Monday, August 10, 2020

On this date in history one of the greatest documentaries (LOL) ever made debuted in theaters across the country, "Red Dawn". It is hard to believe it was 36 years ago.


A post from 2019 (tongue in cheek)


Lt. Col. Andrew Tanner USAF

Tanner was a downed fighter pilot (Ace) who became a resistance fighter after he was shot down in October of 1984 shortly after the Russian invasion of the Midwestern United States. Col. Tanner was KIA February 1985 and posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor after sacrificing himself during the great Sangre de Cristo Tank Battle allowing his compatriots to safely retreat.  Prior to his demise Col. Tanner was invaluable in his role as a guerrilla fighter inflicting heavy casualties upon the enemy and destroying numerous vehicles, aircraft and other war materiel helping to defeat Soviet forces in the Southern Rocky Mountain area of operations.


Seriously:


The movie Red Dawn was released in theaters across America. I saw it in Decatur, Alabama and it was the only movie I had ever been to where the audience actually stood and applauded (it went on for at least a couple of minutes as the credits ran on the screen). I suppose the plot of Red Dawn might be difficult to explain to younger generations who had not grown up in the shadow of the Cold War with Russia as America's primary enemy, the direct threat of Communism from commie-bloc countires, duck and cover drills at school, etc. However, much of the film was very plausible for the time it was made. The movie had horrible reviews from critics, but was fairly successful at the box office and is cult classic now in "re-run land". Starring in the film was Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, etc. Other memorable characters fore me were Powers Boothe  playing the part of Air Force Lt. Col Andrew Tanner and Ben Johnson as Mr. Mason. As a note of smaller significance, the movie was the first to be rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America. If anyone has not seen it, it it is well worth watching. 


H/T to Alan in Tuscaloosa for reminding me!

32 comments:

  1. The chair is against the wall. John has a long mustache.

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  2. They have made a reworked version of the movie (2012) it is pretty good as well it is Filmed (?,or based from Spokane ) .

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  3. I consider red dawn one of the 4 movies that define my generation. All of my kids are expected to watch those 4 when they hit 12.... one kid left too go..

    Red Dawn; Soylent Green; Earthlings, Mad Max

    Exile1981

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    1. You forgot Blazing Saddles, The Princess Bride, and Young Frankenstein.

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    2. Do they know who John Wayne is. All my kids did before they were 10.

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  4. As an example of how far Hollywood has sunk, a new "Red Dawn" was made a few years ago. A relatively unknown Chris Hemsworth was the lead actor. It remained on studio shelves a couple of years after it was completed. Finally, the studio decided to release it, perhaps because Chris Hemsworth had gained traction as a leading man by that time.

    There was a problem, however. The invading force in the re-make was the Chinese Army. This choice of bad guys would tick off the Chinese, and the studio didn't want to do that. As a result, the Chinese soldiers' uniforms, insignia, and flags were digitally altered to make the invaders appear to be North Koreans (as if the North Koreans had a military that could invade the US).

    This movie serves as just one more example of how Hollywood sucks up to the Chinese and censors itself.

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  5. I remember the ZSU23-4 used caused quite a stir with the CIA and the Army. It was so authentic looking they wanted to know where they got it. The AK47's used were semi auto Egyptian made Maddi's too.

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    1. I remember the camo they wore in that movie was based on a black-and-white picture of some new russian camo but they got it all wrong. it was green and tan, not green and white.

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    2. Here is a link that sheds a little light on this and other movie camo.

      https://selyanka1.livejournal.com/34925.html

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    3. Here is a link that sheds a little light on this and other movie camo.

      https://selyanka1.livejournal.com/34925.html

      Delete
    4. Here is a link that sheds a little light on this and some other movie camouflage.

      https://selyanka1.livejournal.com/34925.html

      Delete
  6. I was lucky enough to see it in the theater back when it first ran. A couple years ago, I watched it with my 13 year old daughter. The next weekend she invited her friends over for a viewing.

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  7. I rode my bike up to the mall to watch it I was only 11 and thought they wouldn't let me in but they didn't ask how old I was. Great movie just watched the original with my boys a fee months back

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  8. One of my faves.
    The remake kinda sucked like most remakes.
    Case in point- Vanishing Point.
    Yeah i'm old.




























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  9. Did my Army hitch in (the former) West Germany during the mid 70's. Hearing people pooh-pooh this movie I thought to myself "You have NO idea". William Smith was brilliant as Colonel Strelnikov.

    Here is an excellent story about how the world worked back then--

    https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2011/09/unter-vier-augen-by-basilisk.html

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  10. Saw in Cullman, Alabama in the theater. We immediately began making plans to use the Sipsey River Wilderness Area as our partisan base of operations. Yes. We were a pack of idiots.

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  11. Didn't see it until years after it's release, but now it's on my personal "Top Ten" movies.

    I have the remake, too, and watched on it's own, with no knowledge of the original, I think it would have been an OK movie.

    Not GREAT like the original, but "OK".

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  12. Saw it in the theater with my dad in Rapid City, SD. When they stated "the missile silos in the Dakotas were taken out" almost everyone in the theater started looking at each other.

    Dad was in the AF out of Ellsworth and spent quite a bit of time under the Dakota prairie in the control areas.

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    1. ...and I was in Minot, ND, keeping the birds in the green. I had a good laugh!

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  13. And now I have to see this classic, again.

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  14. I remember going to one of my college friends lake house is up in New Hampshire when this first came out. We ended up watching it three times in a row and his parents got pissed at us. To this day it’s still a great movie to watch.

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  15. I saw it as an adult leader at a Boy Scout summer camp. The part where the Russian said the mayor's son was a member of an elite corps, an Eagle Scout, caused quite a hoo-rah. Yeah, there were several Eagles in the room and the bar they were expected to clear was just defined.

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  16. Definitely a good movie of the era. Getting harder and harder to explain the perils of socialism/communism to the youth of today while they are constantly being brainwashed to the allure of "money for nothing".

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  17. My bride and I saw it on our honeymoon.

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  18. Am I the only one that recognized it as a re-telling of the WW2 invasion of Russia? Russians, Nicaraguans, Cubans replacing the Germans, Italians, Romanians? Wolverinski!!

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  19. I remember when Steyr brought in those Egyptian Maadi AKMs around in the early 1980s they were like $500 and ammo wasn't really available yet, it was sold by the round and expensive, not till the late 1980s with flood of cheap Chinese AK ammo.

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  20. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter is another great documentary

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  21. I love you guys for shit like this....

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  22. Alright...saw this post and decided to watch me some old-time Red Dawn. I was 18 when this movie came out...brought back a ton of good memories. I noted that the movie mentioned Mexicans mostly Cubans infiltrating from the south illegally.

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  23. Saw it when it first came out.. I'm from an older generation.. in my seventies. Had a teacher in the eight grade read us the book "RED DAWN at LEXINGTON" .. "If They Mean to Have a War, Let It Begin Here". The story of the beginning of the American revolution. The title of the movie drew me to watch it and it had many parallels to the book.. resistance and conquest against overwhelming odds and political suppression. The passion to protect our freedom. I wish Mrs.Sanders from Roe School in St. Louis was alive to thank her for passion to history of our country and educating us (which is glaringly absent in schools today). Both the original and remake are great. Fires my passion to fight against BS around us today.

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