Richard Jaekel: Baby face to the end.

Laying on the deck of a US transport ship a blond headed kid no older than 18 encounters a war correspondent and asks to be featured in the work that the journalist is doing. Smiling the journalist asks his name and he responds with Johnny Anderson. "Chicken Anderson" a fellow Marine chortles. and so begins the acting career of one of the greatest supporting actors in Hollywood. Richard Jaeckel.

Jaeckel's career started in 1943 with his first movie, Guadalcanal Diary, and ended after filming the popular TV show Baywatch when he succumbed to cancer. He was 70 years old.

Jaeckel was a US Navy veteran and served in the US Navy from 1944 to 1948. He distinguished himself in many roles but was always the tough guy and in some cases a very nasty villian. Richard returned to the big screen after his Navy stint with Battleground, Sands of Iwo Jima, Jungle Patrol, and City Across the River.

Richard's career would include greats like; The Devils Brigade, Chisum, The Dirty Dozen, and Sometimes a Great Notion which garnered him his only Academy Award Nomination. With over 186 titles to his name Jaekel was one of the most popular supporting actors in the history of the movies. He was also a very able and steady TV actor as well covering many TV series as either a regular or as a character actor. Regular shows include; Banyon, Spenser for Hire, Firehouse, and Baywatch.

Richard Jaeckel, actor: born Long Beach, New York 10 October 1926; married (two sons); died Woodland Hills, California 14 June 1997.

Rick Fitts: Actor, Director, Voice Talent, and Friend!

Rick Fitts, whether you may or may not know, is one of the best character actors in the business and has appeared in about 108 titles including several main stream movies including “The Hanoi Hilton” as Turner, “Platoon Leader” as Robert Hayes, and the Cold War TV Mini Series “WWIII” as Major George Devery.

To begin with I want to take this time to thank my friend Rick Fitts for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer these questions. Thank you Rick…









Rick Fitts: Actor, Director, Voice Talent, and Friend!




Hi Dave. It’s good to hear from you and I hope all is well. Thank you for your kind words. They are much appreciated. These are great questions! I will answer them in the order given.

Thanks Rick!


So without further delay let us begin!


Rick, your first foray into military drama and the war movie genre was the mini-series “WWIII” as Major Devery. How did you prepare for the role as Devery? Was there an inspiration for you?

When I work on a part I read the script a lot. Through experience, I’ve found that the preparation for a role is already in the words of the script. As I read the script, ideas on how to play a character come to me. There’s an old acting expression that says, “If it’s not on the page it’s not on the stage.” The script and my imagination are my inspiration.

With the Cold War going on in Europe and several events having taken place was there an air of “this could really happen” while making this mini-series?

There was definitely a feeling that the story line in WWIII could happen. All the Actors and the Director grew up during the cold war, including the Cuban Missile Crisis. The feeling of the possibility of scenarios like this was very real to all of us. That reality helped all of us get into our parts.

The cast of talent chosen for this movie was very “Monday Night at the Movies”, what was it like on the set with the cast?


Working on the set was great. Everybody was aware of the importance of the story we were telling. We really wanted the viewers of the film to feel the reality of what it would be like if we allowed our lack of communication as humans to destroy us. If that possibility were to happen we all would truly be the losers.

I have to admit that this is one movie that should be on DVD and one of my favorite “war dramas” that I have had to commit to memory, did you get to see the movie in its final form? What are or were your thoughts of the movie once it hit the small screen?

I did get to see the movie in its final form. We had a screening that everyone attended. One of the moments in the film that really moved me was at the end of the film when we showed ordinary people doing ordinary things not realizing that this was their last day alive. That was very powerful and moving for me.

As a soldier, when I watched the movie, a shiver went down my spine that lasted several days when the last scene with Hudson plays out to a reference of nuclear weapons being released. Your thoughts?

We, as humans, have not changed emotionally since our weapons were spears and stones. The scary thing is, with that same emotional make- up, we now have the weapons to destroy ourselves and our planet.

