The Irony of Vic Morrow

[strange]

If you've ever seen the Twilight Zone movie from the 1980s and if
you're in anyway familiar with the unfortunate demise of Vic Morrow
and the two children (which can be seen here in this video
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru6I9Cc9XnE ) then you'll be up to
speed with an epiphany I just realized.

This movie scene was part of a segment about a bigoted man who has to
live in the shoes of the people he has prejudices against and it
involves him as a jew in Nazi Germany, it was also supposed to include
him as a black man getting chased by the Ku Klux Klan (but I suppose
he didn't live to film those segments) and then for some reason.....
he is then also depicted as a vietnamese person getting hunted down by
our soldiers.

These filmmakers were shooting this scene because they wanted to
compare our Vietnam soldiers to the Nazi's. And by involving children
in this scene it is obvious also that they are echoing the Baby Killer
chants that hippies made against American soldiers, and they also
depict the American soldiers as sloppy, cowardly, trigger happy barney
fife's.

The great Irony of this situation.....

-In the process of depicting our soldiers as baby killers, the
filmmakers themselves ended up killing children.
-In the process of depicting our soldiers as cowardly, trigger happy,
or sloppy, the film makers in turn neglected a number of safety
measures just so they could fit in as much action footage as possible
(making them trigger happy and sloppy) and then Vic Morrow himself
stumbles frightfully in the water as he is walking with the two
children because he himself is actually afraid of helicopters and is
clearly also naturally afraid of these environments.
-Lastly, Hollywood.... which is usually very unforgiving of any war
that happens to involve collateral damage... was easily ready to
forgive director Landis for getting three people killed and for
the most part their careers have completely recovered (except Landis
does get a little flack and probably may have cooled down from doing
big risky action scenes like that later on).


IF the real Rod Serling had been involved with this, Serling who is a
veteran himself, he would have never tolerated this kind of ridiculous
political statement that these filmmakers were trying to make. Vic
Morrow, who is a Navy Veteran, should have known better than to accept
this kind of role where our soldiers would be compared to the Nazis.
Serling's Twilight Zone, by the way, had plenty of war story episodes
which usually depicted our guys (as well as other soldiers) with more
dignity. Serling, if I recall right, also had a severe war wound to
his hand and maybe to his lip (or maybe his lips was just naturally
odd).

This is quite a thing to think about.

It was actually a favorite movie of mine by the way, but more and more
I'm starting to understand why it was doomed (I heard it wasn't a very
good financial success either). There may have been a Hand of a
greater power involved in bringing these events to take place and I
think its a lesson to be heeded.

[tbw]

Dec 15, 2011 23:57:30 GMT -5 strange said:

If you've ever seen the Twilight Zone movie from the 1980s and if
you're in anyway familiar with the unfortunate demise of Vic Morrow
and the two children (which can be seen here in this video
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru6I9Cc9XnE ) then you'll be up to
speed with an epiphany I just realized.

This movie scene was part of a segment about a bigoted man who has to
live in the shoes of the people he has prejudices against and it
involves him as a jew in Nazi Germany, it was also supposed to include
him as a black man getting chased by the Ku Klux Klan (but I suppose
he didn't live to film those segments) and then for some reason.....
he is then also depicted as a vietnamese person getting hunted down by
our soldiers.

These filmmakers were shooting this scene because they wanted to
compare our Vietnam soldiers to the Nazi's. And by involving children
in this scene it is obvious also that they are echoing the Baby Killer
chants that hippies made against American soldiers, and they also
depict the American soldiers as sloppy, cowardly, trigger happy barney
fife's.

The great Irony of this situation.....

-In the process of depicting our soldiers as baby killers, the
filmmakers themselves ended up killing children.
-In the process of depicting our soldiers as cowardly, trigger happy,
or sloppy, the film makers in turn neglected a number of safety
measures just so they could fit in as much action footage as possible
(making them trigger happy and sloppy) and then Vic Morrow himself
stumbles frightfully in the water as he is walking with the two
children because he himself is actually afraid of helicopters and is
clearly also naturally afraid of these environments.
-Lastly, Hollywood.... which is usually very unforgiving of any war
that happens to involve collateral damage... was easily ready to
forgive director Landis for getting three people killed and for
the most part their careers have completely recovered (except Landis
does get a little flack and probably may have cooled down from doing
big risky action scenes like that later on).


IF the real Rod Serling had been involved with this, Serling who is a
veteran himself, he would have never tolerated this kind of ridiculous
political statement that these filmmakers were trying to make. Vic
Morrow, who is a Navy Veteran, should have known better than to accept
this kind of role where our soldiers would be compared to the Nazis.
Serling's Twilight Zone, by the way, had plenty of war story episodes
which usually depicted our guys (as well as other soldiers) with more
dignity. Serling, if I recall right, also had a severe war wound to
his hand and maybe to his lip (or maybe his lips was just naturally
odd).

This is quite a thing to think about.

It was actually a favorite movie of mine by the way, but more and more
I'm starting to understand why it was doomed (I heard it wasn't a very
good financial success either). There may have been a Hand of a
greater power involved in bringing these events to take place and I
think its a lesson to be heeded.

I remember at the time thinking about the loss of Morrow, I mean the guy had starred in one of my favorite TV series, Combat, he and Rick Jason I thought did a good job with those stories about a WWII squad. And I would still watch them if they were brought back to TV. The children lost in the movie was more than I could bear. And yet they were saying at the time that the movie would be completed and made. And while I wanted to know what the movie was ALL about, I wasn't in favor of them finishing it as I couldn't watch the thing because they said they were going to alter it to fit the real ending ( his and the children's deaths). Not only macabre but hideously disrespectful of the dead, I thought.

You brought back a nostalgic part of my youth and I remember watching Combat every Tuesday evening followed by McHale's Navy. Never missed an episode. Ye olde trip down memory lane... They'll never make anything like that I suppose again, oh, say like Combat updated with the GI's in Vietnam or some such other place, I mean they would surely have to show the gore, blood and guts they didn't show back in the early 60's when those shows were filmed and I think something that made them the success they were. They inspired the imagination of youth and helped us to understand the war a whole lot better than learning it from a classsroom, all, without the blood, guts and gore.

[strange]

"Combat" actually has very lively action scenes. No gore, yes, but plenty of chaos and destruction.

Gore actually would come in handy for depicting the Indian wars, particularly because of the mutilations and the hand to hand fighting. Gore would fit perfect for the indian wars, I don't think there is would be any limitations to how far you could go and still make it completely pertinent.

WWII however I'd prefer to have depicted more like they do in "Combat!", there's more distanced fighting and the wreckage of the buildings is more of the focal point and the troops keep moving or they hunker down in little places, thats what those fights would feel like. There was plenty bloodshed in WWII, but if you were to just stand and watch some of these battles... you'd see them more from the perspectives of what you'd see on Combat. And then if you were an observer of the little bighorn battle, the thing you would take note of is the gore... because everything else is an open field, the mutilations would be happening all the time, and the closest view you'd get of anything... if you were a survivor... is viewing the bodies afterwards. So its all about perspectives.

[joewiggs]

Perspectives! How right you are Dr. Strange! Somehow the vision of men spewn upon the Big Horn battlefield, chopped, diced, and ripped and laying putrid under the boiling, June sun is horrific in the extreme.

However, as you pointed out, the deaths pictured in "Combat" seem somehow pristine in comparison. Yet we know the opposite to be true. Can it be that death by machine (gun, tank, bombs) more acceptable by society rather than death by knife, spear, or hatchet. The former more clinical and acceptable. the latter dirty and vicious.