This video is a fascinating time capsule, with The DUKE front and center.
A slanted, hard-right view of where we stood in Vietnam in 1970, and what should be done to win, this film is more heavily in favor of all-out war than a flock of hawks.
DUKE hosts a strange look at the history of Communism as the film seeks to explain why we were in Vietnam, why we were not winning, and why we should continue the war at all costs, in this failed attempt to turn public opinion.
The film itself is an odd mixture of stiff, 50s-60s style documentaries, far-right flag-waving propaganda, while similar in visual style and pacing to 1970's pseudo-science documentaries like "The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena" or "The Jupiter Menace". Also interesting to note are the old "noose-style" microphones on DUKE and the interviewees, which further dates the film.
The 70 minute film is full of many interesting (although highly biased), interviews, including cameos by newsman Lowell Thomas, USO personality Martha Raye, and famous singing soldier Barry Sadler (of "Ballad of the Green Berets" fame).
An attempt at a documentary-style polictical pursuasion film, the propaganda value in "No Substitute for Victory" is pretty high. The film manages to raise the spectre of the 1950's Red Scare quite effectively for 1970. I would imagine many of the older folks who watched this at the time were in complete agreement with DUKE and the other interviewees after they saw this.
Most telling is that, other than the two or three who were in the military, there are no young people interviewed. The majority of the "cast" depicted are well over forty (some peaceniks in full hippie regalia are shown, however). This makes the film a great subject for study in Political Science, History, or Communication courses, not only because it is so heavy-handed in propaganda, but because the film unintentionally highlights the great divide that existed between the gererations of the day.
On the other hand, some of the hard-right fears were realized. Politicians did interfere in our ability to wage the Vietnam War. There was an almost constant waste of the lives of American soldiers and demoralization of the troops because of it. Simply leaving Vietnam did not bring an instant peace, and once the U.S. pulled out, there were massacres throughout the region. Our prestige on the world stage did suffer, and the feeling of defeat did permeate America for years.
However the film, for all its documentation of facts (real or imagined), comes off as rather naive in the idea that we could have won simply by dropping more bombs. DUKE was known as a hawk on the Vietnam war, and like most hawks probably did not understand why this war was different in nature than World War 2. His frustration over the events of the day is evident throughout the course of the film.
Still, the film is pretty honest, at least from the perspective of the far right. While pushing for an expansion of the war effort, the film honestly portrays the reasons why the hawks felt we should do so, and what we had done wrong in waging the conflict up to that point. Given the prestige of some of the commanders and soldiers interviewed, this comes off as more than Monday-morning quarterbacking, even when viewed through the lens of thirty-plus years of history.
The quality of the transfer is not too bad, but not as crisp as it could be, hence my four-star instead of five-star rating. It was transferred in SP, so the production people get points for that.
An intersting product of the time in which it was made, "No Substitute For Victory" is a relatively inexpensive historical text of political sentiments in 1970. It should not be missed by anyone interested in the era or the Vietnam War.

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Choice Critic

Vietnam Propaganda Film

Revisado en los Estados Unidos el 10 de marzo de 2008

Compra verificada

This is a right-wing propaganda film in favor of the Vietnam War made in 1970. It is hosted by John Wayne, the most famous draft-dodger of WWII. It propagates the conservative myths about Vietnam that are still used for political purposes today.

Those myths include: "We" weren't losing the war. Treacherous liberal politicians, the press, and anti-war demonstrators were stopping us from winning. Other unnamed, conspiratorial "powers that be" in Washington were plotting our loss of Vietnam

A stand-out moment in the film is when Wayne wishes aloud that that those "liberal senators" who were against the war could be dropped into combat zones. Wayne, of course, does not volunteer to be dropped into those zones himself, any more than he volunteered for service during WWII.

Don't miss this flick. As Wayne predicts, having lost Vietnam we now all live under communism. Oops! Check that; communism evaporated in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, didn't it.

One of the eerier moments in the film is when one of the "experts" tells us that it is better to fight them "over there" than on our own shores. The Vietnamese were going to follow us home also. Shades of Iraq.

We will never know why Wayne throws a fork in disgust on his desk at one point during the film. It is a cinematic conundrum that he has taken to the grave.

We do know, however, that this would be an amusing piece of historical silliness if we hadn't lost over 50,000 men and women and suffered countless casualties. It was in part due to people like John Wayne, demanding more of the blood and sacrifice that he was unwilling to give during WWII, that the U.S stayed for five more years after this film was made and suffered thousands of needless additional casualties and deaths.

It is worth a watch to witness this exercise in the cultural ignorance of a foreign country displayed by Wayne and all of his military experts. It is same sort of ignorance that had us invade Iraq. At the time of invasion our president was totally ignorant of the differece between a Shiite and a Sunni.

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harry44callahan

John Wayne tells it like it was

Revisado en los Estados Unidos el 4 de mayo de 2008

Compra verificada

This is worth watching to see the anti-communist perspective of the Vietnam war. Odd how all the liberals want to see the US involvement in Vietnam from the communist point of view. The South Vietnamese had every bit as much right to wish to live free of communism as anyone. The North had the Soviet Union and China backing their war effort, why was it so bad that the US helped the South? The outcome would have been far different had the military not been restricted in it's efforts and the media had been pro-US involvement instead of giving the communists a propaganda outlet. Ignore the whines of the left-wing, the US were the "Good Guys" in that fight.

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No Substitute for Victory [USA] [DVD]

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