Tell me about your work on “The Hanoi Hilton”? Did you have access to actual prisoners?
 
We had at least one of the surviving POW’s on the set everyday. They all took an active role in making sure our portrayals were accurate. Their comments were very helpful. When they thought we, as actors, were being too dramatic they would remind us that they did their best to laugh as much as they could in order to survive this horrendous experience. At the premiere of the film, five hundred surviving POW’s showed up in military whites. It was a pretty impressive sight.

Rick as Turner in Hanoi Hilton



Tell me about your work on Platoon Leader. How did you prepare.

On Platoon Leader not only was the script my guide in preparation for the role, but also my friends who had served there. They were the best prep anyone could get.

 
 
   
Rick as Robert Hayes in Platoon Leader
 


I’ve noticed that many of your roles have you as a police officer, soldier, or judge. In these roles are they what you look for? Have you worked with officials in these capacities learning the trade?
 
I don’t necessarily seek out these roles but I do get offered them a lot. I’ve gone through some minimal training with officials for these types of roles just to keep my portrayals accurate.

Rick as Col. Shore in an Episode of Bones



Rick, this was one thing I was impressed with in your portrayals. Though I have never been a judge, as a former police officer both military and civilian I have to say that your adaptation of those types of characters are spot on. It is one reason why I believe your one of the best in your field.

Now a question about personal preference: What is your favorite war movie? What Movie would you like to see reviewed on the blog?

Wow Dave, this is a great question. I love it when I don’t have to talk about me but about films I like. So I’m going to break with the above format and my answer might end up being kind of lengthy.

Rick take your time and be as lengthy as you like.

I don’t have just one favorite war movie. But there are seven that come to mind immediately – spread out over four wars. I’ll list them, not in order of preference, but in order of which war came first.



WWI – “Sergeant York” 1941 hands down. Gary Cooper as Alvin York, the conscientious objector who becomes the most decorated hero of the time – you can’t get better than that.


A more recent WWI film I loved was “Flyboys” 2006 about the Lafayette Escadrille and the American volunteers that came to France to fly and fight in the war. This one especially touched me because the movie documented the son of a slave who became the first Black wartime aviator in history. (The movie character’s name was Skinner but he was based on the real flyboy – Eugene Bullard)***


WWII – so many to choose from, but “The Longest Day” 1962 is probably the movie I have seen at least 30 times. The all-star cast, the historic D-Day, all around it has something for everybody.


“The Tuskegee Airmen” 1995 with Laurence Fishburn is another great WWII film. I enjoyed it because it continues on with the theme of the history of African American pilots from the movie “Flyboys”. Plus Laurence is someone I know and I thought he gave a sterling performance.


Korean War – “All the Young Men” 1960 starring Sidney Poitier and Alan Ladd. While this is more of a character study it is on my list because Sidney Poitier was always such an inspiration to me. Plus it was one of the last movies Alan Ladd made.


Another Korean War film is “Pork Chop Hill” 1959 with Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Rip Torn, Robert Blake and a bunch of others. This is a rather dark and sad piece and is such a foreshadowing of what’s to come in Viet Nam and how it’s all going to end.


Viet Nam – the forgotten war. Mel Gibson’s “We Were Soldiers” 2002 I thought that was the most honest portrayal of the Viet Nam war and the men who fought in it that I have ever seen. It takes place in 1965 and it documents one of the greatest military encounters of the war – the Battle of La Drang - as well as the beginnings of the 7th Air Cav.


And it gave us one of the greatest quotes of that war by Lt. Col Hal Moore: “I can't promise you that I will bring you all home alive. But this I swear, before you and before Almighty God, that when we go into battle, I will be the first to set foot on the field, and I will be the last to step off, and I will leave no one behind. Dead or alive, we will all come home together. So help me, God.”

Rick, thanks for your time it is greatly appreciated and we look forward to talking with you again!


