaller markets. Distributors sometimes delayed release to avoid controversy or because foreign markets were negotiating publicity and censorship issues. With The Green Berets, the ideas and methods of anti-Vietnam War protests surrounding the film clearly travelled from one country to another. As for cinema scheduling practices, a film shown in late 1968 in some cities might not appear nationally until early 1969.

London: Organised Protest at the Premiere

There was a sizeable protest at the London premiere in the summer of 1968, with arrests outside the theatre and an attempt by medal-wearing men to make speeches inside after the film. However, The Green Berets was not widely distributed in the UK until early 1969, partly because British distributors delayed release until the domestic market was ready and to distance it from a heavily politicised US release period.

The film met organised opposition from the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) and student unions. Demonstrations were held outside selected London cinemas, including in the West End, alongside petitions urging cinemas not to screen the film.

British press described verbal confrontations, chanting, and attempts to disrupt screenings, but not large-scale riots. The controversy fed into a broader British debate about American cultural influence and the ethics of exhibiting pro-war films while British troops were not involved in Vietnam.

Helsinki: Smoke Bomb in Aloha

In Helsinki, the film’s premiere period triggered enough tension that police presence outside Cinema Aloha was photographed in October 1968. A loud device, described as smoke bomb, went off inside the auditorium, showing the film (as Vihreät baretit), followed by arrests. Radical students behind the bomb had earlier formed several independent FNL Groups, supporting the communist Vietnamese National Liberation Front (NLF). The FNL was formed in 1960, to affect the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government.

Denmark: Copenhagen’s Saga Cinema

There are several documented cinema clashes around the Green Barets film in Denmark, including a thrown smoke bomb and several days of disorder. In Copenhagen, the film (as De grønne djævle) became a flashpoint at Saga cinema in spring 1969. The demonstrations and clashes serious enough that the film was pulled from the programme.

West Germany: Interruptions and Stink Tactics

In West Germany, the film was released on 30 August 1968 and sparked protests that led to its removal from some cinemas after scuffles and fruit-throwing at screens. Protest actions included attempts to stop screenings and the use of butyric acid, “vomit smell”, to end showings.

Sweden: Military Smoke Flare Incident

In Sweden, the film became entangled in the broader Vietnam movement, including FNL solidarity groups. A Swedish parliamentary debate in 1971 explicitly refers to demonstrations triggered by the film and says it was removed from Stockholm screenings after a “dangerous attack” involving a “military smoke flare” (militär rökfackla). Demonstrations against De gröna baskrarna (the Swedish title) sparked a wider public argument about freedom of speech and whether protesters were trying to shut down a film by force.

Norway: Demonstrations until 1970

In Norway, and especially in Oslo, several groups protested against it being shown in Norwegian cinemas, including the Labour Party’s youth organisation (AUF), the Socialist Youth League (SUF), and the Solidarity Committee for Vietnam. Oslo Young Conservatives, however, wanted the film to be shown and at the same time issued sharp criticism of the Norwegian left. The Norwegian Students’ Society passed a resolution protesting against plans to screen the film in Norway. They argued that the film was the main offensive of US imperialism to justify what they described as genocide in Vietnam, and that its purpose was to spread propaganda for US imperialism in general. They further claimed that showing the film would be as provocative as screening a film that glorifies Hitler’s genocide during the Second World War. The protests led to the film not being shown in Oslo. As late as April 10, 1970, there were riots at the Green Baret’s premier in the Southern Norwegian town of Arendal.

France: Broken Windows and Clashes With Police

On November 4, 1969, there was action in Besançon, where around thirty Maoists protested against a screening of Les bérets verts (the Green Barets). Cinema windows were broken, and things escalated into a fight between protesters and police, with injuries reported.

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