'Dodge City Camp' - On Set in Fort Benning - Behind the Scenes - 50th Anniversary

The 'Dodge City' camp scenes of 'The Green Berets' were filmed on the backlot of Fort Benning in Georgia.
With John Wayne in front and behind of the lens. 
The Duke got a little help from Director Mervyn LeRoy ('Quo Vadis'):
'The Studio called me in and told me they were worried that the two hats Duke was wearing were too many for him. 
They were afraid that being both star and director was too taxing on a film as big as The Green Berets.'
The team of old friends worked together for several months at Fort Benning.
Cinematographer Winton C. Hoch ('The Searchers') filmed some epic scenes with hundreds of extras and fiery special effects.
It is the charmless script that wastes the surprisingly strong cast of Aldo Ray, David Janssen, Jim Hutton, Luke Askew 
and Bruce Cabot.
The narrative line is too unclear and jerky in this cliche-ridden Vietnam adventure.
The visual splendour is a nice compensation, but what 'The Green Berets' would have needed is a tighter clear story.
Cut out the crummy special mission episode, work on the camp sequence and voila, 'The Green Berets' is an epic movie!
Some scenes in the movie have a (unintentionally) pretty high entertainment value.
Armed with his incredible charisma, John Wayne rides on his stagecoach (Huey) against the Indians (Charlie).
Get ready, little lady. Hell is coming to breakfast.

John Wayne on a comfortable cruise to the location!
The Duke staged his pro-Vietnam war movie during an overexcited time of great changes.
Via television the american people learned the hard way that this war has not much to do with the old formula,
Good guys against Bad guys. 
Much of it was a lie. Too much of it was bad politics.
The movie got a whole series of negative reviews, boycott calls and demonstrations in front of cinemas.
The Duke in trouble? Is that allowed?
His own clear and often too simple positions and patriotic intentions have now become a sharp-tongued boomerang for 
the ancient Western hero.
On the other hand much of the controversial discussions about his pro-war movie were just hot air.
Many press guys shot with blanks.
First one dog barks ... and soon many.
Why they barked does not interest anyone anymore today.
'The Green Berets' is an old-fashioned picture which was primarily made for entertainment purposes.
The Duke had his point of view and the guts to ride through the heavy weather.
Over and out!