*** Eugene Bullard left America to see the world. He wanted to be free of racial discrimination and had heard that Europe was far more freer than Columbus, Georgia his birthplace and home. He stowed away on a steamer heading for the UK. He eventually joined the French Foriegn Legion then after receiving several medals including the Croix de Guerre he decided to become a flyer. Lt. Bullard flew over 25 missions downing 3 enemy aircraft. He help to defend Paris during the German Occupation where he was severly wounded and was moved back to the US. Sadly, Eugene would live in the US as an unsung hero until he passed away from cancer in 1961. A book, The Black Swallow of Death, was printed in 1972 about his exploits as a WWI fighter pilot. In 1994 Eugene Bullard was posthumously commissioned into the USAF and promoted to 2nd Lt.

Have a Solemn and Thoughtful Veteran's Day

To our men and women who have served and continue to serve daily to protect the US and allied countries abroad I say to you "Thank You! From the deepest pit within me I say this, and from the deepest part of my heart I say it again. THANK YOU!

A prayer:
May God bless those soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen and women who have fallen in defense of our great nation. May he take them and allow them to walk the Elysian Fields with Michael, Archangel, and may he allow them to defend Heaven and Earth from the evil that lurks. For only God knows that there is no fighting man or woman on this Earth or in his Heaven that is capable of protecting him. Other than Michael...Amen.

Do NOT judge this blog by the content!

I received an email the other day and it was from someone who had to hide their name and pretend to be invisible. Before I post an excerpt from that email it should be clearly understood that this blog is not pro or anti war. I developed this blog to highlight the actors that are veterans of our military who after serving continued to service their country by acting and providing us with great entertainment whether it be in making war movies, westerns, or police dramas or whatever. This is for them.

"The quote"
"I decided to click the blog link at the top of my blog and low and behold you were the first blog to appear. Though I admit that there are some great war movies your blog is nothing more than an advert supporting war and promoting military action. This sucks and you in-turn you suck as well. You have taken great actors and culled their military experience and ignored everything else making these great people nothing more than fodder for your silliness and making them look like warmongers."

So, I suck and the actors are warmongers. The fact is that war is part of our lives as Americans. We went to war to free us of the oppressive Kings of England during the Revolution and the War of 1812. We went to war with our own states over States Rights. We went to war with Spain over Cuba. We went to war with Germany in 1917 during WWI and then again in 1941 with Germany and Japan. We committed to a Police Action in 1950 and then again in 1961 which led to the Vietnam conflict in 1964. We went to Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989. In 1991 we went to war to remove Iraq from Kuwait and a portion of Saudi Arabia. In October of 2001 we went into Afghanistan and then proceeded to Iraq (good or bad). If you look at what we have done war wise you can see pattern. The pattern I see is the US removing the scum of the earth or attempting to, while others see it differently.

Again, the goal of this blog is to highlight the actors and actresses that served our country and to showcase those movies and shows that they made to entertain us.

Dave Matteson 

Head Shots



Ty Hardin

Best known as Bronco Layne, in the long running TV Series Bronco, Ty Hardin started his acting career after walking into a western clothing store looking for a costume for a Halloween party and that as they say was history. Ty starred in several creature feature type movies until moving on to the American Western. Starring as an alternating walk on cast member Bronco :) starred in Maverick, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, and his own show Bronco which lasted 4 seasons and was one of the top TV shows in the country. Ty also starred abroad in several Spaghetti Westerns and in Australia he had his own TV show Riptide. 

While making westerns he filmed the epic war movie Merrill's Marauders as Lt. Stockton in 1962, in PT-109 as Ens. Lenny Thom in 1963, in The Battle of the Bulge as Schumacher in 1965, and in Custer of the West as Maj. Marcus Reno in 1967. I asked him about these movies and he told me that he enjoyed making them and he enjoys acting. Ty has been selective about what he does but when he does it he is all professional. Ty has continued his service to his country outside by being a proud patriot and America is proud to have him as one.

