Raid on hideout 'named after cold war film'

The Guardian (UK) ^ | December 17, 2003 | Duncan Campbell

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

The operation to capture Saddam Hussein was called Red Dawn, the title of a gung-ho, anti-communist film made 20 years ago. Although the Pentagon did not confirm yesterday whether the film had inspired the operation's title, the movie's director, John Milius, was in no doubt.

Red Dawn, which starred Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen and Harry Dean Stanton, was about a a nuclear attack and Soviet invasion of the US which is thwarted by a group of Colorado teenagers who call themselves the Wolverines. The code names given to the two huts at Saddam's hideaway were Wolverine 1 and Wolverine 2.

Milius, 59, said yesterday that he was flattered the title had been chosen. "The movie has a definite following in [military] sectors," he told the Los Angeles Times. "It's a patriotic movie; it's a very American movie." He suggested that the soldiers who captured Saddam were "Wolverines who have grown up and gone to Iraq".

Red Dawn came out in 1984 at the height of the cold war and at a time when Ronald Reagan was trying to persuade the world that the revolutions taking place in central America were part of a communist conspiracy. Radical activists in London thought it so obnoxious that they let off a firecracker in a West End cinema while it was showing.

Halliwell's Film Guide describes the movie as "ludicrous ... violent teenage nonsense", but it is popular among the American right wing. Milius believes that liberal bias in Hollywood has counted against him since. "If it [the Saddam operation] had been called Operation Forrest Gump, I think that would have been front-page news."

The director, who once applied to be a US marine but was turned down because of chronic asthma, hopes to make a film about air force general Curtis LeMay, who once suggested that the US should bomb Vietnam "back to the stone age".

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Yet another reason for the loony left to loathe the military.

[PJ-Comix]

The director, who once applied to be a US marine but was turned down because of chronic asthma, hopes to make a film about air force general Curtis LeMay, who once suggested that the US should bomb Vietnam "back to the stone age".

It HAS to be called "Bombs Away LeMay." This epitah was once used to attack LeMay but it has since been picked up by his friends. Recenly saw an interesting History Channel documentary about "Bombs Away LeMay" and the bombing of Japan. Instead of high level bombing, LeMay ordered low level night bombing.

[PJ-Comix]

One of my faves, Ben Johnson, also appeared in Red Dawn. BTW, Ben Johnson was a REAL COWBOY. After he was a star, he left showbiz for a while to join the rodeo circuit and earned the title of the Champion Roper of (I think) 1952.

[backhoe]

Box Office Data for Movie Red Dawn
... Click Here. Red Dawn. Rate this movie. Released in US, August 10, 1984. Total
US Gross, $38,900,000. Director, John Milius. Cast. Charlie Sheen, Matt Eckert. ...
www.the-numbers.com/movies/1984/0RDAW.html - 16k - Cached - Similar pages

[MEG33]

It was a perfect title for Saddam's capture if the Guardian comments on Reagan,SA communists, and outrage by the left over the movie!I just love to see the reds in full outrage.

[firehunter]

Anyone who saw that movie in '84, new INSTANTLY that the movie was the origin of the operation's name, especially with "Wolverine" 1 and 2.
I thought that it was an awesome kudo for the movie also.

[Alouette]

[Tennessee_Bob]

Awesome movie - I found a copy on DVD a few months back. Lost track of how many times I've seen it.

[MEG33]

You watched that ludicrous teen age violence and liked it?(I liked it too!)Guess that makes us right wing Americans!

[New Horizon]

"Red Dawn" was a terrible movie, with one of the worst line up of crappy actors - particularly Patrick Swayze and Powers Booth.

Powers Booth definitely redeemed himself with his performance in "Tombstone", IMO.

I can't stand to watch anything with Patrick Swayze in it.

[Focault's Pendulum]

It was a bit simplistic..but I enjoyed it myself....I wanted to see more of the prologue approaching the opening.

[MEG33]

That's why they make a lot of movies and have a lot of a actors.

[AppyPappy]

I can't watch Patrick Swayze movies. I'm a heterosexual.

[New Horizon]

P.S. - I'm just bitter 'cuz they're all rich and famous and I'm not.

[Tennessee_Bob]

I was 21 years old, and in the US military. Of course I liked it. Still do :)

[AF68]

The bolsheviks at The Guardian hate anything that shows communism in a bad light.

[Oztrich Boy]

Irony alert!

Radical activists in London thought it so obnoxious that they let off a firecracker in a West End cinema

[struwwelpeter]

The commies over there would be thrilled if they remembered their Soviet pop-literature: Molodaya Gvardiya (Young Guard) written by A. Fadeev during the 1950s has almost the same plot as Red Dawn - teenage partisans take on invading armies.

The true (or semi-true) story is set in the East Ukraine during WW II, and a museum not far from Lugansk, Ukraine, is dedicated to these Komsomolsk heroes.

[ExSoldier]

"Awesome movie - I found a copy on DVD a few months back. Lost track of how many times I've seen it."

Me too! My favorite line was the Cuban Colonel (in a really thick accent) telling the soldiers to go to the sporting goods stores and "Find the forms 4473. These will give full lists of gun owners and types of weapons..."

And my favorite scene was the booted foot stepping on a dead American arm and wresting a .45 from it as the bumper sticker looms that reads: "You can have my GUN when you pry it from my cold dead fingers..." THAT'S the kind of imagery the liberals hate!

I used to show it to my classes as a sort of "what if" for American history, but the Administration shut me down. That's okay. Doesn't stop me from recommending it to kids for the same reasons. "What if??" I do the same for Travis McGee's book. "What if?"

[dr_who_2]

I guess it was kind of gung-ho. Those high-school guerrillas sure were a lethal bunch, but in retrospect it was probably on target when it made the communist forces look rather incompetent. It also didn't sugar coat war. Not a bad film at all.