Explosive Vietnam.
Pickets protest at Lyric Theater, Minneapolis, Summer 1968.
A counterattack on the box office to turn away movie-goers, but the box office won.
'The Green Berets' became a money making Hit!
John Wayne in an interview for the Playboy magazine, may 1971:
"Luckily for me, they overkilled it. The Green Berets would have been successful regardless of what the 
critics did, but it might have taken the public longer to find out about the picture if they hadn't made so 
much noise about it."
The benefit of political outrageousness.
The Duke barks commands into the megaphone. 
Every soldier of Fort Benning, who got the chance to be an Extra in the John Wayne movie, was proud of it.
One of the problems Director John Wayne had, was coordinating his shooting schedule with the Fort Benning 
training schedules and the availability of the Hueys.
The Helicopters provided an important part of the story and to the key scenes.
German Lobby Card. 
Colonel Kirby (John Wayne) leads his men against a Vietcong attack, filmed at Fort Benning.
The overweight John Wayne was already 60 years old when he did 'The Green Berets'.
Well, you don't photograph the age or body weight of The Duke, you photograph his Charisma!
Rehearsing of a scene.
Director John Wayne shows to Aldo Ray, how he should give a traitor a good punch.
Aldo is great in this flick with a few highly entertaining scenes.
If you are able to see the hidden humor here and there, behind the politics, you will have fun.
On the backlot of Fort Benning Batjac Productions built a stylish Vietnamese village at a cost of 
more than $150.000 and with the 'Dodge City' camp in the middle, on top of a small hill.
The camp was surrounded by a barbed wire concertina and ditches equipped with Punji Sticks.
The Punji Stick was a famous weapon of Charlie. 
A sharpened hardened and often poisoned bamboo stick stuck deep into the ground.
Whoever fell in a punji trap was lost.
Cheap, easy and quick to produce in large quantities. An ideal weapon for the jungle.
The crew tried a lot, but the 'jungle' of Georgia never resembled Vietnam.
Rare 35mm Kodachrome Transparency.
Charlie attack on the Village and the 'Dodge City' camp - the visual highlight of the story.
Sass Bedig ('The French Connection', 'The Godfather') was the Special Effects Supervisor of the fireworks. 
Almost all movies on his credit list have been hits or cult movies, even the smaller ones like 'Freebie and the Bean'.
At the end of his career Sass Bedig did the Special Effects for several Sam Peckinpah movies. 
His practical effects and the cinematography of Winton C. Hoch provided some visually compelling key scenes.
I wonder if the co-director Ray Kellogg was involved in the effects work in any way, as he was very 
skilled in special effects and stunts.
Sass blew up a lot.
Everything that was still standing after the Sass Bedig show was left to Fort Benning as a realistic training ground 
for training troops destined for Vietnam.
The Army said thank you ...and gave John Wayne the fuel bill for the Hueys.
The Set Decoration crew (Ray Moyer - 'El Dorado' / Frank L. Brown) tried to make the village look as authentic as possible.
Of course, this also includes animals such as pigs and geese.
But where did they get so many Vietnamese looking people for the village?
When movie mogul Samuel Bronston filmed his colossal epic '55 days at Peking', all Chinese restaurants in Spain were closed. 
The Bronston Company hired all Chinese people available to play the Extras in their epic.
How did Batjac fill the screen with Vietnamese people? 
John Wayne on Set at Fort Benning - Vietnamese Village Set - 1967.
The effort was enormous, 'The Green Berets' was a pretty big picture!
The guy in the back of Duke with black sunglasses and cap is Director Mervyn LeRoy.
John Wayne was, let's say, happy to have him on his side for the filming in Fort Benning.
Every Director needs some assistance once in a while.
Preparing of the next scene in the Vietnamese village set.
Director Mervyn LeRoy (sitting) on Set at Fort Benning, 1967.
Mervyn Leroy on 'The Green Berets' in his book 'Take One', 1974:
'When I got to Fort Benning , Duke and I had a long talk and straightened out the questions of how I could help him. 
Then I took over and assisted Duke with the directing whenever he felt he needed me.
Those few weeks turned out to be a lot more, however.
...I did it primarily to help Duke ... I didn't do it for nothing, of course, 
but I wouldn't let them put my name on it, as I didn't think that would be fair to Duke.'
One thing is for sure, nothing on 'The Green Berets' was done without Wayne giving his okay.
From the vision to the result of 'The Green Berets' it was all pure Duke!
The old book of Mervyn LeRoy, released in the 70s, is an interesting read.
Mervyn is the Director of several classic b/w pictures like 'Little Caesar', 'I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang' or 
'Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo'. 
In the early 50's he was the director of the outstanding epic 'Quo Vadis', with Anthony Mann and Sergio Leone as his assistants!
Mervyn has experienced a lot in the film industry and knows how to tell interesting anecdotes.
The man has humor.
In the end, there are also tragic undertones.
He is looking for good stories worth filming and plan to be part of an exciting future as movie director.
'I'm a patient man, and I'll keep on looking, searching for the right property.
I'm sure I will find one tomorrow.'
But assisting his old friend John Wayne for certain scenes in 'The Green Berets' was his last directorial effort.
German Lobby Cards.
The scenes with the tower are pretty funny. 
If I remember it right they shot a cheesy miniature scene with a small tower and little Green Berets puppets 
for the collapsing tower (Charlie attack) sequence. Or was in full-scale?
Anyway, this great show is surpassed only by the scene with the mortifying miniature Huey.
The crash landing of Bulldogs (Wayne) Heli is staged pretty cool, with a full-size Huey wreck hanging on a crane.
The Special Effects crew of Sass Bedig did some really great stuff.
This scene here is glorious trash. 
When the Douglas AC-47 was firing on the camp the bullets come closer and closer in two parallel lines (which is impossible!), 
but no one of these Vietcongs tries to take cover.
They are waiting to be shot!
Charlie knows what the good guys expect from him.
Invisibly wired squibs spit blood (striker board). Well done.
That's the stuff Sam Peckinpah wanted to see from Sass a few years later.
Who is that photographer with his Nikon? The Still photographer?
John Wayne Family.
John Wayne's wife Pilar and daughter Aissa, 11, visit him at Fort Benning Army base, 
during the long location filming for Wayne's 'The Green Berets'.
Lunch time at Fort Benning, 1967.
The catering for such a big cast & crew is a well planned Operation.
The mood tilts quickly when something goes wrong with the food!
Aldo Ray, Luke Askew and David Janssen eat together in the tent.
Looks like a Military tent from the Army Base.
Aldo has a pot of coffee in front of him (with a dash of cognac?).
His alcoholism was a continual problem during filming, to the extent that John Wayne had to give 
some of Ray's dialogue to other characters.
The Duke and Aldo Ray did not get along during filming. 
Ray later spoke disparagingly of Wayne in interviews.
Visual highlight scene on a German Lobby Card - Charlie night attack on the camp.
Sass conjures colorful colors into the night sky with tons of explosive charges.
Another charming scene of the special effects boys. 
The burning Vietcongs hang motionless in the barbed wire!
It is immediately recognizable that they are just ultra cheap dummies.
One or the other Sp/Fx scene is not really executed perfectly... Look here: 
In the scene when 'Savoy 3' (the forward scout) dies you can clearly see the wire used for the 'flying' knife.
But this scene in the jungle of Georgia is good for another gimmick...
What John Wayne holds in his hand here is a plastic toy gun manufactured by Mattel in the 60s.
The Mattel M-16 Marauder Toy Gun with real sound.
The plastic toy was battery operated with a simple sound effect. 'Hear the real thing - 50 rounds of real sound!' 
The Magazine was thicker than on the real M-16, because the sound box and batteries were housed in it.
The speaker slots for the 'real sound effect' can be seen in the plastic magazine of the rifle.
John Wayne smashes a plastic toy against the tree! Someone wanted to make it easier for him...
I wonder who had the idea to use this plastic toy rifle in the scene.
The famous 'Green Berets' cap of John Wayne raised a record price for a costume hat on an auction hold by the
John Wayne Enterprises and Heritage Auctions.
"The beret that Wayne wore in The Green Berets shocked the room when it brought the astounding record price for 
a costume hat of more than $179,000," said Greg Rohan, President of Heritage Auctions. Wow!
The bluray has a quite good quality and is much cheaper, but has no adequately Extras.
Glad, that I could help.

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