Ty served in the US Army for 5 years of which he was overseas during the Korean War for 3. We thank Bronco for his time and his service to our country!

Incoming!

(While we have brought you some of the older movies we are going to try to get info on new releases or movies in the works.)


In the works -
John Woo - The Flying Tigers
Red Dawn Redux
The makers of the "Call of Duty" games have filed for copyright protection for the "Callof Duty" title to include movie and video rights to the name. ( The commo line says a movie is in the works)
Dale Dye - No Better Place to Die - Rumored nothing has been seen yet
Tom Hanks - They Marched Into Sunlight

We Were Soldiers!

From left to right clockwise; Jason Robards joined the US Navy in 1939 and was honorably discharged in 1947. His ship was at sea with the carrier task force when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Robards starred in Tora, Tora, Tora and was a doctor in the WWIII drama The Day After. James Arness was drafted into the the US Army from college in 1943. He served with the 3rd ID in Anzio where he was severely wounded. Arness starred in Battleground and the period historical drama Alamo: 13 Days to Glory. Neville Brand enlisted in the Illinois Army National Guard in 1939. In March of 1942 he was accepted into federal service where he did various service related work as an infantryman until just after D-Day. In December he was part of the reenforcements that pushed forward during the Battle of the Bulge. He served in Europe for just under 10 months. He starred Stalag 17 and The Halls of Montezuma. Sterling Hayden joined the US Marines just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. While at Parris Island he was recommended for and became an officer. After his training he accepted into the CIO under the leadership of Wlliam Donovan. Later this office would become known as the OSS inwhich hayden served until December of 1945. He served in Europe and receive numerous awards including several from Marshall Tito. Hayden starred in the movies Battle Taxi and Fighter Attack.

Brief. Polite. Review. The Pacific.

Some of you reading this may or may not agree but I have to say that Tom Hanks "killed" The Pacific for me when he said the war in the pacific was one of racism. Asked to clear his thoughts and define what he stated he said exactly what everyone was thinking but my question is how can the Japanese taking of Manchuria and the US stopping oil shipments to Japan and Japan's attack on Hawaii a Racist war?

Up until the attacks on China, Japan had been a great ally of the US. Many states and many cities in those states were sisters to many states and cities in Japan.

My review is based on the books that I have read that were the basis of this series. First I want to say that Hanks and Speilberg screwed the pooch with this series. They could have shot the moon with it and used the characters and their war stories to further the Island Hopping Campaign. The fact is Hanks focuses more on their personal lives than the tragedy that befalls each one during the war. He focuses on their hospital stays, their R&R, and their sexual romps (I've seen more boobs in this series than I did in the R rated "Life of Linda Lovelace").

During the campaigns we get flash backs and cut overs. We got stuck in Peleilu for three segmenst of the series so we can watch each character turn into thieves and crapping machines. The only real action in the whole 10 episodes is the 2nd Guadalcanal segment where Basilone receives his CMOH.

Don't get me wrong. This was a miniseries that depicted war. But It could have been a whole lot better. They had access to tanks, amtracks, planes, ships, and other gear that made this a one of a kind movie. Sadly this was NOT Band of Brothers. No, we did not want this to be an exact copy, what we wanted to see was the taking of the Islands, the bitter fighting, the reason why these guys got CMOH and other high ranking awards.

Basilone returns to the fleet for the invasion of Iwo Jima and was a machine-gun section Sgt on Red Beach during the battle. Japanese had blockhouses every 100 yards and in one section a maze of them had his unit pinned down. Basilone worked his way around behind the Japanese positions until he was directly on top of the blockhouses. He attacked with grenades and his .45 destroying the entire strongpoint and its garrison.
He then worked toward Airfield Number 1 helping a Sherman tank that was pinned down in an enemy mine field taking mortar and artillery fire. Guiding the tank to safety, despite heavy weapons fire from the Japanese he pushed forward on the edge of the airfield. Unfortunately a Japanese mortar round landed several yards from him and he was mortally hit by shrapnel.

Sadly, Hanks left this out along with a lot of the action from Sledge amd Leckie's books.

The Pacific is good. Unfortunately for me, the reviewer, my opinion of it is rather low. I give this 3.5 of 5 American Stars.

War Movie - The Definition

Over the years I have enjoyed everything that was classified as a war movie. Good or bad they entertained me becayse they either had some form of REAL military equipment in them or I wanted to see how they handled the topic of war movie.

Well, the definition of war is; the waging of armed conflict against an enemy.

Now, the definition of a movie is; a form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement.

In most cases the war movie is a movie based on an actual event from the past. Most war movies from the American point of view are based on World War II. The same goes for the UK and in some cases France. In Russia many war movies were based on the Great Revolution while in China war movies are based on the Japanese incursion in the early 30's. But I digress.

My goal is to point out the qualifiactions of a war movie as opposed to a military action movie or a drama. As much as we want the Caine Mutiny to be a war movie it is not. It is actually a military drama. On the other hand we have a movie like Tears of The Sun. It has all the classic pieces to be a war movie but in short it's a team of Seals sent to rescue a doctor from an evil man trying to kill her. The fact is, this is a Military Action Movie.

Classic War Movies:
Battleground
Go For Broke
To Hell and Back!
The Story of GI JOE
Sand of Iwo Jima
The Longest Day
The Fighting Seabees
The Big Red One
Odd Angry Shot
We Were Soldiers
Wake Island
Bataan!
The Siege of Firebase Gloria


Military Action Movies:
The Raid on Entebbee
Tears of the Sun
Hart's War
Top Gun
Ice Station Zebra



Military Dramas:
The Caine Mutiny
Father Goose
A Soldiers Story

Above are a selection from each catagory so that you can decide on your own. Like I said, in most cases a War Movie is a solid movie that depicts a war or a specific action during a war.

We are always accepting of constructive criticism.

We Were Soldiers!

Top Left: John Russell-Well known westerns actor Russell was a decorated Marine who faught at Guadalcanal. His last movie was Pale Rider were he played the Chief Regulator hunting the pale Rider. Top Right: Glenn Ford-Well known actor played in many movies including war and westerns, Ford was a motion picture production specialist in the Marines and later transfered to the Navy where he became a Captain in the Public Affairs team. He served in Vietnam for over a month. Bottom Right: Henry Fonda-With roles in Mr. Roberts, Battle of the Bulge, Midway, and many more Fonda served in the US Navy in WWII as an Air Combat Intel Officer. Bottom Left: Nancy Kulp-best known as her role as Ms. Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies Hathaway was a Navy Electronics Specialist during WWII.

News

For those of you checking out the blog regularly I will be doing some updates and some movie reviews in the coming weeks.

One of my favorite actors is Bo Svenson who has appeared in such movies as Walking Tall, Inglorious Bastards, Inglorious Basterds, Heartbreak Ridge, The Great Waldo Pepper, and was a character actor on TV in the 60's doing westerns. But my favorite roll was his portayal of Ivan on Magnum P.I. Anyway, we wrote Mr. Svenson and asked for an interview but he politely declined. We want to take this time to thank him for taking the time to respond. We have asked several actors to comment but Bo was the only one to respond. Thanks Bo we understand and respect your decision.

If you haven't seen it yet, The Pacific has been released and is currently in series run on HBO. It is very much worth getting HBO just for the series. Well acted and to the book, it tells the story of Eugene Sledge, Robert Leckie, John Basilone and several other Marines and their exploits in the Pacific. This is not a saop opera. This is the true story of these Marines.

I have been reading Brothers in Arms: The true story of the 761st Tank Battalion. If you are reading this note you should be reading this book. Last year it was announced that Actor Morgan Freeman and Pro Athlete Kareem abdul-Jabbar were working a script for the movie. Nothing has come of this yet.

Thats the news..... :D